Chapter 49: You Can’t Drive?

Benjamin’s breath hitched, a sudden, dangerous spark igniting in his unhinged purple eyes. He leaned in half an inch closer, his chest rising and falling against my palms, clearly tempted to test my bluff.

He didn’t get the chance.

Without giving him a second to process, I slid my right foot behind his heel, hooked his ankle, and slammed the heel of my palm sharply into the nerve center right beneath his collarbone.

The sudden loss of balance combined with the strike forced him to instinctively step back to catch himself. In that fraction of a second, I ducked beneath his extended arm, executed a quick pivot, and slipped out of the alcove like water through open fingers.

If this situation had happened after he smoked, then I might’ve rode on the momentum and let him do what he wanted, but he hadnt. It was not time yet.

I smoothed down my clothes with a brisk swipe of my hands, turning back to face him with a sharp smirk as he straightened up, resting his head back against the stone wall with a low, dry chuckle.

"You really don’t like playing nice, do you, Brianna?" he asked, running a hand through his messy brown hair.

"I don’t play nice with predators who think they can trap me," I replied smoothly, taking two steps backward toward the main staircase while keeping my eyes locked on him. "Are you coming, or do you need another minute to recover your dignity?"

Benjamin pushed himself off the wall, his lazy, unbothered smirk returning in full force as he fell into step beside me.

"Ladies first," he drawled, hands sliding back into his coat pockets.

We stepped out of the private exit of the casino into the crisp evening air, where a black sedan was already waiting by the curb. A black-suited driver stepped out to hold the rear door open.

Benjamin gestured lazily for me to get in first. I slid across the leather interior, entering such a comfortable car for the first time ever. I mean it, my last life didn’t have cars, and as Brianna, the only car I’d ever entered is the taxi car, and it was not nearly as comfortable.

I was expecting Benjamin to take the wheel, but he casually dropped into the backseat right beside me.

"You can’t drive?" I asked, throwing a quick side-eye at the driver behind the wheel.

"I can," Benjamin replied smoothly, resting his arm along the back of the seat. "But when my neural overload spikes, the pressure in my head makes my vision blur. Crashing a car is never on my schedule, so I keep a driver on standby whenever I’m traveling out of the territory."

I simply looked away, keeping my eyes fixed on the passing city lights outside the window. "I didn’t ask for your medical history."

Benjamin leaned over the center console, his face sliding into my peripheral vision with a teasing smirk. "You looked curious."

I clicked my tongue. He was being entirely too much—constantly leaning his body into my space, smirking like an idiot, and acting under the assumption that I was some naive, easy-to-fool girl. But I knew exactly what he was after. He was a natural-born predator. The moment I let my guard down, he would pounce and devour me whole.

I vowed to keep my walls up. Yet, without warning, his long, warm fingers reached across the leather and casually wrapped around my right hand.

I stiffened, about to snap at him, but before I could yank away, he gently interlocked his fingers with mine.

"Your hand is so small, Brianna," he murmured, his voice losing its usual sharp, mocking edge. He traced the edge of my palm with his thumb, feeling the rough texture. "And calloused. You must’ve worked really hard."

The words were so casual, so completely offhand... yet they struck a sudden, agonizing chord deep inside my chest.

Not just as Brianna—but as an Anarix.

In my past life, I had bled in silence. I had trained until my fingers bled, calloused my palms to perfection over the cold steel of twin blades, and broken and mended my own bones more times than I could count—all to prove my loyalty, to survive, to earn a shred of freedom, only to be betrayed and cut down in the end.

No one had ever offered a single word of comfort. No one had ever acknowledged the sheer, brutal struggle it took to keep standing.

Yet this boy, whom I had known for barely two days, was holding my hand and calling out the scars carved into my skin. For a terrifying, fleeting second, it felt as though he could see right through my armor—straight into the quiet, exhausted soul hiding underneath.

My breath hitched. My heart began to race against my ribs, and an uncontrollable tremble rippled through my frame.

"Huh?"

Benjamin noticed the sudden shift, his purple eyes widening slightly as he felt my hand shake in his grip.

Instinct took over. I violently yanked my hand out of his touch, pulling my knees up against my chest and pressing my back hard against the car door.

Dammit. I bit the inside of my cheek, furious with myself as an unwelcome sting burned behind my eyes. This weak body... these stupid, volatile teenage emotions are getting to me again. I blamed Brianna’s fragile physical vessel for the sudden, humiliating wave of vulnerability, forcing my face into a harsh, defensive scowl.

Benjamin had no idea what internal storm had just erupted inside my head, but he didn’t push or force my hand back.

Instead, he rested his elbow against the headrest, propping his cheek up on his palm. With his free hand, he reached out and gently twirled a single lock of my hair between his fingers, his gaze fixed entirely on my face.

For the first time in his life, the world around him went completely, utterly silent.

The loud sound of whimpering wolves in his head faded into nothingness. He couldn’t hear the driver’s wolf breathing, couldn’t feel the chaotic, whimpering static of the city outside, couldn’t even register the hum of the engine.

All he could see, all he could hear, was the fragile, fierce Omega sitting across from him—her subtle tremors, her desperate need to hide behind a mask, and the quiet truth that he could see right through every single layer of it.