Chapter 41: Heat.
Yes, it happened again and again and again.
Every morning, I would step out, and somehow, Rex would always find me. It didn’t matter how early I left or how carefully I moved—he always did.
Without a word, he would drag me to some secluded place, far from prying eyes, where he would take me until my legs could barely hold me up.
Afterward, I would clean myself as best as I could, scrubbing at my skin, trying desperately to erase his scent before anyone noticed.
I would return and go about my day as though nothing had happened, as though my life wasn’t quietly falling apart around me... as though he hadn’t left himself buried deep inside of me.
At first, I held on to hope.
I told myself I could escape, that there had to be a way out if I just tried hard enough. But that illusion didn’t last long.
The more I paid attention, the more I realized how impossible it truly was.
Sentries were posted everywhere, their senses sharp, their presence suffocating. I was slow, and worse, my scent gave me away long before I could ever get close to any of the barricaded exits surrounding the pack.
There was only one place no one paid much attention to—the river.
But even that wasn’t a real option.
The current there was the strongest, wild and unforgiving. I could swim, but I wasn’t strong enough to fight against something like that. I knew if I tried, I wouldn’t make it across.
I would drown.
So instead, I pretended.
I lived each day as though everything was fine, even as fear gnawed at me from the inside out. Weeks passed, and with them came a new, growing dread—one that I tried to ignore for as long as I could.
Pregnancy, a dread that worsened when my red season refused to come.
Sometimes it was late, so I tried to hold on to that, tried to convince myself it was nothing. But the longer it didn’t come, the more terrified I became.
That fear only deepened the night I saw Rex again.
I had been standing with Loel and Xarna, lost in meaningless conversation, when I caught sight of him returning from a hunt. Even from a distance, something about him felt different.
There was a ferocity in his gaze that made my breath hitch, something darker, more intense. I wasn’t the only woman that noticed as I caught most of them looking.
I had heard of it before—something Alphas went through, their most fertile and dangerous period—but knowing about it and seeing it were two completely different things.
For me, it was nothing short of a nightmare.
I was an omega, yet despite everything, I had never experienced a heat. It was something I had once been grateful for, something that made me feel... spared.
But now, even without my heat, if he knotted inside me during his rut period it was over for me.
It was enough to push me toward a decision.
I needed to know. I even considered going to Gessia, just to confirm the truth. Because if I was pregnant... then I had no choice.
I would have to escape before the child could be killed. I wasn’t heartless enough to destroy my own flesh and blood.
That evening, I had taken a short nap, exhaustion weighing heavily on me. When I woke, I prepared to step out for dinner, still lost in my thoughts.
But the moment I stepped outside, everything changed.
A scream split through the air. Then another.
My body went rigid as more followed, panic rising instantly in my chest. In the pack, screams only meant one thing—and just as the realization hit me, a loud horn sounded, echoing through the entire territory.
An attack. We were under attack.
My heart slammed violently against my ribs as chaos erupted around me. People rushed in every direction, voices shouting, fear spreading like wildfire.
And then I saw them.
Wolves with coats as black as the night itself. Rogue wolves.
They moved without order, without restraint, their presence wild and terrifying. These were wolves who had lost their packs, who no longer had anything tethering them to control. They had given themselves fully to their instincts, and now they moved like animals—anything that moved was food.
"Run!" Loel screamed.
I turned just in time to see her and Raphal fleeing with the others, and I followed without thinking, my breath coming fast and uneven as I tried to keep up.
My eyes caught sight of Fowna and a few of his friends, along with other young men, and without hesitation, they shifted. Their bodies twisted and changed, wolves bursting free as they charged away trying to protect their loved ones and band together.
Others followed. Even some of the women. But I couldn’t.
I came to a halt, my body trembling violently as I stood there, completely exposed, my mind racing with panic. I didn’t know where to run, where to hide. Going inside wouldn’t help—they would smell me.
They would find me.
Fear rooted me in place, my chest tightening as it became harder to breathe. And then I saw them.
Three massive white furred wolves.Axel. Thor. Rex.
Relief and fear crashed into me all at once as I watched them tear through the rogue wolves, ripping them apart before they could cause more damage. It was brutal, violent, and fast—but not fast enough to stop what had already happened.
Some of our people were down. Bleeding. Screaming and in the distance, I saw a body lying still on the ground. Unmoving.
My stomach dropped.
They didn’t stop until the threat was gone, until the rogues were nothing more than lifeless forms scattered across the ground. Only then did they shift back, their human forms returning, confirming what I already knew.
The three alphas in the pack. Alpha Axel. Alpha Thor. Alpha Rex
And then—
Rex’s gaze locked onto me.
My breath caught as his light brown eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my body go still.
Before I could react, he was already moving.
He reached me in seconds, grabbing my arm and pulling me along with him. I barely had time to process what was happening before he dragged me into my sleeping place, shutting the door behind us with force.
The scent hit me immediately. Thick. Heavy. Overpowering.
It wrapped around me, filling my lungs, making my head spin as something deep inside me stirred in response.
Desire.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t gradual. It was consuming.
Before I could even understand what was happening, he pushed me down onto the bed with a deep growl, his hands already tearing at my clothes.
My breath came out uneven, my body reacting in ways I couldn’t control, the scent alone making it hard to think, hard to breathe. A strange urge rose from deep within me, something overwhelming, something that made me want— Need—
I gasped as I fell back, my hands instinctively reaching for him as he lowered himself over me, his lips crashing against mine.
It felt right.
Terrifyingly, dangerously right.
I didn’t question it.
I couldn’t.
My legs wrapped around him on their own, pulling him closer, my body pressing against his as the need inside me grew unbearable.
His hands moved over me, but it wasn’t enough.
Nothing was enough.
I wanted more—needed more—something deeper, something that would ease the fire burning through me.
I kissed him harder, my breath breaking into soft, desperate sounds as his touch sent waves of heat through my body. My fingers gripped him, pulling him closer, my entire body trembling.
"More..." I gasped, my voice barely steady. "Please... I want more..."
The words left me before I could stop them, before I could even think.
"I want you... buried inside of me."
And even as I said it, I knew there was something terribly wrong, but at that moment I didn’t care. There was a heat buried in my body that needed release.
But in that moment, I didn’t care.
The heat inside me wasn’t normal. It wasn’t something I could reason through or push aside. It burned low and deep, spreading through my body in slow, consuming waves that made it hard to think, hard to focus on anything beyond the overwhelming need to make it stop.
Or satisfy it.
His scent surrounded me, thick and inescapable, sinking into my lungs with every breath I took until it felt like it was part of me, like it was rewriting something instinctive and primal beneath my skin. It made my head spin, my thoughts sluggish and unsteady, as though my body was reacting faster than my mind could catch up.
I knew something was wrong.
I just couldn’t hold onto that thought long enough for it to matter.
My fingers tightened against him without me realizing it, my body already leaning into his touch before I could stop myself. Every place his hands moved left behind a trail of heat that only made the ache inside me worse, sharper, more desperate.
It wasn’t enough.
Nothing was enough.
A soft, broken sound slipped past my lips, my breath uneven as I tried to steady myself, but the moment he shifted—even slightly—the reaction was immediate.
A sudden emptiness I desperately needed him to fill.
