Chapter 3: Rain and Heat

ELARA POV

I pressed my shaking fingers against my burning cheek and stared at him. In all our years of marriage, Darian had never raised a hand to me.

"You think you can threaten me?" he hissed, stepping into my space. His handsome face twisted into something ugly. "Do you think anyone in this city will listen to a Beta orphan with no family name?"

He reached out and plucked the phone from my hand. I tried to hold on, but he was stronger. He glanced at the glowing screen, the photo of the dock, and then he dropped it into his desk drawer and turned the key.

"Give that back!"

His fist caught me across the mouth. Pain exploded through my jaw. My back hit the bookcase, and I slid down onto the cold floorboards. I raised my hand to my chin, and my fingers came away smeared with bright red blood.

Darian stood over me, chest heaving, shaking out his sore knuckles.

"Listen to me very carefully, Elara," he said, his voice dropping into a cold, flat whisper. "You are not going to expose anyone. You are not going to call my boss. You are not going to ruin my career."

He pulled open a different drawer and took out a thick white folder as he tossed it onto the floor beside my knee.

"Harlan Pryce drew these up weeks ago. I was going to put them in front of you with a pen and a smile, and you would have signed without reading a single page. Now I'll just file them on Monday." He straightened his cuffs. "You keep this old house, and only because I don't want to live somewhere that smells like your stupid face creams. I take the car, the accounts, and half of your stock in Aurevia Skin."

I looked at the folder lying on the dark floorboards. My name was printed on the first page in clean black letters.

"You should be grateful I'm leaving you anything," Darian said, staring down at me with plain disgust. "If you fight me in court, I will destroy your company's name before you even get a trial date."

I pressed my hand against the floor and pushed myself to my feet as my legs shook. My cheek felt as if it were on fire.

"You won't get away with this," I whispered through my split lip, tasting the metal of my own blood.

I took one step toward the door.

Then a brutal, tearing cramp slammed into my lower belly.

It was not ordinary pain. It felt as though someone had lit a torch inside me, and the flames were spreading up through my stomach and chest. My breath locked in my throat. I tried to inhale, but my lungs refused to work.

My vision flared into a bright, feverish gold. Sweat broke across my forehead and neck all at once.

What is happening to me?

I was twenty-eight years old. Female wolves went into their first heat at sixteen or seventeen. I had never had a heat in my entire life. My wolf had always been too quiet, too weak, too hidden.

A second wave ripped through me and dropped me to my knees. Deep inside my head, Vespera threw back her head and let out a howl that shook my entire mind.

The golden fire swept over my thoughts, and everything went dark.

It did not last. My eyes snapped open to a cold, heavy hand on my shoulder. Darian was crouched over me on the study floor, gripping my collar.

"Get up, Elara," he sneered, tugging at my cloth. "Stop playing weak."

"Don't touch me!"

Vespera screamed in my head. Wild, panicked adrenaline flooded my veins. The fire in my belly was still boiling, but fear made my limbs move. I kicked out with everything I had left, and my heel struck his knee.

He grunted and stumbled backward into the desk.

"You crazy bitch!"

I did not wait. I scrambled onto my hands and knees, pushed off the floor, and bolted through the open study door into the hallway.

"Get back here, Elara!"

I ran past the dining room and the stairs. I heard Darian's heavy footsteps pounding behind me, and from the study doorway, Sorelle's thin, nervous voice.

"Let her go, Darian! She has nowhere to go anyway!"

"Shut up, Sorelle!" He was in the hallway now, close, and furious. "Elara, if you walk out that door, you leave with nothing! Not your coat, not your purse, not your keys!"

"I don't care!" I shouted without turning. "I don't want anything from you!"

I tore the heavy oak door open with both hands. A cold wind slammed into my face and drove rain across the entry hall. I sprinted out onto the porch, and down the wet concrete steps, and my socks hit the slick pavement with a splash.

"Elara!" Darian shouted from the doorway.

I ignored his voice as I ran down the long driveway,

"Faster, Elara! Run faster!" Vespera's voice growled inside my mind.

Her claws scraped against my ribs, wild and desperate. She was terrified of what had just happened, and I was terrified too.

"I am running!" I whispered out loud, gasping for air as the cold wind filled my lungs.

A sudden, blinding fire slammed into my chest, so intense it felt like my blood was boiling in my veins.

"What is this?" I choked out, pressing my trembling palm against my ribs. "Why does my body feel like it's on fire?"

"Danger! Safety! Find shelter now!" Vespera growled, pacing violently behind my eyes.

A sharp, deep cramp twisted in my lower belly. It hit me so hard that my right knee buckled, and I nearly fell face-first onto the wet street. I reached out and caught myself against a cold metal street lamp.

The heat inside my body spiked higher and faster, burning through my veins.

My mind raced back to the nightstand—to the small glass jar of blue pills Darian handed me every single morning without fail. "Just your Beta balance vitamins, honey," he’d say, watching me swallow them with water.

He had been lying to me for years. They weren't vitamins. They were wolf suppressants, keeping Vespera weak, quiet, and locked away.

"No, no, no," I whimpered into the dark.

My skin began to smell strange. A heavy, sweet scent floated up from my wet collar—a rich smell like wild honey, warm rain, and crushed berries. My scent was flooding the entire street, spilling out across the damp pavement in heavy waves.

"Cover it! Hide!" Vespera panicked, her russet fur standing up in my mind.

"I can't!" I cried out into the pouring rain. "My purse is on the dining table!"

Every shifter carried a basic scent-neutralizing spray in their bag for public etiquette—especially someone like me, who ran a skincare line. But my bag was inside Darian's house. And even if I had my standard spray, it wouldn't be enough to drown out a full-blown heat.

I forced my legs to move, stumbling down the dark sidewalk of Gilded Row. I kept one hand pressed against the wet brick walls of the houses as I walked.

A black car rolled down the street, its tires splashing a wave of dirty puddle water over my soaked socks.The driver slowed down near the curb, rolling his side window down two inches.

"Hey, lady! Do you need help?" the driver called out through the rain.

"No! Stay back!" I yelled, pulling my soaked sweater collar up over my chin to hide my bloody face.

"Suit yourself, crazy!" the driver shouted back, stepping on the gas pedal and speeding away.