Chapter 14
fourteen
. . .
Adrian
I check my watch for the third time in five minutes, my eyes flicking between the display and the schedule I’ve meticulously crafted. Two-fifteen.
Elle’s last temperature check showed 101.3—higher than yesterday but still within expected parameters. The next check is scheduled for three, but my instincts are screaming at me to go to her now.
I force myself to remain seated, fingers drumming against the polished surface of the dining table. Control. This is about control. Not just of the situation, but of myself. Especially of myself.
The villa feels like a pressure cooker, the storm outside having downgraded from howling destruction to steady, persistent rain.
I’ve rearranged my presentation notes three times.
Reviewed quarterly projections I could recite in my sleep.
Anything to keep my mind off Elle in that bedroom—Miles’s bedroom—her scent growing stronger with each passing hour.
When my tablet pings with an email from the resort manager about customs clearance for Elle’s suppressants, I nearly crush the device in my haste to open it. Useless.
Just another bureaucratic wall of text confirming what we already know: the medication isn’t coming. Not today, not tomorrow. Not in time.
I glance at the schedule again. I’ve built in contingencies for every scenario except the one that terrifies me most—what happens when her heat reaches peak intensity and she needs more than cooling packs and breathing exercises?
Who will she choose? The thought of her with Caleb or Miles makes something primal and possessive twist in my gut, but the thought of her suffering alone is worse.
A sound breaks through my spiral—a strangled whimper from down the hall, followed by a crash. Glass breaking. I’m on my feet before the sound fully registers, tablet forgotten as I stride toward Elle’s room.
Miles is already there when I push the door open, kneeling beside the bed where Elle is curled into herself, trembling violently. Shards of a water glass glitter on the hardwood floor, liquid soaking into the expensive rug.
“What happened?” I demand, eyes scanning Elle’s form for injuries.
“Fever spike,” Miles says, his voice infuriatingly calm as he presses a cooling pack to the back of Elle’s neck. “The glass slipped from her hand.”
Elle looks up at me, her dark eyes glassy with fever, pupils blown wide.
Her scent hits me like a physical blow—vanilla and coconut intensified a hundredfold, no trace of chemical blockers remaining.
Pure, unfiltered Omega in heat. My body responds instantly, a surge of Alpha hormones flooding my system with the primal need to claim, protect, possess.
“Adrian,” she whispers, my name in her mouth almost unrecognizable—rough and needy in a way I’ve never heard from professional, composed Elle Park.
I move to her other side, opposite Miles, careful to avoid the broken glass. “I’m here,” I say, my voice lower than usual, roughened by instinct I’m fighting to control. “What do you need?”
She laughs, the sound edged with hysteria. “What do I need? God, Adrian, I need—” She cuts herself off, biting her lip hard enough that I worry she’ll draw blood.
Miles shifts slightly, reaching for another cooling pack. “It’s happening faster than we anticipated,” he says. “Eight hours, just as predicted.”
I try not to be annoyed by his accuracy, by the composed way he’s handling this while my own heart hammers against my ribs like it’s trying to escape. I take satisfaction in knowing that at least the spike was accounted for in my schedule, even if the intensity wasn’t.
“The breathing techniques aren’t working anymore,” Elle manages, her voice thin with strain. “Nothing’s working.”
I reach for her hand, intending to check her pulse, but the moment our skin connects, she makes a sound that shoots straight through me—half gasp, half moan.
I pull back instinctively, but she grabs my wrist, keeping me anchored to her.
“Don’t,” she says, her eyes finding mine with surprising clarity. “Don’t pull away. It helps. When you touch me, it helps.”
Something in my chest contracts painfully. I’ve wanted to hear those words from her for longer than I care to admit, but not like this. Not when her biology is driving the need rather than genuine desire.
“Elle,” I begin, not sure what I’m about to say.
The door opens again, Caleb appearing with an armful of supplies—more cooling packs, bottles of water, a stack of clean towels. His usual casually rumpled appearance is gone, replaced by tense alertness that seems foreign on his features.
“Heard the crash,” he explains, eyes widening slightly as he takes in the scene—Elle trembling on the bed, me gripping her hand, Miles pressing cooling packs to her neck and wrists. “Shit. It’s happening now, isn’t it?”
“Eight hours,” Miles confirms, checking his watch. “Right on schedule.”
Caleb’s eyes meet mine over Elle’s head, a silent communication passing between us. For once, there’s no antagonism in his gaze, just shared concern and something deeper that I’m not ready to name.
“I brought everything I could think of,” he says, setting the supplies on the nightstand. “Resort kitchen’s sending up more ice and those electrolyte popsicles.”
Elle makes another sound, this one closer to a sob, and curls tighter into herself. Her hand in mine is burning hot, her pulse racing beneath my fingertips.
“It hurts,” she whispers, so quiet I almost miss it. “God, it hurts.”
The three of us freeze, identical expressions of Alpha distress crossing our faces.
An Omega in pain triggers something primitive and protective in Alpha biology—the need to fix, to heal, to provide relief at any cost. I feel it like a physical ache in my chest, and I know from their expressions that Caleb and Miles do too.
“What can we do?” Caleb asks, his usual flippant tone nowhere to be found. “Elle, tell us what you need.”
She shakes her head, eyes squeezed shut. “I don’t know. I’ve never—my suppressants usually—” Another wave of heat visibly washes through her, making her arch off the bed, a cry escaping through clenched teeth.
Miles moves with practiced efficiency, rearranging the cooling packs to target her pulse points. “Physical contact with a compatible Alpha can provide temporary relief,” he says, eyes finding mine, then Caleb’s. “Scent exposure, skin contact.”
“I’m not leaving her,” I say immediately, grip tightening on Elle’s hand.
“Neither am I,” Caleb counters, moving to sit on the bed near her feet.
Miles’s expression doesn’t change, but a muscle in his jaw ticks slightly. “It would be more effective if—”
“If what?” I challenge, feeling my Alpha instincts rise to the surface. “If she chooses one of us? If we fight it out like animals to see who gets to help her?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Miles says evenly.
Elle makes a pained sound, pulling her hand from mine to press it against her abdomen. “Stop it,” she hisses. “All of you. Stop acting like I’m not here.”
Chastened, I reach for a cooling pack, activating it and offering it to her. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
She takes it with trembling fingers, pressing it to her forehead. “It’s getting worse,” she says, voice steadier than I would have thought possible given her condition. “And I need—I need help. But I can’t—”
She breaks off, another wave of heat visibly washing through her. Her scent spikes, overwhelming the room with notes of vanilla and coconut and something citrusy that makes my mouth water. Beside me, I hear Caleb inhale sharply, and even Miles’s composed expression cracks slightly.
“One of you should stay with her,” Miles says after a moment, his voice carefully controlled. “The others should—”
“I’ll stay,” I say immediately.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Caleb counters, his usual easygoing tone edged with Alpha steel.
Miles’s jaw tightens. “This isn’t helping her. Three Alphas projecting territorial pheromones will only make her symptoms worse.”
“He’s right,” I admit reluctantly, hating to agree with Miles but unable to argue with the medical logic. “Elle needs—”
“What Elle needs,” she interrupts, pushing herself up on trembling arms, “is for you all to stop talking about me like I’m not here.”
Her dark eyes move between the three of us, fever-bright but suddenly clear with purpose.
Her hair has come loose from its usual severe bun, falling around her face in wild waves I’ve never seen before.
Even in the throes of heat, sweating and disheveled, she manages to command the room with a presence that has nothing to do with Omega pheromones and everything to do with who Elle Park fundamentally is.
“I need help,” she continues, each word precise despite the visible effort it costs her. “My heat is—it’s too much. I can’t handle it alone. Not without suppressants.”
My heart speeds up, anticipation and dread mingling in my chest. She’s going to choose. She has to choose. One of us to help her through this, to touch her, to satisfy the biological need consuming her.
“Tell us what you need,” Miles says, voice gentle but direct. “Who you want to stay.”
Elle’s eyes close briefly, a shudder running through her. When she opens them again, something has shifted in her expression—a decision made, a boundary crossed.
“That’s just it,” she says, meeting each of our gazes in turn. “I don’t—I won’t choose between you.”
The room goes silent, the only sound the rain against the windows and Elle’s slightly labored breathing.
“What do you mean?” I ask carefully, not sure I understand—or perhaps not willing to understand.
“I mean,” she says, voice stronger now, “that I won’t choose one of you over the others. I can’t. I don’t want to.”
The implication of her words hits me like a physical blow. Not choosing means either suffering alone or—
“All of us?” Caleb asks, voicing what I can’t bring myself to say. “You want all of us to stay?”