The night Thomas lifted Phoebe into his bed marked a silent turning point.

By morning, hearth-fire no longer dominated the air but mingled with crisp cedar notes. The hallway sofa remained empty at night. Though words stayed few and touches remained hesitant, a wordless understanding began to bloom.


Days flowed by until their fragile peace faced its first true test.

High society gatherings are essentially combat arenas where Alphas showcase bloodlines, wealth, and heirs. The air always thick with posturing pheromones and veiled insults.

Phoebe dreaded bringing Thomas and Leo into such a snake pit, but her position as family heir made refusal impossible.


In the glittering banquet hall, Phoebe engaged with family patriarchs while Thomas kept Leo in a quiet corner. Despite his attempts to remain unnoticed, his rare male Omega status and Phoebe's recent behavior changes made them the evening's main attraction.

Trouble arrived right on cue.


Patricia, Phoebe's aunt-in-law and fellow Alpha, glided over with champagne in hand. Her smile appeared kind, but her pheromones reeked of venom.

"Leo, aren't you going to greet your elder?" Patricia looked down at the boy, deliberately releasing oppressive Alpha pheromones.

Leo instantly stiffened, face paling as he retreated against Thomas. Thomas quickly shielded his son with his own pheromones—a modest but determined barrier—and offered Patricia a curt nod.

"Indeed a mongrel, born with the stink of cowardice," Patricia sneered at Leo before turning to Thomas with a venomous smile. "Thomas, how generous of you to tolerate Phoebe's outside—"

Before she could finish, a wave of cedar pheromone—arctic and deadly as a winter storm—exploded through the banquet hall!

Phoebe materialized behind them, her Alpha pressure crushing down on Patricia like a physical weight.

Patricia crashed to her knees, champagne glass shattering. Her face drained of color as she choked and gasped for air.

The entire hall froze in stunned silence.

Phoebe looked down at the woman as one might regard an insect beneath notice.

"My Omega. My cub," her voice was deadly soft. "Since when did they become your concern? There won't be a next time—because I'll tear your throat out with my teeth."

Thomas stared at Phoebe's back, suddenly seeing the fierce protector from their school days. His long-dormant heart thundered in his chest.

But five years had transformed that naive boy into something harder, more resilient.

Years ago, such protection might have made him shrink further into her shadow. Now, he no longer wished to be merely sheltered.

Whether from Phoebe's clumsy sincerity or his own exhaustion with resistance, the ice wall between them had finally begun to truly thaw.

This subtle shift didn't escape the estate's perceptive servants. Soon, gossip about the Alpha Lord and her Omega's rekindled romance spread like wildfire, eventually reaching society tabloids with colorful embellishments.

Phoebe was secretly thrilled by the news. She wanted everyone to know Thomas was hers, warning all potential interlopers to keep their distance.

She remembered all too clearly Thomas's closeness with a Beta woman named Lena before their marriage—and how, in her previous life, he'd fled straight to her after leaving Phoebe.

The thought triggered her Alpha possessiveness like nothing else could.

The news brought joy to some and alarm to others.

Phoebe assumed Lena would be most troubled, never suspecting that Grant would be the one consumed by betrayal and rage.

Phoebe's recent coldness had already cost Grant several business opportunities. Now, seeing media reports of her "enduring love" with Thomas, his Alpha pride lay in ruins. He couldn't stomach it—couldn't accept that years of calculated "friendship" would lose to a mere male Omega.

A vicious plan formed. He intercepted Phoebe's order for bonding incense meant for Thomas and bribed the perfumer to replace the loving blend with one containing his own aggressive Agave pheromone.

He knew precisely where to strike for maximum damage.

He succeeded brilliantly.

When Thomas received the "gift," he sat motionless for hours. Then, face blank, he retrieved a Mark Dissolution Application from his desk drawer.

He would confront Phoebe once more. If she truly maintained ties with Grant, he would request their mark be dissolved.

Better to endure the agony of having his bonding gland surgically removed than remain a pawn in their cruel game.

When Phoebe returned home, she instantly sensed the wrongness. Thomas's normally warm pheromone radiated a suppressed, deathly chill.

Her heart plummeted, but she held her tongue.

The tension persisted until after dinner, when Thomas finally broke the silence, requesting to speak with her.

In the study, Thomas slid the incense box toward her, his voice frighteningly steady: "Care to explain this?"

"I didn't send this!" Phoebe recognized the trap instantly. "Someone's setting me up!"

"I believe you," Thomas said, surprising her. "But I need you to explain your relationship with Grant."

"I swear there's nothing between us!" Phoebe's eyes reddened with desperation. "Before—I was horrible, I was cruel—but I swear I've never been involved with Grant. Since Leo's Molting Period, I haven't contacted him at all!"

Thomas watched this frantically explaining Alpha, his thoughts drifting unexpectedly.

He had to admit that Phoebe remained breathtakingly beautiful.

Even now—eyes red-rimmed, hair mussed with anxiety—she was stunning.

Thomas sighed and finally asked the question buried deepest: "Do you now believe I was tricked back then? That Leo's conception wasn't my scheme?"

"I believe you." Phoebe nodded without hesitation, tears spilling over. "I didn't at first, but later... I did."

"You really believe me? Even though we still don't know who arranged it?"

She stepped forward, voice breaking: "None of that matters anymore, Thomas! Whether it was planned or accident—it doesn't matter!" She sobbed, nearly pleading, "I just need you with me... that's all I want."

Yes, just having him alive was enough—her only wish after rebirth, humble as dust.

At her words, the final tension in Thomas's body released.

Phoebe sensed the change and rushed forward, embracing him tightly from behind.

"I just need you with me..."

His body tensed briefly before he whispered: "...and Leo too."

"Yes! And Leo too!" She pressed her face against his back, inhaling that long-missed hearth-fire scent. "With you and Leo beside me, anything is possible."

Moonlight streamed through the window, silent witness to their five-years-delayed reconciliation.

As the moon climbed higher, Thomas finally fell into deep sleep under her soothing pheromones, his breathing even and peaceful.

But Phoebe remained wide awake. By moonlight, she traced the contours of his peaceful face while the brutal truths she'd uncovered in her previous life flooded back.

Thomas had been innocent.

The true architect had been his long-dead mother—that quiet, nearly invisible woman who, at life's end, had created a desperate trap to secure her son's future with the Alpha he secretly loved but could never approach.

A mother's desperate, sorrowful love.

But that alone wouldn't have succeeded. The other half was that enemies had planned to drug Phoebe—the sole Alpha heir—that very night.

And so a vicious plot and a mother's desperate gamble collided to create Leo's existence.

In her previous life, when Thomas proclaimed innocence, she had wavered—she remembered his pure, devoted love from their youth.

But that trust, under Grant's careful manipulation, had been extinguished by her own hands.

Grant had been her lifelong "best friend," the one who "truly understood" her. He'd masterfully presented "evidence" at perfect moments—Thomas's "chance meetings" with certain Betas, his "inquiries" about her business holdings... Each suggestion a poisoned needle striking her deepest Alpha insecurities.

"Phoebe," he'd sighed once, "everyone wants something from Alphas like us. But Thomas... he's too greedy, too obvious. He doesn't even bother pretending it's love."

Those words had been the final blow.

She'd convinced herself their youthful love was her own delusion. She'd accepted that the world was merely a marketplace of interests.

If that was true, she'd reasoned, better to choose an equal, straightforward business partner.

So she'd pushed Thomas away and turned to Grant—her "perfect match" who'd been patiently waiting all along.

That was the seed I planted with my own hands in my previous life.

Phoebe covered her face, the realization crushing her.

And now, as she tried to correct her mistake, the consequences returned hundredfold, striking with savage fury.

Grant's revenge proved more vicious and cunning than she'd anticipated.

Grant finally realized that all his normally effective, subtle manipulations had completely lost their power on this new Phoebe.

She was not only the lover he craved, but also the cornerstone of his business empire. Losing her meant the collapse of both his heart and fortune—something his Alpha pride simply couldn't stomach.

Since gentle persuasion had failed, he would resort to harsher methods to make her understand who truly was her only, indispensable "perfect match."

As the last shred of pretense burned away in the fire of possessiveness, Grant bared his fangs. He allied with several Alpha families who had long coveted the Paine fortune and launched a commercial siege that could only be described as savage.
His goal wasn't destruction, but dominance.

He wanted her desperate enough to see him as her only salvation.

From severed supply chains to hostile takeover bids to stock market bloodbaths, the Paine empire plunged into chaos. As family leader, Phoebe faced crushing pressure. She spent endless days in emergency meetings, handling crisis after crisis, stretched taut as a bowstring for weeks without rest.

Thomas watched it all unfold.

As he watched Phoebe's face grow haggard, her exhausted cedar pheromone leaking through her iron Alpha control, he knew he could no longer stand helplessly aside.

So Thomas began attending those Omega tea parties he'd once scorned. In those flower-decked gatherings awash with pastry scents and false pleasantries, he blended into the background perfectly. Quiet, gentle, saying little but listening intently.

With his natural empathy and that warm hearth-fire pheromone that subtly lowered defenses, the other Omegas—all treated as decorative "property" by their respective Alphas—gradually began to trust him.

While discussing jewelry, they'd casually mention their Alphas' investment failures; between bites of macaron, they'd share rival family scandals as though merely gossiping.

Thomas collected these scattered fragments others dismissed as idle chatter and committed them to memory. At home, he'd sit for hours in his study, organizing, analyzing, and connecting these bits until he'd woven them into an intricate intelligence web that revealed his enemies' every weakness.

Late that night, when Phoebe dragged herself back to the study, Thomas handed her a meticulously organized dossier.

Phoebe opened it curiously, her eyes widening in shock.

Inside lay detailed records of financial vulnerabilities within the families besieging them, private feuds among their executives, and even evidence of an illegitimate child fathered by one family's Alpha patriarch.

The intelligence was precise and lethal—secrets her own corporate spies couldn't have uncovered in months.

Armed with Thomas's intelligence, she masterfully divided the seemingly unbreakable hostile alliance during negotiations, executing a comeback so brilliant it deserved its own Harvard case study.