All Chapters of Flames Of Hot & Steamy Collection : Chapter 61 - Chapter 65

I learned early that being an Omega in this city meant keeping my head down.That night the lesson came with fists.They cornered me behind the old laundry on 9th. Three of them, all Betas, laughing like it was a game. I was nineteen, small for a werewolf, scent soft and sweet the way Omegas are, and I had never learned how to throw a punch that mattered. The first hit took the air out of my lungs. The second split my lip. I went down hard on the wet pavement and curled in on myself while they kicked whatever they could reach. Someone spat on me. Someone else called me a fragile little bitch who should have stayed in heat clinics where I belonged.When they finally got bored and left, I stayed on the ground until the shaking slowed. My ribs hurt. My left eye was already swelling. I dragged myself up and started the long walk home because the buses had stopped running and I had no one to call.I didn’t make it far.My legs gave out two blocks from the industrial docks. I stumbled into

Michael's povThe door shut behind Michi with a soft, final click.I stood in the middle of my own living room with my hands braced on the kitchen counter and the silence pressing in from every side. Mirabel hadn’t moved. She was still standing near the couch, arms wrapped around herself, staring at the place where my brother had been like she could still see the shape of him in the air.My pulse was still slamming in my throat. The things I had said kept replaying in my head, sharper now that he was gone. *You’re my brother. She’s our Mirabel. You don’t get to just decide.* I had sounded righteous. Protective. Like the only thing I was angry about was the secret.It wasn’t.I was angry because the second I heard him say the words *I’m in love with you*, something ugly and panicked had opened in my chest. Because I had been carrying the same weight for years and I had never once let it out of my mouth. Because the thought of her choosing him — of her looking at the face that was almos