Chapter 3: Terrible Heat

Elena

A FEW HOURS LATER

My thighs were pressed together so tight it was starting to ache, but I wasn’t moving.

I was sprawled across the top bunk in nothing but a towel, my legs were bare, skin still wet from the shower, my hair dripping onto the pillow, leaving little cold trails down my shoulder blade, and I was trying to breathe. Just breathe.

It had been two hours since Lucian walked out of this room, but it still felt like he was in the air. On the sheets. Between my thighs. Inside my fucking skull.

I pressed my phone to my ear and whispered, “Ava. I think I’ve made the worst mistake of my life.”

“Okay, wait, hold up,” Ava said, voice too alert for how late it was. “Are we talking pregnancy, debt, or did you bang your new roommate already?”

I groaned. “No. But my towel is slipping and I think my brain is broken.”

“…You’re talking to me in a towel?”

“Because I haven’t moved in an hour. Because I can still feel him in this room. Because I swear, Ava, if I breathe too hard, I’ll remember what he said and..fuck..I’ll combust.”

There was a beat of silence. Then Ava sighed.

“Tell me everything. From the top. Don’t leave shit out.”

I pulled the towel tighter around me, even though it was already soaked through in places it shouldn’t be. My legs rubbed again. My mouth was dry.

“I told him to stop calling me Omega.”

“Uh-oh.”

“And he said… he said…” I covered my face. “He said, I’ll call you that and he also said he would fuck me! Arghhht.”

Ava didn’t speak.

Didn’t laugh.

Didn’t breathe.

Then…

“Oh my fucking God, Elena. You’re living in a breeding kink fanfic and I’m not there.”

“I don’t know, Ava,” I whispered, swallowing hard. “I feel something. It’s bad. It’s good. Fuck, it’s too good. It’s like there’s something inside me, under my skin, crawling, pulling, wanting.”

My voice cracked. My toes curled.

“I’m so fucking horny it hurts,” I whispered, breath catching. “And I haven’t even lasted a day here. I’m not even supposed to be like this.”

Ava was silent, but I could hear her breathing.

“I swear, I’m going to lose my mind,” I kept going. “It’s like everything’s waking up. My thighs won’t stop rubbing. My heart won’t slow down. I can still feel him in this room, like his scent stuck to the fucking walls. And every time I think about the way he looked at me, the way he growled… I swear to God, I almost came just from remembering it.”

“Elena…”

“I know what this is,” I said. “My heat is starting. I can feel it. It’s low now, but it’s building. My skin feels hot. My mouth is dry. My core is… wet. Fuck, Ava, I’m dripping and he hasn’t even touched me and I feel so fucking drawn to him.”

Ava’s voice came quiet and serious through the phone. “Okay. Deep breath. You need to listen to me now.”

I didn’t speak. Couldn’t.

“Your first heat is coming hard. You’re an awakened Omega. You can’t fake your way through this, Elena. Not now. Not around someone like Lucian.”

“I can handle it.”

“No, you can’t. Because you don’t know what it’s like yet. You don’t know what it does to your body, to your mind. You think you’re in control. You’re not. The wolf doesn’t play by your rules.”

Let him come back, my wolf whispered. Let him smell what you are. Let him lose control. Let him teach you what that heat is for.

“I’m scared,” I admitted, throat tight.

“You should be,” Ava whispered. “Because your scent is going to get stronger by the hour. And if he’s already reacting to it now…”

“He’ll rip the towel off me and take what’s his.”

Ava’s voice dropped on the other end of the line. Soft. Careful. Like she knew I was about to lose it.

“I think he’s your mate, Elena.”

I froze.

No. No the fuck he wasn’t.

My breath stalled in my chest like my lungs didn’t want to participate in this conversation anymore.

“My what?”

“Your mate.”

“My mate?!” I sat up so fast the towel slipped halfway off my thigh, but I didn’t even care. That sentence—that sentence—cleared every ounce of arousal from my body like a slap to the face.

“Him? That jerk? That cocky, arrogant, smirking son of an Alpha who talks like my body already belongs to him?”

Ava didn’t answer.

I kept going.