Chapter 8 #2
This time was worse. So much worse. The cramping hit like a fist to my gut, doubling me over in the nest. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Could only feel—the pain, the need, the desperate, clawing hunger for something I refused to name.
Slick soaked through the towel I was still wearing. I tore it off, too far gone to care about modesty, and pressed my face into the pillow that smelled like Caleb. Pine and woodsmoke. Alpha. Strong.
A moan escaped my throat, low and needy and nothing like my own voice.
"No," I gasped, forcing myself to pull back from the pillow. "No, no, no." My body wasn't listening to me anymore. My hand slid down my stomach, trailing through the slick that coated my thighs, and I—
I couldn't stop myself. The first touch of my fingers against my swollen, aching flesh sent lightning through my veins.
I cried out, hips bucking involuntarily, chasing a relief that danced just out of reach.
I rubbed desperate circles around my clit, trying to take the edge off, trying to give my body something, anything, to quiet the screaming need.
It wasn't enough. It was never going to be enough. The orgasm, when it finally hit, was a pale shadow of satisfaction. A brief flicker of relief that faded almost instantly, leaving me more desperate than before. My body didn't want my own hands. It wanted Alpha hands. Alpha mouths. Alpha knots.
I screamed into the pillow, frustration and fury and shame tangled together until I couldn't tell them apart.
"Fuck," I sobbed, tears streaming down my face. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." Another cramp tore through me, punishment for trying to satisfy myself, and I curled into a ball and shook.
I didn't hear the door open. Didn't know anyone was there until a cool hand pressed against my burning forehead, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
Leo.
He was crouched beside the bed, those storm-gray eyes dark with something that made my stomach flip. His scent washed over me, chocolate and whiskey and spice, and my body lit up like a Christmas tree.
"Easy," he murmured, his hand still on my forehead. "Easy, sweetheart. I've got you."
"Don't touch me." But I didn't pull away. Couldn't pull away. His hand was cool against my fever-hot skin, and some animal part of me was desperate for more contact, more touch, more more more.
"You're burning up." His thumb stroked across my temple, and I shuddered. "Your heat's hitting hard. Harder than we expected."
"Good." The word came out slurred. "Hope it kills me."
"It won't." His other hand came up, pushing sweat-damp hair back from my face. "We won't let it. You have to stop fighting so hard, Ava. You're making it worse."
"I don't care." I cried out.
"Yes, you do." He leaned closer, and I could see the strain around his eyes, the tension in his jaw.
He was holding himself back. I could smell how much he wanted me, the Alpha arousal cutting through his normal scent like a blade.
"You care about surviving. You've always cared about surviving.
And right now, surviving means accepting help. "
"Not from you." But my voice was weak. My whole body was weak, trembling and aching and screaming for relief. "Never from you." Leo's smile was sad. Gentle. Nothing like the teasing smirk I was used to.
"Maybe not today," he said quietly. "But soon. Your heat is going to peak within the next twelve hours, and when it does, you won't be able to refuse anymore. Your body won't let you."
"My body doesn't get to decide." I told him and I knew it was true. I wasn’t going to have a choice at the end of this.
"Sweetheart." He cupped my face in both hands, forcing me to look at him.
His gray eyes burned into mine, deadly serious.
"Your body is the only thing that gets to decide.
That's what heat is. That's what being Omega means.
You can fight it all you want, but eventually, biology wins. It always wins."
I wanted to argue. To tell him he was wrong, that I was stronger than my instincts, that I could outlast anything my stupid traitorous body threw at me. Another cramp chose that moment to hit, and I cried out, curling in on myself, and Leo caught me.
His arms wrapped around me, pulling me against his chest, and I was too weak to fight. Too desperate for the comfort of contact to push him away. He held me through the spasm, one hand rubbing circles on my back while I shook and whimpered and hated myself for not hating this.
"There you go," he murmured against my hair. "Just breathe. Ride it out. I've got you."
"I hate you," I whispered into his shirt.
"I know." He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. "I love you anyway." When the cramp finally passed, I was limp in his arms, too exhausted to move. Leo laid me back in the nest gently, carefully, adjusting the blankets around me with a tenderness that made my chest ache.
"Sleep if you can," he said, standing. "The worst is still coming. You'll need your strength."
I wanted to tell him to go to hell. Instead, I closed my eyes and fell into a fitful, fever-bright sleep. The dreams were unbearable.
Hands on my skin—too many hands, not enough hands. Mouths trailing fire everywhere they touched. Bodies pressing me down into softness, surrounding me, filling me until I couldn't tell where I ended and they began.
Four faces above me, watching me fall apart.
Mason, golden and gentle, whispering words of love against my throat.
Ethan, green eyes blazing, taking me apart with clinical precision.
Leo, laughing even as he made me scream, finding every sensitive spot and exploiting it mercilessly.
Caleb, always Caleb, silent and intense, those ice-blue eyes burning into mine as he claimed me in ways I couldn't even articulate.
I woke gasping, drenched in sweat, my hand between my legs again.
Night had fallen while I slept, leaving the room dark, and only a single lamp illuminating the shadows.
My body was worse—the fever higher, the cramps more frequent, the slick a constant flow that had soaked through everything beneath me.
I wasn't alone. Caleb stood in the doorway, a massive shadow backlit by the hall light. He wasn't moving. Wasn't speaking. Just watching me with those pale eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness.
"Caleb." His name came out as a whimper. I didn't mean for it to sound like that—like a plea, like a prayer. But my body was past caring what I meant. He still didn't move. Didn't speak. But something shifted in his expression, that stone-carved face showing a crack of something raw underneath.
"Please," I heard myself whisper. "Please, I can't—I need—"
I didn't know what I was asking for. Didn't want to know.
But my hand reached out toward him, trembling, desperate for something I couldn't name.
Caleb's hands curled into fists at his sides.
His whole body was rigid, every muscle straining against some invisible force.
He wanted to come to me. I could see it.
Could smell it—the sharp spike of Alpha arousal that cut through the air like lightning.
He didn't move.
"Not yet," he said, his voice rough as gravel. The first words I'd ever heard him speak directly to me. "Not like this."
"Why?" The word came out broken. "You have me. You all have me. I can't fight anymore. I can't—"
"Because when I take you." He stepped into the room, just one step, and stopped.
The light caught his face, those brutal angles and ice-blue eyes.
"When I finally have you under me, when I knot you for the first time, when I make you mine, you're going to be present for it.
You're going to feel everything. And you're going to remember it for the rest of your life. "
A sob caught in my throat.
"I want you to know," he continued, his voice low and dark and devastating.
"Every moment. Every touch. Every time I make you come apart.
I want it burned into your memory so deep that you'll never be able to forget.
So you'll never be able to pretend it didn't happen.
That you didn't want it. That you didn't beg for it. "
"I won't beg," I whispered, but we both knew it was a lie.
Something that might have been a smile flickered across his face. "You will. And I'll be there when you do." Then he turned and walked away, leaving me alone in my nest, surrounded by their scents, burning alive with a need I couldn't satisfy.
Twelve hours, Leo had said. The worst is still coming.
I curled around myself and waited for my body to finally destroy me.