Chapter 5 Heat Rising

1:00 a.m. Rain hammered against the floor-to-ceiling windows in a furious, unrelenting assault. The storm outside matched the chaos building inside her chest.

Darcy rubbed her temples, the dull ache of exhaustion settling deep behind her eyes. Her phone buzzed. Maeve. She picked up.

"Darcy, you're literally a legend in this entire building! That snake Chloe was in the break room crying her eyes out, telling anyone who'd listen that you're a shiftless waste with no wolf form who just sleeps her way to the top. And then, get this, they revoked her executive access pass! I almost choked on my coffee watching her face! You should have seen it, Darcy. Priceless!"

Darcy leaned back in her chair, a faint smile tugging at her lips.

"Let her talk. Let her be jealous. People like her always find someone to blame for their own failures."

Maeve's voice softened, the glee fading into something warmer and more fragile. "How's your shoulder? And the North... I heard someone was pulling your old files again today? That's not good, is it?"

Darcy's fingers paused on the rim of her coffee cup. The ceramic was cold against her skin.

Eight years ago, she had been branded a "defective who couldn't shift," stripped of her identity by her own father, and left to die in that blizzard. She had crawled out of the snow with nothing but the will to survive, bleeding, broken, barely conscious. For years, she had believed that as long as she stayed quiet, stayed invisible, stayed small enough to be overlooked, she could leave that place behind forever. She had buried her past under layers of forged documents and careful silence.

But the photo of Kingston Headquarters today had proven otherwise. The method she'd used for eight years was failing. The hunters were closing in.

"I'll handle it," Darcy said quietly. Her voice was steady, but the words felt heavier than they should.

Maeve paused for two seconds. When she spoke again, her voice was firmer, more serious than usual.

"Don't try to carry everything alone again. You're not on your own anymore, Darcy. I'm here. And I know you don't trust easily, but you don't have to do this by yourself."

Darcy's chest tightened. She swallowed the lump forming in her throat.

"I know," she said softly. "I know."

"Alright, my queen! I'll bring you a fresh croissant tomorrow morning. Extra butter, just the way you like it. Take care of yourself!"

The call ended. The small, warm presence of her best friend lingered in the silence, a tiny pocket of normalcy in the cold steel cage she'd walked into. For just a moment, Darcy let herself feel it. The comfort of someone who knew her, who'd been there from the beginning, who'd seen her at her absolute worst and stayed anyway.

That peace lasted all of three seconds.

A hidden black-market trading window flickered to life in the corner of her screen, popping up without warning. The interface was sleek and cold, the kind of design that screamed money and danger in equal measure.

[North Barrens Anonymous Bounty Update]

[Target: Suspected wolf-less Omega. Identity files and recent biometric data requested.]

[Current Bid: Rising.]

Darcy's eyes went cold. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. They didn't just want to know where she lived. Someone was still collecting her current physical data. Her scent, her blood, her heat cycles. They were building a complete profile of her, piece by piece.

She moved to intercept the page, to sever the connection and disappear from their radar. But her nape suddenly burned. A sharp, searing heat that made her gasp.

Darcy's hand stopped mid-motion. The pain was sudden, intense, like a brand pressed against her skin.

A faint scent of cedar and agave, barely perceptible, began to seep from deep beneath her skin. It was her own scent, but it had never been this strong before. Never this uncontrollable.

Her breathing grew warm. Her heart started racing for no reason, pounding against her ribs. A thin layer of sweat broke out across her forehead.

Darcy glanced at the date on her phone. Her expression shifted.

No.

She was still three days out. Her heat cycle had always been as predictable as clockwork. For eight years, it had never deviated. Never.

Her heat had come three days early.

And in the past eight years, it had never come early. Not once.

A figure flashed through Darcy's mind without warning. Dark gold eyes burning in the shadows. The scent of cedar. The weight of his presence pressing down on her. And every time Asher came close, that increasingly obvious burning pain in her left shoulder. The scar that had been dormant for eight years, suddenly awake and burning.

Darcy's brow furrowed sharply. Her jaw clenched.

Impossible.

She refused to connect the two. She wouldn't. Couldn't.

She didn't panic. She reached into her medicine pouch with steady hands, pulled out a suppressant pill, and swallowed it dry. The pill scraped down her throat, bitter and chalky.

Ten seconds passed. Fifteen.

The heat inside her didn't recede. If anything, it spread faster, burning through her veins, racing toward her limbs like wildfire. Her fingers trembled slightly against the desk.

"Damn it."

Darcy braced herself against the edge of her desk, her knuckles white against the polished surface. Her vision swam at the edges.

Then, from outside the office, came the sound of a heavy impact. Something hitting the wall, hard enough to shake the glass partition.

She looked up sharply. Through the glass door, Asher's tall figure stood at the end of the corridor. He was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling in uneven rhythm. His hand was pressed flat against the wall, steadying himself.

He didn't charge in. He just stood there, outside the door, fighting something she couldn't see.

The cedar scent beyond the door thickened, becoming almost suffocating even through the glass.

Asher's fingers gripped the doorframe, his knuckles white. He'd undone the top button of his shirt. His dark gray eyes were heavy in the dim light, pupils dilated, veins standing out along his neck. He looked like a man barely holding himself together.

"Turn on the purification system." His voice was low, rough, scraped raw.

Darcy reached over and hit the control panel switch. The fans in the ceiling roared to life, beginning to pull the scent out of the air. The hum of the machinery filled the silence.

Asher closed his eyes, standing motionless outside the door. His jaw was clenched so tight she could see the muscle jumping beneath his skin.

Darcy could feel his gaze through the glass, fixed on her. The weight of it pressed against her, making the back of her neck tighten. Even through the door, his presence was overwhelming.

The heat inside her surged again, and her brow furrowed deeper. Her body was responding to him in ways she couldn't control.

At the same time, a new line appeared on the black-market screen.

[New bidding item: Blood sample / Scent / Heat cycle data.]

[Highest bidder: KINGSTON-A — locked.]

Darcy's eyes flicked to the screen. KINGSTON-A. She didn't have to ask who that was.

Her fingers moved to the control panel. She unlocked the door.

"Come in."

The door slid open automatically.

Asher stepped inside and stopped two meters away. The distance between them felt charged, electric. He placed his phone on the desk. The screen showed a successful black-market transaction record. A hundred and fifty million dollars, paid in full.

"Bought it out." Asher looked at her, his voice flat, but his eyes burned. "A hundred and fifty million. The entire bounty. All of it."

Darcy gripped the edge of the desk, fighting the abnormal heat surging through her body. "Someone is monitoring my physiological data in real time."

The black market had received a demand within the same minute she'd started running a fever. That meant her information was being simultaneously fed to someone outside in real time. Someone had access to her body's signals.

Darcy picked up her pill case from the desk and tossed it to him.

Asher caught it, glanced at the label, and his expression went cold. "You're taking standard Omega suppressants."

"I am an Omega." Darcy's tone was flat, unyielding.

"If you were a standard Omega, this dose would have worked by now." Asher's eyes locked onto her, cold and hard. "Instead, you're standing here burning through it like it's water. This isn't normal."

The room fell into dead silence. The only sound was the hum of the air filtration system.

Darcy's fingers tightened almost imperceptibly. The same thought was already crashing through her own mind. She had used this medication for eight years. It had never failed her before. Never. But now, in the presence of this man, it was useless.

In front of him, she showed no trace of panic. She simply pressed down the unease behind her eyes and held his gaze coldly, refusing to let him see the storm inside her.

Asher glanced at her, then stepped aside, gesturing toward the inner door behind him. "Go into the private lounge. It has its own air filtration. You'll be safer in there."

Darcy looked at him for a moment, then picked up her phone and walked toward the door.

As she passed him, Asher stepped back half a pace, clearing the corridor for her. His body was tense, coiled, every muscle locked in place.

Her hand was on the door handle when she heard his voice from behind her.

"Whatever you hear tonight, don't come out."

Darcy turned back to look at him. His face was half in shadow, his eyes dark and unreadable.

"Especially if it's me." Asher added, his voice dropping lower.

"I heard you." Darcy pushed the door open and stepped inside, pulling the lock shut behind her.

The lounge was dim, lit only by a single floor lamp casting a soft amber glow across the space. The air was cool, filtered.

Strangely, the moment she stepped into this space, one that carried Asher's scent, the dizziness and heat inside her began to ease. The burning in her veins quieted, settling into something more manageable.

Darcy sat down on the edge of the bed, pressing her palm to her forehead. The suppressant hadn't worked. His scent, however, had. That loss of control unsettled her. She was used to being in charge of her own body. Now, it was responding to someone else.

Her eyes drifted to the nightstand. The bottom drawer wasn't fully closed. The edge of an old photograph stuck out, yellowed with age.

Darcy pulled it out.

The photo showed a blurry figure in a North Barrens snowstorm. A teenage girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen, kneeling in the snow, pulling another half-buried person up from the white. The wind was fierce, the image grainy, but the girl's face was just visible, determined, desperate.

The girl's collar was pulled open. Below her left shoulder, a deep, unmistakable old scar.

Darcy looked down at her own left shoulder. Same position. Same shape. Identical.

On the back of the photo, only a date was written: twelve years ago.

Darcy stared at the image for a long time. Twelve years ago, four years before she'd even escaped the North. Her memory of that time was blank. She had no recollection of this blizzard. No memory of pulling anyone out of the snow. And yet, here was the proof.

Why was this photo in Asher's room?

A faint, dull thud came from outside the door, then nothing. Silence.

Darcy placed the photo back in the drawer exactly as she'd found it and slid it shut.

Outside the window, the sky was beginning to lighten, pale gray seeping through the rain clouds.

Darcy lay on the bed, listening to the soft hum of the air filtration system. The heat inside her had finally subsided, leaving behind only exhaustion and confusion.

She stared at the ceiling, her mind racing. For the first time, she knew. None of this was coincidence. Not the heat. Not the photo. Not the way her body responded to him.