The sound of Jannah’s small frame convulsing against the floorboards did not move Dorrent’s cold expression in the slightest. Instead, his eyes flared with a sharp, dangerous intensity as he slowly got down on his knees beside her writhing body.

With a brutal, unyielding grip, he clamped his hand around her throat, forcing her neck upward to lock her into his gaze. He was angry—his jaw clenching with such immense pressure that a sharp vein pulsed violently against his temple as he looked at her.

"You think you are so incredibly clever, don’t you, little physician?" Dorrent hissed, his voice a low, terrifyingly dark vibration that rasped directly against her face. "Whatever I had added in that crimson drink just now... it isn’t my poison, Jannah. They are the exact herbs from your secret satchel. The poisonous herbs you had made and stored away especially for me."

Jannah’s eyes widened in absolute, shattering realization as her lungs desperately fought for a single shred of oxygen. Through the agonizing fog of her choking, she realized exactly what had happened while she had been away having dinner with Shadron. Dorrent had probably searched through her room with clinical precision, unearthing the hidden lining of her satchel and discovering the forbidden, lethal toxins she had been cultivating. And now, he had tested it directly on her. Her insides were burning out, a fierce, white-hot fire tearing through her digestive tract, making her entire body twitch in painful spasms on the carpet. She couldn’t even talk properly; her throat was so severely swollen that only a jagged, broken rasp escaped her lips as she cursed him with every ounce of her remaining strength.

"Don’t you dare die on me just yet," Dorrent continued talking to her, his grip on her neck remaining rock-solid as he anchored her twitching head against the floor. "I have always suspected your true intentions, Jannah. I’ve questioned the sudden, miraculous shift in your character from the very moment you accepted the offer to treat my condition back on 3rd Street. That day, you had stubbornly declined my father’s astronomical financial offers multiple times before you had even seen me. You were perfectly content to rot in your hovel. But the exact moment I stepped out of the car, the moment you saw my face, you suddenly changed your mind and accepted the contract."

Dorrent leaned down even closer, his winter-frost pheromones aggressively flooding her senses as his anger boiled over. "I could tell right then that there was a hidden, dark reason behind that sudden act. You didn’t come here to heal me. You came to act as a parasite." He tightened his hand around her throat, cutting off her shallow windpipe even further. "Tell me the truth... were these poisonous herbs entirely meant for me?"

Jannah’s face turned a dangerous shade of crimson under his palm, but her stubborn, untouchable pride refused to break. With the absolute last of her physical energy, she desperately shook her head in frantic denial, trying to hide the truth of her vengeance.

Dorrent let out a short, cynical laugh that sounded entirely devoid of warmth. "If you are not going to tell me the absolute truth right now, I will gladly just sit here, hold you down, and let you die from your own gutter-magic."

The suffocating pressure on her windpipe became too much to bear. Struggling against his iron palm, Jannah forced a raw, desperate whisper through her clenched teeth. "It... it wasn’t meant for you... it was for... for something else..."

"Do not lie to an S-tier Alpha, physician," Dorrent interrupted, his voice dropping into a lethal, mocking purr. "Because in case you have forgotten your own meticulous habits, you actually name and label all the herbs in your collection so that you can differentiate them during your experiments. You had literally labeled this exact lethal vial with my name."

To prove his point, he reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out the small, glass vial, holding the written label directly in front of her blurring vision. Jannah’s heart did a violent, hopeless skip. She cursed herself internally for being so incredibly stupid—her own hyper-organized professional habits had left an undeniable, forensic trail of her treason. Now, caught entirely red-handed, she couldn’t say a single thing to defend herself.

Realizing that her body was rapidly failing and that she was dying anyway, the nineteen-year-old girl’s raw hatred completely overrode her fear. Gathering the absolute last drop of moisture in her mouth, she spat directly into Dorrent’s handsome, arrogant face.

"I hate you... I hate you so bad, Dorrent Grefo," Jannah rasped out, her dark eyes flashing with a cold, venomous light as she glared at him through her tears. "And yes... yes, I wanted you dead! You are a monster!"

Dorrent’s expression turned utterly monstrous, his eyes flashing a dangerous, blinding crimson as he wiped her saliva from his cheek. He was furious, his chest heaving as he stared down at the sheer volume of pure, unadulterated hatred radiating from the fragile girl beneath him. "Why?" he roared, his voice shaking the quiet walls of the bedroom. "Why the hell do you hate me this much? What have I ever done to a slum rat like you?!"

Jannah didn’t reply to his question. She merely let out a weak, choking chuckle, her body growing heavier by the second as the venom began to shut down her heart. "Just... let me die," she whispered hoarsely, her grip on his gown loosening. "But just know... I hate you so much, and I wouldn’t mind killing you over and over again. Yes, the herbs were entirely meant for your veins, and I would have gladly used it on you later."

Dorrent’s fingers squeezed her throat with terrifying, suffocating force as he growled out another furious "Why?!", but Jannah said absolutely nothing more. Her eyelids began to flutter, her consciousness rapidly drifting toward the edge of permanent death as the poison took complete effect over her organs.

Seeing her body go limp, Dorrent’s expression suddenly shifted from blind rage to an unhinged, possessive panic. "No... no, I won’t let you die that easily, Jannah," he muttered fiercely, his voice a jagged, desperate rasp. "You don’t get an easy escape from me. I am going to let you live... and I am going to make sure you spend every single moment of your life with me regretting your decision to come into my life."

He quickly fished into his pocket again, pulling out the second vial—the one she had clearly labeled as the antidote. He uncorked it with his teeth, trying to forcefully press the glass rim against her lips to feed her the liquid, but Jannah rigidly locked her jaw. No matter how hard he pinched her cheeks or tried to pry her teeth apart, her stubborn pride remained absolute; she refused to open her mouth, fully choosing death over surrendering to his salvation.

A dark, predatory smirk suddenly cut across Dorrent’s features as he realized exactly how to break her biological defenses. "You forget who commands your biology, little physician," he whispered.

Slowly, deliberately, Dorrent began to trail his hand down her sensitive, shivering body. He knew perfectly well how intensely his touch always affected her traitorous omega system. He guided his hand all the way down past her waist, sliding his fingers underneath the hem of her nightdress until his palm met her bare, hyper-sensitive center. The moment his fingers pushed inside her wet, swollen threshold and began aggressively rubbing her clitoris, a violent, involuntary jolt of electric pleasure shot straight to her brain.

The sudden, overwhelming sensory overload earned an immediate, gasping reaction from her—her mouth flew wide open in a breathless moan.

Dorrent didn’t waste a single millisecond. He instantly poured the liquid antidote directly into his own mouth, threw his frame over her, and fed her the medicine through a deep, fiercely punishing kiss. He forcefully invaded her mouth with his tongue, locking his lips over hers to completely suffocate her escape. He had already mixed the active herbal antidote with his own saliva, and all he did now was violently transfer the life-saving liquid through their entangled mouths.

He held the kiss with absolute, crushing dominance, blocking her nose and trapping her lips until she had no other choice but to swallow his saliva mixed with the bitter herbs just to breathe. Jannah’s throat convulsed, successfully gulping down the antidote.

The moment the medicine cleared her chest, Dorrent slowly disconnected the intense, suffocating kiss. He sat back on his haunches, wiping his mouth as he looked down at her gasping, trembling form, his eyes shining with a chilling, permanent triumph.

"Welcome to hell, my sweet little enemy physician," Dorrent whispered darkly into the quiet room.