Chapter 6
Willow
The sun slices through the open window, a blade of light scorching across my eyelids. I wince, blinking against it, but the world refuses to settle. My head pulses, thick and slow, as though I’m moving underwater, drugged and heavy.
Heat licks at my skin. My body hums, but not with the sharp ache I expect. My hair clings to my face, damp with sweat and spit, and I groan, swiping at it with a hand that hardly feels attached to me.
The blanket’s wrapped around my legs, suffocating and tight. I try to kick free, but my limbs are lead.
My skin tightens with something that should be need, but isn’t. It’s wrong. Overwhelming.
Why do I feel hungover on a night I don’t remember?
The last time my body betrayed me this way was after I met Landon.
The thought of his name slams into me, a sledgehammer to my chest, sending a sharp, pulsing ache through me. He lingers still, a ghost haunting my every step—a mistake I can’t erase, a mark I can’t scrub away.
No. Wait. Something is wrong.
My body aches, feeling wrung out and left to dry. My skin’s too tight, my muscles burning as if I’ve been sprinting for miles. A feverish sweat coats my skin, but underneath, I’m cold. Bone-deep cold, the kind that cracks me apart piece by piece.
I swallow, my throat sandpaper dry.
Then it hits.
A wave of white-hot agony rips through me, tearing up from my core as though I’m being hollowed out from the inside.
A strangled cry escapes me before I can stop it, my body curling in on itself as if that could somehow shield me from the pain.
But another wave crashes through me, sharper, deeper… until I can’t breathe.
I’m being burned alive. I’m dying.
No. No, this heat isn’t just a normal heat. My body knows Landon isn’t nearby to complete our bond, but the mark on my neck flares with white hot pain.
A sound breaks from my throat, raw and desperate. My hand claws at my neck, fire ripping through the place where Landon’s mark is being burned away.
I’ve been claimed and abandoned, and now my body is rejecting the bond. Tearing me apart. Stripping me down to nothing. This is what happens when an omega loses their mate.
A scream comes out of me that doesn’t sound human even to my ears. Pain. Agony. I’m dying.
No one told me it would feel this way. As though my soul is being ripped out of my body.
A distant sound. Wood crashing against a wall, a door flung open, piercing through the haze of pain. But it’s far away, as if my mind is floating somewhere just outside my body, unable to fully grasp anything beyond the fire beneath my skin. Then, the blanket is gone.
Strong arms wrap around me, lifting me from my sweat-drenched sheets. The shift in pressure only makes the pain worse, and I scream, my fingers digging into something solid—cloth, muscle—Hunter.
His scent hits me, sweet and nutty. Safe, something inside of me whispers.
A rumbling noise breaks through the pain, low and deep, and soothing. But I can’t focus. Can’t hold on. My body locks up again, pain sending me rigid against his chest.
“Carson! Fuck! Get Graham. There’s something wrong.”
The words are muffled as if he’s speaking from the other side of a thick pane of glass. I can barely process it, barely grasp onto anything except the fire licking through my veins, burning me from the inside out.
My throat is raw, my cries hoarse, my nails clutching at his shirt. Reality fractures.
It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.
The mark on my neck sears hotter, burning from my skin. My entire body convulses from the intensity, and another scream wrenches free. The pain is everything. It’s drowning me. I can’t survive this.
I whimper, barely coherent, barely aware of the arms around me. “I—I'm—dying.”
Hunter grips me tighter. “You’re not dying.”
He’s wrong. I am.
Because I know, deep down, this isn’t just a normal heat. It’s the mark. The bond tearing itself from my body.
I don’t think I can survive it.
There are voices. Muffled. Distant. Like they’re underwater, just out of reach. I can’t understand the words. Can’t make sense of anything beyond the waves of pain dragging me under.
“—worse than we thought—”
“—fuck, Graham, hurry up—”
A hand smooths over my sweat-slick skin. I flinch, weakly, but the warmth stays—solid, anchoring. Hunter.
“Stay with me, princess.” Soft. Coaxing.
I try to answer, but my lips part uselessly. A broken whimper slips out.
“She’s burning up. This isn’t normal. Her scent’s all over the place. Fix this.” Carson fires off, fast—too fast. Too close. His breath catches at the edge of the last word.
“Fix it?” Hunter growls low. “What the fuck do you want me to do, Carson? Bite her myself?”
The air goes taut, stretched thin. No one moves. My body shakes. Wet heat tracks down my cheeks—tears? I don’t know. The scream trapped in my throat won’t break free. The pain eats everything.
Footsteps. Too loud. Voices jumbling. I can’t tell who’s who. The room tilts, tilts again.
“Shit. Get her in the bathroom, she’s on fire.”
I’m lifted—weightless, unmoored. Cold cloth drags over burning skin. Pointless. Water pours over my body, hissing on contact, but the fire inside doesn’t fade. I clutch at Hunter, barely aware of my own grip. Sobs rip through me, loud and ragged.
Close now—Carson again. His breathing isn’t steady. A hitch, a low growl swallowed between clenched teeth. “She’s not getting better.” Another breath. Rougher. It makes my body grow taunt. My scent spiking to entice him further. “She needs him.”
No—not him. Not Landon. Gone. He’s gone.
A sob bursts loose. “Make it stop.”
Hunter’s arms tighten. “We can’t.”
Another sob, hoarse. “Please.”
No one answers. The heat pulls at them. I can feel it—Hunter holding too tight, Carson too close, alpha instincts bristling under their skin. But none of it stops what’s happening to me. None of it pulls me out.