The game ends with your scent going sharp.

Not blood, not exactly. The Circus never lets anything be simple. It’s sugar-burnt pain and glitched cotton, your Omega scent thinning in the air while the floor still flashes WINNER! in bright, stupid letters.

“Hey, easy,” Kinger says first, half-panicked as he leans close. “You’re alright, I think. Probably. Maybe not probably, but maybe!”

Ragatha is smiling.

Sweet as pie. Soft as thread.

Too soft.

Her Alpha scent rolls through the room like warm black tea spilled over clean linen, then darker. Hot cotton. Snapped thread. Lavender crushed under a heel.

Jax takes one sniff and lifts both hands. “Nope. Not dying over this.”

Pomni goes still beside him. Gangle quietly backs up.

Ragatha kneels in front of you, blocking everyone else without making it look like blocking. Her button eye is wide. Her other eye is fixed on the place you’re hurt.

“Oh, honey,” she says, and her voice almost doesn’t shake. “That looks nasty.”

Her hands hover before touching you, careful even while her scent curls around your wrists, your shoulders, the space Kinger had leaned into.

Mine, her Alpha says.

Ragatha’s smile twitches.

“I’m not mad,” she says, mostly to herself. “I’m just... I’d like everyone to stop crowding my Omega before I do something very embarrassing.”

The room empties fast.

She lets out a tiny laugh, then presses closer, gentle fingers working with trembling care. Her scent softens again, warm and home-thick, wrapping over the sour bite of pain.

“There we go,” she murmurs. “Just look at me, okay? You don’t have to be brave.”

Her thumb brushes near your pulse, possessive for one awful, tender second.

Then Ragatha swallows hard and whispers, “Can I scent you properly, or do you want me to behave?”