Chapter 1: Coffee, Death, and an Alpha?

I died choking on coffee.

Not heroically, not saving anyone—just me, Li Runze, twenty-eight years old, alone in my cubicle at 11 PM on a Wednesday, working overtime for the fifteenth time this month. My body decided that this particular sip of lukewarm coffee was the hill it wanted to die on.

Literally.

The burn in my throat, the panic, the desperate gasping. My phone was across the desk and no one else was on this floor. I clawed at my neck like that was going to help, vision blurring, lungs screaming—and then…

Nothing.

Just… nothing.

***

Then everything.

The scent hit me first.

Dark. Overwhelming. Alpha.

Cedar and something sharper—expensive cologne mixed with raw pheromones that bypassed every rational thought and sank claws directly into some primal part of my brain I didn’t even know existed. My body went liquid with want before I was even fully conscious, responding to a command I shouldn’t understand but somehow did.

I was face-down in sheets. Silk sheets. Expensive silk sheets that definitely didn’t come from my depressing studio apartment. Someone was behind me—close, solid, moving with deep, powerful rhythm that made this borrowed body arch and keen.

A hand gripped my hip, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. A low voice groaned near my ear, breath hot against my neck.

“Fuck, still so tight.”

My brain short-circuited.

What. The. Fuck.

I tried to move, tried to process, but my body wasn’t listening. It was arching, pressing back, meeting every movement with desperate rolls of my hips. Sounds were coming out of me—high, broken, needy sounds that couldn’t possibly be mine. I was a virgin when I died. Pretty sure I was into women. And also…

Oh god.

Something shifted inside me, stretching this body impossibly. The alpha behind me made a guttural sound that went straight through me and pressed deeper. I felt it lock into place—the unmistakable pressure of a knot.

I knew what this was.

I shouldn’t know what this was. But I did.

Memories that weren’t mine flooded my consciousness like ice water. A different Li Runze, twenty-two years old, omega, youngest son of the failing Li family. Wayward. Reckless. Heartbroken because his longtime crush Wei Jian had just announced his engagement to someone else.

This Runze had gotten blackout drunk last night at Eclipse Bar and decided the best way to handle rejection was to seduce the hottest alpha he could find.

He succeeded spectacularly.

And now I was here, in his body, locked with a complete stranger.

This is fine. Everything is fine.

Nothing is fine.

The knot pulsed. I heard myself keen—a high, desperate omega sound that would have humiliated me if any of my remaining brain cells weren’t drowning in sensation.

The alpha groaned against my neck, teeth scraping over the bonding gland there (oh god, the bonding gland—don’t bite don’t bite don’t…). The sharp edge of danger sent electricity cracking down my spine.

“That’s it,” he murmured, voice like dark honey and broken glass. “Take it like a good omega.”

My body clenched around him in response. He cursed, hips grinding in shallow movements that shouldn’t have been possible with how deep he was, yet somehow made everything worse. Or better. I couldn’t tell anymore.

I was stuck. Literally locked to this person for the next… I searched the borrowed memories desperately… fifteen to twenty minutes.

Cool. Cool cool cool.

I should be panicking. I was panicking. But this body was singing with endorphins and bone-deep satisfaction, and I was pretty sure it had already peaked at least twice—which seemed excessive for a virgin who died choking on coffee approximately ten minutes ago.

Is this hell? Did I go to hell?

Is hell just an ABO world where I’m an omega who makes catastrophic life choices?

The alpha shifted slightly. The pressure dragged against something inside me that made me see stars. My own body twitched against the silk sheets, somehow still interested despite everything.

“Round two?”

The voice was deep, cultured, with an edge of dark amusement that suggested this man knew exactly what kind of situation we were in and found it entertaining.

I froze.

He was still locked inside me, and he wanted round two?

“I…” My voice came out hoarse, wrecked. I didn’t recognize it. “What?”

“Your heat suppressants are clearly failing.” His hand slid from my hip to my belly, possessive and warm. “We have time before the knot goes down. And you were very… insistent last night about wanting more.”

Oh god.

Original Runze, what the fuck did you do?

I didn’t have time to formulate an answer. His other hand slid around and gripped me—still sensitive, still half-hard despite everything—and stroked firmly.

My borrowed body responded instantly and desperately, arching back into the lock, pressing forward into his fist, chasing pleasure I’d never experienced and somehow couldn’t live without.

“Please…” The word ripped out of me before I could stop it.

“Please what?” His thumb circled, smearing the evidence of how far gone this body already was. “Use your words, omega.”

“I can’t… I need…” My hips rocked helplessly, caught between his hand and the knot, grinding against both. Slick heat leaked where we were joined. I could feel it—hot and mortifying—and his answering groan suggested he could feel it too.

“That’s better.” His teeth found my ear, biting down just hard enough to make me gasp. “You’re going to finish on my knot like a good omega, and then we’re doing this again.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a command.

And my body—this traitorous, eager omega body—obeyed.

The climax hit like a freight train. I cried out, muscles clenching rhythmically around the lock. The alpha cursed viciously and ground deeper as he followed, filling me until I was sure I’d burst.

I collapsed forward into the sheets, boneless and shaking.

The alpha followed me down, blanketing my back with his larger body, still locked deep inside me. His hand released me and splayed possessively across my belly.

“Good,” he murmured against my neck, voice satisfied and dark. “Very good.”

Right. Omega body. Heat cycle. This is what omegas do.

I’m going to need so much therapy.

“That’s what I thought,” he said, like he could read my mind.

And just like that, the next round began.

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