Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
willa
I wait until there’s silence on the other side of the door. I think I need to go to the hotel.
Cracking it open, I’m met with an empty hallway. Small favors.
I head away from the screaming crowds and the arena.
The hallway stretches endlessly in front of me, and every step feels like wading through concrete.
I don’t know if it’s because I’ve clearly missed at least one heat cycle in the last few months, or because of what we all just did these past few days. But what normally would take days to slowly pull me under is riding me like a fucking tornado.
The clawing mindlessness of what’s to come is a lot closer than it should be, closer than I’m ready for. I’m not home. I’m in public. I have nothing with me—not a nest, not suppressants, not even a plan.
Fuck, we haven’t even talked about it. Will they want to be with me through a heat? I feel like they would, but that’s not an easy thing to throw at their feet. And if how I’m feeling now is any indication, it won’t be an easy one.
Another rolling cramp twists through my womb, a deep pulsing ache for release, and knots already driving at me with singular focus.
Just get to the bathroom. Just make it that far.
My skin is on fire. Not the pleasant warmth from earlier when I was watching Jake ride—this is different.
It feels wrong, like I’ve been dipped in gasoline and someone’s holding a match too close.
It takes me far too long to register my panting, my breath seesawing out of me.
Sweat trickles down my spine, between my breasts, along my temples.
Another cramp hits, low and vicious. I have to stop. My hand slaps against the concrete wall beside me, and I brace myself as the wave of pain rolls through my pelvis. It steals my breath, makes my knees want to buckle.
“Fuck,” I gasp into the empty hallway. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
The cramp eases enough for me to partially straighten, though the pain doesn’t subside fully. With another milder cramp, a gush of slick pours from my center.
Fuck, I’m a mess.
And that’s when I smell it—the perfume pouring off my skin, the thick scent of my slick. Sweet and cloying, unmistakably Omega, unmistakably heat. Buttercups and vanilla and honey, so concentrated it makes my own head swim.
Any Alpha within fifty feet is going to scent this. Going to know exactly what’s happening to me.
Dangerous. This is dangerous.
I need to get out of here. Now.
A deep sense of urgency escalates into full-blown panic.
My first thought is the guys—call them, tell them, let them come get me.
But my Omega immediately rejects that idea.
They just publicly claimed me. They’re doing interviews, photos—all the things that matter for their careers.
I can’t pull them away from that. Can’t be the needy Omega who ruins their moment.
Bad Omega. Demanding Omega. Inconvenient Omega.
My phone. I just need to call an Uber, get to the hotel, and lock myself in a room before this gets worse. The guys will be tied up for an hour, maybe more.
I can’t wait that long. Won’t make them wait on me.
Handle it yourself. You always handle it yourself.
I pull out my phone with shaking hands and open the app. My vision blurs for a second, and I have to blink hard to focus on the screen. A wave of dizziness threatens to have me on my ass.
Come on, Willa. Just book the fucking car.
Another cramp, stronger this time. I double over, phone nearly slipping from my grip. A sound escapes me—half whimper, half growl—and I hate it. Hate how my body is betraying me, how my Omega is clawing to the surface despite every suppressant I’ve been taking.
Please, I think desperately at my own biology. Please just let me get home. Just give me an hour. Just—
“Well, well. What do we have here?”
Ice floods my veins. Mark Felton steps around the corner, and the smile on his face makes my stomach turn.
Oh god. Alarm bells start going off in my head. Need to get away, not safe, not safe. Fuck me.
“Willa.” He says my name like he fucking owns me. “You smell… different.”
I straighten as much as I can, trying to school my features into something that isn’t terror. “Stay away from me.”
“Now why would I do that?” He takes a step closer, inhaling deeply. His eyes dilate. “You’re in heat.”
A look of pure lust heats his face, and I can smell his scent rising in response to the heat pheromones I’m giving off. Except where normally an Alpha’s interest might be flattering, appealing even, his smell makes my stomach turn. Sour and overripe and wrong.
I feel like a rabbit caught by a jackal.
The air leaves my lungs as a smile that could curdle milk spreads across his face. Every hair on my body rises.
“Now what would an unbonded Omega be doing all alone, without her pack of Alphas to protect her?”
“They’ll be back any second.” My voice shakes, and I hate that too. “You need to leave. Now.”
“No, I don’t think so.” Another step. “See, that’s not how this is going to play out. I happen to know that Pack McCrea is about as far away from this spot as you can be. And that doesn’t take into account the amount of press just waiting to get playboy McCrea locked into an exclusive interview.”
“I’ll scream,” I say, trying desperately to edge back my panic and get the heat fog to clear enough to get away from him.
I try to discreetly unlock my phone. If I can call Beau—fuck the reporters—he’ll be here, and maybe he’ll kill this asshole.
Felton doesn’t notice me turn the phone so I can glance at the screen.
“No one’s here,” he says, taking another step. I take one back, just as a wave hits me so hard my knees buckle, and I drop the phone.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I look at him, then try to quickly bend to retrieve it, but he’s there in a flash and kicks my phone down the hallway so hard it skitters across the concrete and cracks against the far wall.
“No!” I yell.
“Funny thing about that word.” His smile widens. “No… it doesn’t matter once we’re bonded. If you’re mine, there isn’t a damn thing any of them can do about it.”
“That is not true. It’s illegal.” I back up, but I’m already against the wall. Nowhere to go. Fear courses through my veins.
“Doesn’t matter what the law says once you’re bonded to me. Your body will recognize me as your Alpha. Your Omega will crave me. And good luck proving it wasn’t consensual when you’re in heat and covered in my scent. Who’s going to believe you didn’t want the Alpha who helped you through it?”
He’s close enough now that I can smell him—that sour, overripe scent that made my skin crawl the first time I met him. It’s thick now, sharpened by arousal and anticipation.
Another cramp hits, and I can’t stop the small sound of pain that escapes.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” His voice drops to something that sounds like a mockery of concern and care. It makes my skin crawl worse than the aggression. “Heat coming on without a pack to help you through it. That’s cruel. Inhumane, really.”
“I have a pack,” I grit out through clenched teeth.
“Do you?” He reaches out, and I try to dodge, but I’m trapped between him and the wall. His hand closes around my upper arm. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re all alone. And unclaimed. No bond marks on that pretty neck of yours.”
His grip is iron. I try to pull away, but another cramp chooses that moment to tear through me, and my knees buckle. He catches me, pulling me against him, and the wrongness of it—wrong scent, wrong touch, wrong Alpha—makes bile rise in my throat.
But my body, traitorous and heat-addled, reacts.
Not with pleasure. God, not with pleasure. But with that desperate Omega instinct that screams Alpha, pack, safe, help, regardless of which Alpha it is. For just a fraction of a second, I lean into him, seeking the relief that any Alpha presence promises during heat.
Then my conscious mind catches up, and I shove away, disgusted with myself, with him, with my own biology.
“That’s it,” Felton breathes, and his grip tightens. “I felt that. Your Omega knows what she needs.”
“Fuck you.” I try to wrench free, but he’s so much stronger, and another cramp is building, and I can feel myself losing more and more of my rational mind.
“Not here,” he says to himself as he starts pulling me down the hallway. “Too public. But I know a place.”
“Let go of me!” I dig my heels in, try to twist out of his grip. “Help! Someone—”
His hand clamps over my mouth, cutting off my scream, pulling me tight against his body. The sheer size and strength of him is too much for me to fight.
His oily breath brushes against the outside of my ear, and I recoil.
“Shh. We wouldn’t want to cause a scene, would we? Think about your career. Your reputation. An Omega making a scene during pre-heat? They’ll say you were asking for it.”
I fight hard, trying to kick and bite him, but the way he has me held against him leaves little room for movement. My limbs feel heavy, uncoordinated. The heat is making me weak when I need to be strong.
He drags me around another corner, down a service corridor I’ve never been in. The main arena noise fades. My phone is long gone, shattered somewhere back in the hallway.
We reach a bathroom, far from any main thoroughfare. He kicks the door open and shoves me inside. I stumble, catching myself on the sink.
“Please,” I hear myself say, and I hate the plea in my voice. “Please don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?” He’s blocking the doorway, his scent filling the small space, making it hard to breathe.
“Help an Omega in distress? Fulfill my biological imperative? Claim what’s fucking mine!
” His voice rises to a shout before dropping back down.
“You should be thanking me, Willa. By the time your heat fully hits, you’ll be begging for any Alpha.
At least this way, when I bond with you, it will feel good. ”
Horror crashes over me. “You’re going to—”
“I’m going to claim you.” His eyes are wild now, pupils blown so wide there’s barely any color left. “Going to bite you, bond you, before McCrea or any of his pack have any idea what’s happening. And by the time they find you? It’ll be too late. You’ll be mine. Legally. Biologically. Permanently.”
“They’ll kill you.” My voice is shaking, but I mean every word. “They will literally kill you.”
“Will they?” He tilts his head, and there’s something unhinged in the movement. “Or will they be forced to accept that an unbonded Omega in heat made her choice? That’s what I’ll tell them. That you came to me. Begged me to help you. And being the gentleman I am, I couldn’t refuse.”
The cold understanding that Mark Felton is a violent man who has lost touch with reality sends a spike of pure terror straight to my heart. This isn’t just about wanting me. This is about winning. About taking what he thinks belongs to him, regardless of the cost.
He’s not going to stop. No amount of pleading or reasoning will change his mind.
He’s going to do this, and there’s nothing I can do to stop him.
He’s backing out of the bathroom now, and I realize with dawning horror what he’s doing.
“Wait—”
The door slams shut. I hear something rattling on the other side of the door—metal scraping against metal. I can’t tell exactly what it is, but when I wrench on the handle, the door won’t budge.
“No!” I throw myself at the door, pounding with both fists. “No, no, no! Let me out!”
“I’ll be back soon.” His voice is muffled through the door. “Just need to make a phone call. Can’t have you in a bathroom for a few days while we ride out your heat.”
I hear him making what sounds like a phone call as he walks away, his voice fading down the hallway. I press my ear against the door, straining to hear.
“…yeah, got a little surprise… need you here… forty minutes?… bring the SUV…”
His pack. He’s calling his pack.
Fuck, no, no, no.
“Felton!” I scream his name, pound harder. “Felton, please! Please don’t do this!”
His footsteps fade.
I’m alone.
Another cramp hits, so vicious I cry out and drop to my knees. The tile is cold against my skin, but I’m burning up, sweating through my clothes.
Okay. Okay, think. The door. I stagger to my feet, examine the handle—no help, and the hinges are on the other side. No way to get to them.
I kick at the door anyway. Once. Twice. Three times until my foot aches, and the door hasn’t budged.
Pound on it. Scream until your throat is raw.
“Help! Someone help me! I’m locked in here! Please!”
But I’m too far from the main areas. No one can hear me over the roar of the crowd and the arena announcements.
Another cramp drops me back to my knees. This one doesn’t ease. It just keeps building, wave after wave of heat and pain and need that makes it hard to think, hard to breathe.
My Omega is panicking now, realizing she’s trapped, alone, vulnerable during the most dangerous time. She’s sending out distress pheromones that I can smell even through my own heat-fogged brain. They’re probably saturating the hallway outside, but there’s no one out there to scent them.
The pack will find you, I try to tell myself. They’ll know something’s wrong. They’ll come looking.
But what if they don’t? What if they’re too far away? What if Felton comes back first with his pack, and—
I can’t think about that. I drag myself to the corner farthest from the door, curl up as small as I can make myself.
My whole body is shaking—from fever, from fear, from cramps that are coming faster now.
The heat is ramping up, and without pack, without Alpha, without help, it’s going to get bad. Really bad.
Please, I think desperately. Please find me. Beau. Jake. Charlie. Please.
Another cramp, and this one makes my vision go white. I can’t breathe through it, can only hold myself and wait for it to pass.
It doesn’t pass.
The pain keeps building. I’m so fucking hot; it’s never been like this. I can feel consciousness starting to slip.
No. Stay awake. You have to stay awake.
But I’m so tired. So hot. So scared.
My eyes drift closed.
Please, I think one more time. Please find me.
Then there’s nothing but darkness.