18. First Heat Approaching #3
Dr. Sylvie shakes her head but she's smiling as she types her number into Wendolyn's phone. "Text me the details. And remember—" she looks at me seriously "—this is for social things only. Medical questions go through the office."
"Social things only," I promise, clutching my prescriptions like lifelines.
The drive back to Cactus Rose feels different, charged with possibility. Wendolyn hums something that might be Taylor Swift while I stare out the window, trying to process everything.
Natural blockers that work with my body.
A doctor who says I'm not broken.
Friends who want to teach me about nesting—whatever that actually means. It's almost too much good after so many years of barely survivable.
"You okay over there?" Wendolyn asks as we turn onto the ranch road. "You've got that shell-shocked look people get when they realize the world doesn't have to be shit."
"Something like that." I press my hand to my stomach where cramps still pulse in steady waves. "I just... I didn't know medical care could be like that. Respectful. Affirming."
"Yeah, well, welcome to the revolution, baby. We're taking care of ourselves now, and any Alpha who doesn't like it can eat rocks."
The house comes into view, and even from here I can see movement through the kitchen windows. Multiple figures working in what looks like coordinated chaos—lunch preparation in full swing.
My stomach growls, reminding me I skipped breakfast in my anxiety.
As we approach the kitchen, the scent hits first—real food, something warm and meaty, garlic and roasting root vegetables, the acid whisper of tomatoes giving way to something subtly sweet and caramelized at the edges.
There’s a thump as someone sets a heavy pan down, then laughter, overlapping as the four men move around each other in choreographed chaos, elbowing for utensils and fridge space like they do this every day and somehow nobody’s ever gotten stabbed.
River is manning the stove, a streak of flour on his jaw, while Austin slices bread with surgical precision and Maverick picks basil leaves off the stem, muttering curses at the stubborn bits that refuse to detach.
Cole stands at the head of the island, delegating with a steady authority that somehow doesn’t feel like barking orders but like keeping a big ship on course.
The whole tableau would be domestic as a Norman Rockwell painting if it weren't for the energy crackling between them, a livewire charge of rivalry and unspoken inside jokes and—if I’m honest—something that looks a lot like care.
Wendolyn surveys the scene, arms folded over her chest, and grins with queenly satisfaction.
"Looks like your men are feeding you," she announces, loud enough that every head in the room turns our way. "About damn time someone put some weight back on you, Willa. Last week, I nearly got a paper cut brushing your elbow."
Maverick lifts an eyebrow, deadpan.
"She’s got plenty of bite for someone so allegedly malnourished. Didn’t you nearly take off Cole’s hand last night when he tried to finish your fries?"
Cole acts wounded, clutching his imaginary injury.
"Those were her fries. Man learns respect after the first time," he says, and there’s a low ripple of amusement around the table.
Even River looks up from the simmering sauce long enough to flash a smile in my direction, eyes crinkling at the edges with a warmth that makes my stomach flip in a way that has nothing to do with hunger.
Wendolyn leans closer as I step into the kitchen, her voice pitched lower.
"Honestly? You’re still half the size you should be. I bet Iron Ridge put you on one of those nutrition plans, right? Something about controlling hormone balance, keeping Omegas ‘manageable’?"
I shrug, but my cheeks flare hot.
She’s not wrong.
Blake had opinions about Omega figures, opinions that included words like "delicate" and "maintained."
Another thing to unlearn, another freedom to claim.
We enter through the kitchen door to find organized chaos.
River stands at the stove stirring something that smells like heaven, while Austin chops vegetables with medical precision. Cole mans the grill outside, visible through the window, and Mavi... Mavi's setting the table, which should be normal except he freezes mid-motion when I walk in.
The glass in his hand hovers three inches above the table, his whole body going rigid.
His nostrils flare once, twice, and his eyes darken from forest to midnight in the space of a heartbeat.
"Shit," he breathes, the word barely audible.
River turns from the stove, and I watch his face change as my scent hits him. The easy smile falters, his throat working as he swallows hard. The spoon in his hand trembles slightly before he sets it down with excessive care.
"Willa," he says, voice rougher than I've ever heard it. "You're back."
Austin's knife stills on the cutting board. He doesn't turn around, but I can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his knuckles go white around the knife handle. When he finally looks at me, his pupils are blown wide, the warm hazel barely visible around black.
"How was the appointment?" he asks, and oh, he's trying so hard to sound normal.
To be the sunshine one, the easy one, but his jaw clenches between words like he's fighting not to say something else entirely.
"I'll get Cole," Mavi announces abruptly, practically fleeing to the back door.
Through the window, I watch him grab Cole's shoulder, see Cole's whole body stiffen as Mavi speaks urgently in his ear.
When Cole enters, he moves carefully, like he's approaching a spooked horse. But his eyes— storm-gray gone almost silver —tell a different story.
They track over me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle, cataloging every change, every sign of my body's betrayal.
"You need to sit," he says, pulling out a chair. "And explain what the doctor said."
I sink into the offered seat, hyperaware of how they've all shifted positions. Not crowding, not quite, but creating a loose circle where they can watch me while maintaining distance. Like planets orbiting an unstable sun.
"My blockers are failing," I start, voice huskier than ever from the combination of smoke damage and arousal I'm trying to ignore. "Dr. Sylvie switched me to natural ones, but there's an adjustment period. Forty-eight hours where I need to avoid..."
"Fucking?" Wendolyn supplies helpfully from where she's raiding the fridge. "She needs to avoid getting railed until her hormones settle. So hold your cocks and let an Omega adapt to actual medical care for once."
I can’t help but blush—no, not blush, because that’s far too dainty a word for the full-body ignition this moment produces.
I look like I’ve been staked out in the Montana sun, every square inch of me pink and radiating off an embarrassing, involuntary heat signature.
Wendolyn, meanwhile, just beams at the assembled men like she’s the proud owner of a prize-winning livestock auction and has no earthly idea what she’s done to the value of my dignity.
The four of them react like she’s detonated a smoke grenade in the middle of the kitchen, each Alpha responding with their own highly specific brand of physical discomfort.
River’s hand tenses around the wooden spoon, enough to make it bow.
Austin chokes on an inhale sharp enough to turn his face pinker than mine, while Maverick’s jaw clenches so violently I swear I hear enamel crack.
Even Cole—usually the imperturbable one—freezes, his eyes doing a slow blink like he’s rebooting to process the news.
And the thing is, we’ve never even gotten close to actual fucking.
Not even a near-miss. If you don’t count the humid, weirdly sacred moment in the barn when Cole gripped my wrist and guided me so gently from the hayloft, or the dozen times Maverick has trapped me against a wall with pure, predatory intent before peeling away and muttering “nope, not today,” or the slow, inexorable crush of River’s arms when he helps me dismount from a horse, or the time Austin bandaged my calf and looked up at me, eyes burning with unsaid apology and unspeakable hunger, like he wanted to fix a thousand wounds at once with his hands and his tongue—if you don’t count any of those, then yeah, totally, zero progress on the fucking front.
Except I do count them, every single one, so that’s a lie. I haven’t known what it is to be wanted without being owned until recently, and now that it’s happening I don’t know what the hell to do with myself except make things weird for everyone, which is apparently my superpower.
I try to shrink into my chair, away from the collective force of their attention, but the kitchen is too small and so am I.
Maverick won’t meet my eyes, which is new and disorienting; he always looks head-on, like he’s daring you to call him a bastard.
Now he’s staring at the ceiling fan, lip curled in an expression halfway between annoyance and longing.
River’s hands are shaking, barely, as he ladles sauce into a bowl, then wipes his knuckles on a dish towel with deliberate, mechanical focus. He won’t look at me either, but I feel him tracking me by scent or echolocation, every muscle taut as if bracing against an earthquake.
Austin tries, bless him, to fill the silence with gentle optimism, but there’s a tremor in his voice that wasn’t there yesterday.
The way he looks at me—concern layered over something softer and so much more dangerous—it makes my head go hot.
I am, at this point, likely emitting pheromones that could floor a moose at fifty yards.
And Cole, who’s supposed to be the anchor, the level-headed captain of this ship, can’t take his eyes off me.
He watches like he’s memorizing a route through dangerous country: cataloging every flicker, every tremor, every red-blossom patch on my face.
The silence stretches tight, one of those moments with a gravity so thick it bends memory around it.