Chapter Six #3
The noises grew louder as I moved lower, more distinct now, no longer muffled by stone and distance. A rhythmic percussion—flesh against flesh—punctuated by ragged breathing and low, broken curses that made something clench deep in my belly.
And beneath it all, woven through the air like smoke, came their scents.
Thane’s hit me first—warm leather and cedar, clean sweat and hearth embers, all the comfort notes that had made my body ease earlier now sharpened with something raw and masculine that I didn’t have a name for.
It wrapped around me, sinking into my lungs, and I drew a deeper breath without meaning to.
Malric’s followed—cold steel and winter rain, smoky pine, darker and more dangerous, threaded with an edge that made my pulse spike and my stomach flip. Where Thane’s scent offered comfort, Malric’s demanded something I wasn’t sure I could give.
Together, they saturated the air, mingling and intensifying until I could taste them on my tongue.
A sharp cry—Thane’s voice, I thought, though I’d never heard him sound like that. Raw. Desperate. Beautiful in its abandon.
Then Malric’s voice, rough and commanding, words I couldn’t quite make out but that sent shivers down my spine anyway.
I should turn back. I knew I should turn back.
I kept going.
The staircase opened onto the lower level, and I stopped at the edge of the landing, my breath caught somewhere between my lungs and my throat.
They were there.
In the bare stone chamber where they’d first entered, illuminated by the faint magical light that always seemed to emanate from the tower’s walls. My mind struggled to process what I was seeing, the images fragmenting and reassembling in ways that didn’t quite make sense.
Malric. Thane. Together.
Malric had Thane pressed against the wall, his body a solid line behind him, one hand braced beside Thane’s head, the other gripping his hip hard enough that I could see the tension in his fingers.
Thane’s hands were flat against the stone, his head thrown back against Malric’s shoulder, his mouth open on gasping breaths that formed words I couldn’t hear.
They were moving together, Malric’s hips driving forward in a rhythm that made Thane cry out, the sound echoing off the stone walls and straight into my chest.
I had never seen anything like this.
The books had described it in flowery, vague language that gave me impressions but no real understanding. This was visceral. Real. The muscles in Malric’s back flexing with each thrust, the sweat gleaming on Thane’s skin, the way their bodies fit together as if they’d been made for this.
Heat flooded through me, so sudden and intense that my knees weakened.
My hand flew to the wall for support, and the movement—or perhaps the sound of my sharp inhale—drew their attention.
Malric’s head whipped around, his eyes pinning me in place, dark and fierce and utterly unapologetic.
Thane’s gaze followed a heartbeat later, storm-bright and glazed with pleasure that didn’t fade even as awareness flickered across his face.
For a frozen moment, none of us moved.
My scent spiked, the sweetness that had been subtle before now blooming sharp and undeniable—silver blossom and warm honey flooding the chamber, announcing my presence, my reaction, everything I couldn’t control.
Something changed in Malric’s expression. His nostrils flared. His grip on Thane tightened.
Thane made a sound low in his throat, his eyes darkening further as my scent reached him.
Pain lanced through my stomach.
Sharp. Sudden. Cramping so hard that I doubled over with a gasp, one arm wrapping around my middle as the other hand scrabbled at the wall for purchase.
The heat that had been building all evening suddenly intensified, no longer a low warmth but a blazing need that burned like it might consume me from the inside out.
Between my thighs, something warm and slick began to gather, soaking into my underclothes with mortifying speed.
“Aveline—” Thane’s voice, rough and concerned.
I didn’t wait to hear the rest.
I turned and fled.
My legs wobbled beneath me, the cramping in my stomach making each step a struggle, but panic drove me upward anyway.
I doubled over, a fist in my lower belly, as I stumbled up the steps.
Up the spiral stairs, past the dining level, past the library, all the way to the nest where I could hide, where I could make sense of what was happening to my body.
I slammed the door behind me and threw the bolt, the heavy metal sliding into place with a solid thunk.
My hands were shaking.
I stumbled to the center of the nest and collapsed into the furs, curling into a tight ball as another wave of cramping seized my belly. The slickness between my thighs was impossible to ignore now, soaking through my underclothes and dampening the thin fabric of my gown.
What was wrong with me?
I pressed my face into the nearest pillow, breathing hard, trying to ground myself in something familiar. But even the pillow smelled different now—or maybe I was just more aware of it. Everything, from the furs to the fabric on my skin, seemed overly acute and immediate.
The heat pulsed again, radiating outward from my core, and I whimpered into the pillow, my thighs pressing together instinctively against the ache building there.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs.
“Aveline!” Thane’s voice, closer now. Urgent.
I squeezed my eyes shut, mortification flooding through me in waves that rivaled the cramping. They’d seen me watching. They knew I’d fled. They could probably smell what was happening to me, the same way I could smell them.
A fist hammered against my door, making me flinch.
“Aveline, open the door.” Malric this time, his voice controlled but carrying an edge that made something in my belly clench and my body eager to respond. I resisted, just barely, forcing my legs to remain still.
“No,” I managed, though my voice came out thin and shaky. “Go away.”
“You’re in heat,” Thane said, and the words landed like stones in my chest even though I didn’t fully understand them. “You need—”
“I need you to leave,” I choked out, another cramp doubling me over. My hand pressed hard against my stomach, as if pressure could contain whatever was trying to claw its way out of me. “Please.”
Silence on the other side of the door. I could hear them breathing, could feel their presence like a physical weight pressing against the wood.
“Aveline.” Malric’s voice was quieter now, but no less commanding. “Let us help.”
“I don’t need your help,” I said, though even I could hear the lie in it. My body was betraying me, producing more slick with each passing moment, the ache between my thighs intensifying until I wanted to sob with the unfairness of it all.
“The tower brought us here,” Thane said. “It opened for us. That means—”
“It means nothing,” I interrupted desperately. “Go. You need to leave the tower. Now.”
Because if they stayed, if they were here when this got worse—and some instinct told me it would get worse—I didn’t know what would happen. I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t trust my body.
I had hurt my mother. Father had said so. What was occurring felt hazardous and unmanageable, like a force that could annihilate me. I feared that I could harm them. Kill me, like I killed my mother.
Another cramp seized me, harder than the ones before, and I bit down on my fist to keep from crying out.
“We’re not leaving,” Malric said flatly.
“Then stay downstairs,” I gasped. “Stay away from me. I don’t—I can’t—”
My words dissolved into a whimper as the heat spiked again, so intense that my vision blurred. An obscene slickness gathered between my thighs, my body signaling a response I could neither grasp, accept, nor govern.
“Aveline—” Thane’s voice was softer now, laced with concern that made my chest ache. “Please. We can help. This is normal, this is—”
“Nothing about this is normal!” I shouted, my voice breaking. “I’ve been alone for years and I was fine, and now you’re here and everything is wrong!”
The silence that followed was heavier than before.
I buried my face deeper into the furs, breathing in short, sharp gasps as my body continued its betrayal.
Each touch of cloth on my skin sent a jolt through me.
Every breath seemed to carry their scents, even through the closed door.
My nipples had hardened into painful points against my gown, and the ache between my thighs was becoming unbearable.
“We’ll stay out here,” Thane said finally, his voice gentle. “We won’t leave, but we won’t force the door. Just, if you need anything. We’re here.”
I heard the soft sound of bodies settling against the wall outside my door. The rustling of leather and fabric. Their breathing slowly evening out.
They weren’t leaving.
Part of me—a part I didn’t want to acknowledge—was grateful for that. Because even through the pain and confusion and humiliation, some deep instinct recognized their presence as safety rather than threat.
But the larger part of me, the part that had learned to survive alone, that had been taught my very existence was dangerous, wanted them gone. Wanted the tower empty again. Wanted to go back to the silence and solitude where I couldn’t hurt anyone.
Another wave of heat rolled through me, and I curled tighter, my hand sliding between my thighs without conscious thought, seeking relief from the pressure building there.
The moment my fingers made contact, I gasped.
The sensation was overwhelming—too much and not enough all at once. I pulled my hand away quickly, my face burning with shame even though no one could see me.
This was a heat. The books had described it, though I’d always thought those passages were fiction, exaggeration, a metaphor for something else. Omegas experienced heats, cycles where their bodies demanded to be filled, to be bred, to be claimed by an alpha.
My stomach cramped again at the thought, and fresh slick dampened my thighs.
I had denied what I was for so long. Father had never used the word omega, had only said I was dangerous, that I needed to be contained. But the books I’d found, the histories I’d read, they’d all pointed to the same truth.
I was an omega.
And my body had just woken up to that fact because two alphas had walked into my tower and made it impossible to ignore anymore.
Outside the door, I heard Thane and Malric murmuring to each other, too quiet for me to make out the words. Their scents drifted under the door, wrapping around me even here in my nest, and my body responded with another surge of slick, another wave of desperate, aching need.
I pressed my face into the pillow and tried not to sob.
The tower hummed beneath me, steady and patient, as if it had been waiting for this all along.
As if everything that had happened—the thorns opening, the men arriving, my body awakening—had been planned by forces older and wiser than any of us.
And I was trapped in the center of it, burning from the inside out, with nowhere to go and no idea what came next.