The suppressants were failing.
I could feel it in the way my skin had started to burn over the last hour, the way every breath seemed to drag honey-thick through my lungs. The way the silk of my dress suddenly felt like sandpaper against nipples gone so sensitive I had to bite my lip to keep from gasping.
Not here. Not now. Not at the fucking Northern Summit with two hundred wolves packed into the Alpha King's banquet hall.
I gripped the edge of the buffet table and tried to look normal. Tried to ignore the fact that my vision was starting to blur at the edges, that I could smell every single wolf in this room with a clarity that made my head spin. Pine and leather and musk and something wild that made my wolf pace restlessly under my skin, whining.
"You okay?" Iris appeared at my elbow with a champagne flute and a concerned frown. "You look flushed."
"I'm fine." The lie tasted bitter. "Just hot in here with everyone."
"Yeah, they really packed us in." She surveyed the crowd, oblivious. "Hey, did you see the Alpha King yet? He's even hotter in person. Like, criminally hot. If I were an Omega I'd be throwing myself at him."
If she only knew.
I'd taken my suppressants this morning like I had every morning for the last six years. Double dose, actually, because I knew I'd be around this many Alphas and couldn't risk even a hint of my real scent slipping through. The pills were supposed to last twelve hours minimum. It had only been eight.
Something was wrong.
"I need some air." I pushed away from the table, ignoring Iris calling after me. I just needed to get outside, get away from all these wolves, figure out what was happening before—
The first cramp hit me halfway across the room.
I stumbled, catching myself against a marble pillar. Pain lanced through my abdomen, sharp and deep, followed immediately by a wave of heat so intense I thought I might actually combust. Between my legs, I felt myself getting wet, my body preparing itself for something I absolutely could not let happen here.
No. No no no no no.
This couldn't be my heat. I was on suppressants. I was safe. I was careful.
Another cramp, worse than the first. I doubled over, barely suppressing a whimper. My skin was on fire now, every nerve ending screaming for touch, for relief, for an Alpha to—
No.
I forced myself upright and stumbled toward the exit. Just had to make it outside. Had to get away before my scent started broadcasting to every wolf in this room exactly what I was, exactly what I needed.
The scent hit the air between one breath and the next.
I felt it happen. Felt the moment the last of the suppressants burned out of my system and my true nature flooded out in a wave of pheromones so thick I could practically see them. Honey and vanilla and something primal that screamed Omega, unmated, fertile, in heat.
The room went silent.
Two hundred conversations died mid-sentence as two hundred wolves turned to look for the source of that intoxicating scent. I watched in horror as nostrils flared, as eyes started to glow with wolf-light, as the unmated males began to move.
Toward me.
"Omega." The word rippled through the crowd like wildfire. "Unmated Omega."
I ran.
Made it maybe five steps before the first Alpha caught my arm. I didn't even see his face, just felt his fingers digging into my skin, his breath hot against my neck as he leaned in to scent me.
"Mine," he growled. "My Omega."
"Get off—" I tried to shove him away but my limbs felt weak, uncoordinated. The heat was building, turning my thoughts to static, making it hard to think past the growing need.
Another Alpha grabbed my other arm. Then another. Suddenly there were hands everywhere, wolves snarling at each other, fighting for the right to claim me. Someone ripped my sleeve. Someone else fisted a hand in my hair, yanking my head back to expose my throat.
I screamed.
The fighting intensified. Wolves were shifting, bones cracking, growls turning into roars. Blood hit the air. Someone was going to die. Multiple someones. All fighting over me like I was a piece of meat, like I was property to be won.
Through the chaos, I caught a glimpse of Iris, her face white with shock. Caught the eye of Beta James from my pack, who was shouting something I couldn't hear over the violence.
Then a roar split the air.
Not the snarl of fighting wolves. Something bigger. Deeper. A sound that carried such raw Alpha dominance that every wolf in the room, including me, dropped to their knees.
The hands released me. The fighting stopped. In the sudden, ringing silence, I looked up.
The Alpha King stood on the raised dais at the head of the room.
Kael Thorne was tall enough that I'd noticed him even in the crowd earlier, but now he seemed massive. His eyes were glowing ice-blue, his wolf so close to the surface I could see it in the inhuman stillness of his body, the way he held himself like violence barely leashed.
Those burning eyes locked onto me across the room.
I couldn't look away. Couldn't move. Could barely breathe as he stepped down from the dais and started walking toward me. The crowd parted for him like water, wolves scrambling to get out of his path, heads bowed in submission.
He moved like a predator. Unhurried. Certain. His gaze never leaving mine.
When he reached me, still kneeling on the floor with my dress torn and my body shaking, he stopped. Looked down at me with an expression I couldn't read.
Then he leaned down and inhaled deeply at my throat.
The sound he made was barely human. A rumble that started deep in his chest and vibrated through me, making my wolf whimper and bare her throat in supplication.
"An unmated Omega." His voice was rough gravel. "In my territory. In my hall." He straightened, his eyes sweeping over the assembled wolves with cold fury. "Mine."
The word sent a shock of heat straight through me.
"Everyone out." The command was absolute. "Now."
The room emptied in seconds. Wolves practically trampling each other to obey, dragging the ones who'd shifted and were too far gone in bloodlust to listen. I tried to stand, to follow them, but another cramp hit and I collapsed with a gasp.
Kael caught me before I hit the floor.
His hands on my skin felt like lightning. I moaned before I could stop myself, my body arching toward him, seeking more contact, more touch, anything to ease the unbearable need building inside me.
"Don't." I forced the word out. "Please, I can handle this, I just need to get somewhere private, I can—"
"You can't handle this." His arms tightened around me as he lifted me effortlessly against his chest. "You're going into full heat. Do you understand what that means? Without an Alpha, you'll be in agony for seven days. You could die."
"I don't care." I was shaking so hard my teeth were chattering. "I won't be claimed. I won't be someone's property."
His jaw clenched. For a long moment he just looked at me, this stranger in his arms who smelled like heaven and was about to become a political nightmare.
Then he started walking.
"Where are you taking me?"
"My quarters."
Panic cut through the heat haze. "No. You can't. I'm not yours to—"
"Right now you're not anyone's. And if I leave you alone, that will change in about ten minutes when every unmated Alpha in a fifty mile radius catches your scent and comes to claim you by force." He shouldered through a door into a private corridor. "So your options are: let me help you through this heat, or be gang-raped by a dozen wolves who don't give a fuck about your consent. Choose."
The bluntness of it shocked me into silence.
He took my silence as an answer and kept walking.
His quarters were at the top of the tower, accessible only by a private elevator that required a keycard. My heat was building with every second, turning my thoughts increasingly hazy, making it hard to focus on anything except the feeling of his body against mine, the scent of him flooding my lungs.
Pine and smoke and night air. Alpha. Strong. Perfect.
No. Not perfect. Dangerous.
The elevator doors opened onto a massive suite. Floor to ceiling windows overlooking the forest. Leather furniture and dark wood and everything masculine and expensive and utterly overwhelming.
He carried me straight through to the bedroom and set me on the bed with a gentleness that seemed at odds with the tension in his body.
"Here's what's going to happen." He stepped back, putting distance between us. "You're going into heat. It's going to get worse before it gets better. Seven days, maybe five if we're lucky. During that time, you'll need an Alpha to get you through it." His voice was carefully controlled. "I'm offering to be that Alpha."
"Why?" I managed to gasp out. "You don't even know me."
"Because I'm the only one strong enough to do this without actually claiming you." His eyes flashed. "Other Alphas will try to bond you permanently during your heat. I won't. Seven days, purely physical, then you're free to go. You have my word."
Another cramp hit. I curled into myself, biting back a scream.
"I need an answer, Aria." He'd used my name. I didn't remember telling him my name. "Yes or no. Let me help you, or I call your pack Beta and let him figure out what to do with you."
James would sell me to the highest bidder. I knew that with absolute certainty.
"If I say yes." I looked up at him through the pain. "You swear you won't try to claim me? Won't try to bond me?"
"I swear."
"And after seven days I can leave?"
"Yes."
I wanted to believe him. Wanted to trust the honor I heard in his voice. But I'd spent six years trusting no one, hiding what I was, and now I was supposed to hand myself over to the most powerful Alpha in the North?
Another wave of heat crashed through me and I sobbed with the intensity of it. My body was making the choice my mind couldn't. I needed this. Needed him. Would die without it.
"Okay." The word barely made it past my lips. "Okay. Yes."
Something flashed in his eyes. Relief? Hunger? Before I could process it, he was moving. Pulling his shirt over his head, revealing a torso carved from muscle and covered in scars. Unbuckling his belt with quick, efficient movements.
"Wait." Fear cut through the haze. "What are you—"
"Your heat is accelerating." He toed off his shoes. "In about five minutes you're going to be begging me to fuck you. I'm not doing this with you incoherent and out of your mind. So we're starting now, while you can still consent." His pants hit the floor and he stood before me in nothing but black boxer briefs that did absolutely nothing to hide his arousal. "Last chance to say no, Omega."
I should have said no. Should have run. Should have done anything except stare at him like I was already lost.
Instead I reached for the zipper of my ruined dress.
His eyes went molten.
"Good girl." He prowled toward the bed. "Now let me show you exactly what you've agreed to."
He was on me in seconds, his weight pressing me into the mattress, his mouth claiming mine in a kiss that tasted like possession and dark promises. I opened for him instinctively, my body recognizing what it needed even as my mind screamed warnings I could no longer hear.
His hand slid between my legs and found me soaked.
"Fuck." The word was reverent, awed. "You're already ready for me."
"Please." I didn't even know what I was begging for anymore. "Please, Kael, I need—"
"I know what you need." His fingers circled once, twice, and I shattered, coming so hard I saw stars. "And I'm going to give it to you. Again and again. Until this heat burns itself out and you can't remember your own name."
He moved between my thighs, the hard length of him pressing exactly where I needed it most.
"But first." His voice dropped to a growl. "You're going to tell me you want this. That you want me."
Through the pleasure haze, through the desperate need, I met his burning gaze.
"I want this." My voice was barely a whisper. "I want you."
"Then you'll have me." He pushed forward, just the tip, stretching me. "All of me. For seven days. And may the Moon forgive us both."
He thrust deep in one brutal stroke that made me scream his name.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, past the pleasure and the heat and the overwhelming rightness of him inside me, a small voice whispered a truth I wasn't ready to face.
This was never going to be just seven days.
This was going to ruin us both