Chapter 3
Morwyn
The room had suddenly become sweltering.
Scents permeated the space, mixing and coalescing, building the pressure behind my eyes.
I had to get out of there. Clutching my arms around my midsection, I walked down the corridor to get outside.
The cool winter air rushed over me, kissing the beading sweat on my skin and sending a pleasant shiver down my spine.
Snow fell around me, landing in delicate whispers against my cheeks.
Watching Fenris with Jessi struck a chord deep in my gut. I’d seen him with pups before, but tonight, with the warmth of the sparkling lights behind him and the hug of family surrounding us, a slight twinge of yearning hit my chest.
I’d always wanted children. I’d always wanted a little family of my own.
But being a healer dominated so much of my time, I never considered how or when it might happen.
I didn’t need a mate to have a family. I could visit a human sperm donation center and do it myself.
But it was certainly easier, and perhaps more joyful, to have someone to share it with.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, focusing on the cool flakes dusting my face.
The fading sounds of the party echoed behind me, but the soft tinkles of flurries hitting the ground drowned out the revelry.
It was peaceful out here, the moonlight shining overhead and the world hibernating in quiet sleep, on this, the longest night of the year.
The door opened behind me, and I turned to see Fenris walk through the space, his eyebrows furrowed, his sharp gaze searching. When it landed on me, his features softened, and he grinned.
“There you are,” he said. “Everything alright?”
“Fine.” I sighed and glanced back toward the forest at the edge of the homestead. “Just getting some air.”
He stood next to me, and the delicious aroma of his scent licked through my nerves, pooling in my lower gut, sinking lower.
I shivered and hugged myself tighter. I’d known Fen a long time, and he’d never elicited this type of reaction from me before.
My wolf whined inside my mind, urging me to curl into his side, to wrap my arms around him and pull him closer.
She wanted to bathe in the delicious pheromones wafting off him, to roll around in them until they coated me inside and out.
“Aren’t you missing all the fun?” I nodded back toward the festivities, hoping he’d get the hint and go away.
The mix of desperation in my body and his alluring presence had me thinking things I shouldn’t.
It made me want things that were off the table.
He didn’t see me like that, never had. I had gotten over my stupid little crush on him when I hit puberty.
Our lives didn’t need the added complication of something more between us.
He hummed and shook his head. “Maybe I needed some air, too.”
“Won’t they miss you?” I tensed as another wave of tremors shot through my bones.
“They’ll survive,” he said, moving closer to wrap an arm over my shoulders. “I’d rather make sure our beloved healer is taken care of.”
“Like I said—” I cut myself off as fire shot down my midsection from the contact and boiled my blood. I clenched my thighs together as agony surged in my cunt, desperately empty, needing to be filled.
No.
The realization hit me so suddenly, I nearly collapsed. I hadn’t had a heat in…what? Eighteen months? And the last time, I’d felt it coming on, so I’d been able to knock myself out for it, take a few sedatives, and hide in my room until it was over.
Hell, I’d been so distracted with work, I hadn’t kept track of the dates.
Oh, no. No, no, no.
Fen ducked his head into my shoulder and trailed his nose along my neck, taking a long, slow inhale. “You smell delicious.”
His purr rattled through me, and I melted.
Logic fought with my primal instincts as I struggled to stay upright.
I couldn’t…shouldn’t…get caught in this web with him.
I should run back to the infirmary, ask Briggs to put me down, and wait it out for the next few days.
But my animal side growled at the idea. I was already in too deep.
“Fen.” I moaned his name, the taste of his cinnamon dominance pooling on my tongue as it slid down the back of my throat.
My fingers curled into his shirt, gripping the fabric as I tugged him closer.
Warmth radiated off his hard body, decadent and entrancing, and it wrapped its tendrils around the aching parts of me.
I was stuck in his tractor beam, or perhaps he was stuck in mine, and there was precious little time to get out.
I wasn’t even sure I wanted to.
“Wyn.” He nuzzled his face closer to my neck, ghosting his lips over my jaw and up my cheek. I sizzled from the near contact, my wolf howling with delight.
Yes, she cried. Yes. More. Him. Him. Him.
“I think…” I trailed off, unable to form the words as I clenched my eyes shut in a feeble attempt to shake away the intoxication. All I saw was him. All I knew was the sweet delicacy of his embrace, and I never wanted to leave it.
I was thirty years old, and I’d been through multiple heats before.
In my world, a person was only fertile once or twice a year.
Male-presenting shifters went into ruts, a hormone-crazed frenzy requiring their mate or a willing partner to take the brunt of their attention.
Heats were similar for those who presented female.
But if that female could carry pups, it was the only open window for conception.
My magic would call to any available male in the area, announcing my status and pleading for help.
In the old days, dominants would fight over a shifter in heat. Now, we had the option to put ourselves out of our misery until it passed. Unless a workaholic forgot about it until it was too late.
Fenris hummed and trailed his lips over my forehead to press a tender kiss between my brows.
“You can tell me, Wyn,” he said. “I’m here for you.”
His wolf had undoubtedly picked up on what was truly wrong, and unless I wanted him to see me through my heat, I needed to get away from him as quickly as I could.
No, my other half whimpered. Him. Please, him.
Everything in me wanted to draw him closer, but I had to do this for both our sakes.
He didn’t know, and if he did, he’d do it out of some twisted sense of obligation.
I didn’t need or want his pity. If I ever let someone help me through a heat, it would be because they wanted it, not because biology took over and forced them into it.
In the end, I didn’t have a choice. The full force of my magic erupted out of me, exploding pheromones in a force field that knocked him a few feet away.
I arched into it and threw my head back as the wave of agony coursed through my veins.
My fangs extended, throbbing for a neck to sink into, and tears ran down my cheeks as the heat took hold of my senses.
My vision blackened, and my mind went blank, my skin tightening around my muscles.
It flung me into the air, lifting me onto the balls of my feet as it poured out of me, taking all of my energy with it.
My molecules flamed with wanton yearning desire, desperate for someone, anyone, to put an end to it.
The waves seemed never-ending. I’d never known such fear, such pain. Not even my transition was this terrible.
When it was over, I crashed back to earth and hunched over, my hands on my knees as I gasped for air. I pulsed with profound emptiness, all of my attention centered on the ache between my legs.
“Fucking hell,” Fenris growled, walking closer.
His scent hit me again, this time stronger, more potent, than before. It called to my wild side, all masculine dominance and virile strength. He could take care of me. He was powerful and respected and so fucking hot. I almost launched myself at him.
He grabbed my shoulders and helped me upright, but when I glanced at his eyes, they shimmered with the animal behind them.
No longer friendly and jovial, they echoed with hunger and feral need.
He was trapped in the net of my hormones, the closest counterpart in the shockwave, and now he’d let the magic take over.
“Wyn, you’re in heat.” He ghosted his calloused palms over my neck to my jaw and cupped my face, holding me like I meant the world to him. But even in my oxytocin-driven haze, I knew it was lust taking over.
“I know,” I growled as another wave hit me, right in the cunt, and I almost doubled over, clutching his shoulders to keep myself upright.
Sweat beaded down my temples, and I struggled to inhale.
All I could taste was his magnificent maleness, his heady strength making my mouth water. My fangs throbbed, and my knees shook.
He pulled me closer to him and wrapped his arms around me, tucking me closer to his chest. But that made it worse. I turned my face to his neck, to the spot right near his shoulder where his scent was the strongest, and a moan barrelled out of my chest.
Hell, he was the most tantalizing person I’d ever been close to, and suddenly, all the reasons this was a terrible idea flew out of my head. I didn’t care about my feelings. I didn’t care about his past or my job or how ill-matched we truly were. I had to taste him. I had to get more.
My tongue darted out on its own and traced a line up his windpipe to his jaw, and I swallowed that rich, cinnamon elegance. He hissed, and his muscles tensed, but I only moaned lower.
“Careful, little wolf,” he said. “I’m struggling to be the gentleman here.”
I wanted to thank him for that, but my wolf didn’t. She didn’t want a gentleman. She didn’t want this kind version of him. She wanted the beast, the monster within, the one who brought three women back to his room with a devilish grin.
I knew what would happen if he didn’t help me.
My shifter magic would escalate and continue to pulse out of me until any viable dominant found me and took me.
The pain would get worse. My cunt would cramp, and my molecules would ignite, and it would leave me utterly defenseless until someone gave in.
Likewise, the preternatural energy would get stronger.
It would draw shifters in, hypnotize them until it clawed out their inner animal and forced them to give me what I needed.
“Please.” The word humiliated me, and in a move that would amplify my embarrassment once this ended, I rocked my hips against him.
A gasp tore out of me at the thick, rigid length pressing into my pelvis.
My cunt squeezed around the void inside me, yearning to be filled.
It cramped, and I cried out, moving against him again as I begged for release and wrapped my hands behind his neck. “Please, Fen. Please.”
“Fuck.” He grabbed my wrists and disentangled himself from me to take a step back. “Wyn, listen to me. I can take you to the infirmary. They’ll put you out until—”
“No!” It wasn’t me speaking. The snarled roar came from my animal, and she pushed to the forefront of my mind, taking over my senses. “You.”
Like called to like. The switch in his features was immediate, the tortured furrow in his brows easing as a grin spread across his lips.
“Oh, you poor thing,” he said, his tone deeper and darker. “You’d let me take care of you? You want me to help you through it?”
The human side of me screamed for caution.
She wanted to pump the brakes and think things through.
But the wolf bared its teeth and decided we’d done enough thinking for a lifetime.
All we did was think. It was time to feel.
And just now, we ached with the pain of longing for something only he could give.
“Yes,” I cooed. “Please. Help me.”
He hummed an appreciative noise and bent to scoop me in his arms, one under my knees, the other under my shoulders.
Fen lifted me into the air like I weighed nothing, and compared to his six-three frame, I likely did.
I burrowed my nose in his neck and breathed him in deep, anticipation coiling in my gut at the thought of where we were heading.
I barely heard the party as we passed, and if any of our packmates noticed, none stopped us.
He carried me through the hallways, past the dormitories designated for the younger members, and into the underground corridors.
I snuggled close to him as the haze of my heat distorted time.
The magic welled in my soul and threatened to take over, and I worried that we wouldn’t make it to a safe space before it exploded out of me again, paralyzing us both.
I only vaguely noticed the cool chill of snow as we emerged from the tunnels. A few quick steps later, we were cocooned in warmth again. His rich, heady scent wrapped around me.
His house.
His space.
Him.
He’d brought me to his cabin. A small kitchenette sat to the right, mirroring the tiny living room to the left.
We walked past it, down the hallway to his bedroom at the back of the house.
When he laid me down in his bed, I moaned as fresh cinnamon and cotton plumed around me, soothing me, calming me.
He’s here. He’ll help me.
“Aww, little wolf,” he said as he knelt by my feet. “Shh, it’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re doing so well. You’ll be okay, now.”