The thing about learning to close a door is you beco very aware of what’s on the other side of it.
I spent the rest of the afternoon in my room with the mind-link walled and my thoughts louder than they’d been in days. No Riven bleeding through. No accidental awareness of where he was or what he was feeling. Just and the heat humming low in my chest and the growing realization that walling the link hadn’t actually solved anything.
Because the heat didn’t care about doors.
It started soti around sunset. Not the full wave — God, I wasn’t ready for that yet — but the warning tremors. The kind that said soon in a voice I couldn’t ignore.
I pressed my thumb into my index finger. Notch. Notch. Notch.
My mother had taught to track my cycles obsessively. Suppressants worked until they didn’t, and the only warning you got was your body deciding today was the day it stopped listening. I’d been off them for almost a week now. A week of my biology waking up in stages, shaking off twenty-one years of chemical sedation.
Apparently it had decided to wake up all the way.
The heat rolled through again — lower this ti, settling deep in my stomach with intent. My skin felt too tight. The air in the room too warm. I kicked off the blanket I’d pulled over myself and lay flat on my back staring at the ceiling crack I’d already morized.
This was fine. This was manageable. I’d survived worse.
Except I’d survived worse alone. In rogue camps where nobody cared and nobody noticed and I could lock myself in whatever hovel I’d claid and wait it out with nothing but willpower and spite.
Here there were four alphas who would absolutely notice.
Four alphas whose scents I’d already catalogued without aning to. Kael’s cedar and smoke. Riven’s rain before a storm. Draven’s dark spice I couldn’t na. Thorne’s pine and earth and sothing feral underneath.
My hindbrain lit up just thinking about them and I told it to shut up.
It didn’t listen.
I sat up. Swung my legs over the side of the bed. Stood. The floor was cool under my bare feet — good, I needed that — and I paced to the window and back trying to burn off energy that had nowhere useful to go.
The thumbnail found my finger again.
I needed air. Or water. Or sothing that wasn’t this room with its cedar sll that reminded too much of Kael and the bed I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since he’d gone still in his study and looked at like he’d been waiting.
I grabbed a hoodie. Pulled it on. It helped for about five seconds before my skin started protesting the fabric.
Fine. No hoodie.
I left my room in a tank top and sleep shorts because everything else felt like sandpaper and I was past caring what that looked like.
The pack house was quiet. Most wolves were either out on patrol or in the common areas downstairs. I took the back stairs — the ones Cole had shown that first day — and ended up in the east wing near the kitchen.
Empty. Good.
I got a glass from the cabinet I’d morized and filled it with cold water from the tap. Drank half of it in three long swallows. Pressed the glass against my forehead.
The heat pulsed.
I set the glass down harder than I ant to. It didn’t break but it was close.
"Careful."
I spun around.
Kael was in the doorway.
Not leaning. Not casual. Just standing there with his arms loose at his sides and that quality he had where he didn’t need to do anything to fill a room. He just existed and the space rearranged itself accordingly.
He was in dark pants and a T-shirt that had seen better days and his hair looked like he’d run his hands through it recently. His eyes tracked over — the tank top, the shorts, the flushed skin I couldn’t hide — and then ca back to my face.
"You’re in heat."
My jaw locked. "I’m fine."
"You’re broadcasting it through the whole east wing." He stepped into the kitchen. Not fast. Not slow. Just inevitable. "Every wolf in a quarter mile radius knows."
My pulse kicked up. I stepped back until the counter hit my spine. "Then they can mind their business."
"They will." He stopped three feet away. Close enough that I could catch his scent — cedar and smoke and sothing underneath that made my biology sit up and pay full attention. "I’m not here to make this harder than it already is."
"Then why are you here."
His jaw tightened. Just slightly. "Because you’re standing in my kitchen at midnight in the early stages of heat pretending you’re fine."
"I am fine."
"Selene." My na in his mouth did sothing to my pulse I wasn’t ready to examine. "Your hands are shaking."
I looked down.
He was right. Damn him.
I shoved my hands behind my back against the counter. Lifted my chin. "What do you want to say."
"The truth would work." He tilted his head by half an inch. "How long until the full wave hits."
My throat tightened. I swallowed hard. "I don’t know. A day. Maybe less."
"And you were planning to handle it alone."
"I’ve done it before."
"On suppressants that kept it manageable." His voice dropped. Quieter. "This won’t be manageable. Not for a hybrid. Not for your first real heat."
The heat rolled through again and I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep from making a sound.
Kael’s pupils dilated.
He’d felt that. Or slled it. Or both.
We stared at each other across three feet of kitchen tile and I beca very aware of how little I was wearing and how alone we were and how my biology was doing math I absolutely did not ask it to do.
"I’m not asking you to choose anything tonight." His hands stayed loose at his sides. Non-threatening. "But when the wave hits, you’re going to need help. That’s not negotiable."
"I don’t need—"
"Your body is going to try to claw its way out of your skin." He said it evenly. Factually. "You’ll run a fever that’ll make you think you’re dying. You won’t be able to think past the need. And if you’re alone when that happens, you’ll hurt yourself trying to make it stop."
My breath ca faster. I knew all of this. I’d read every piece of dical literature I could get my hands on about hybrid heats. I just hadn’t wanted to believe it applied to .
"So what." My voice ca out rougher than I ant. "You’re volunteering?"
His eyes held mine. Steady. Unwavering. "If you’ll have ."
The heat pulsed hard enough that my knees almost buckled.
I locked them. Pressed my spine harder against the counter. "I’m not agreeing to anything."
"I know." He took one step closer. Then another. Stopped with less than two feet between us. "But I need you to understand sothing."
"What."
"I’ve wanted you since the mont you crossed into my territory." He said it quietly. Carefully. Like each word cost him. "Not because of the heat. Not because of what your blood is. Because you looked at like I was just another man who needed to prove he wasn’t a threat and I realized I’d spend the rest of my life trying to prove it."
My chest forgot how to work.
He didn’t move. Didn’t reach for . Just stood there close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him and said, "So when your heat breaks, I’ll be here. Whether you want or not. Because the idea of you suffering alone makes want to burn this whole house down."
I opened my mouth. Nothing ca out.
The heat rolled through . My skin flushed. I watched him track it — the color rising in my cheeks, the way my breathing changed — and his jaw went tight in a way that looked like control fraying.
"Go back to your room." His voice had gone rough. "Before I do sothing we’re both not ready for."
I should have moved. Should have walked away. Should have done anything except stand there staring at him while my pulse did sothing arrhythmic and my biology scread yes to a question nobody had asked yet.
Instead I licked my lips. Watched his eyes drop to my mouth.
"What if I don’t want to go back to my room."
His hands flexed. Once. "Selene."
"What if I’m tired of walling everything." The words ca out before I could stop them. Honest and raw and dangerous. "What if I want to see what happens when I don’t."
Kael went completely still.
Then he moved.
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