Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
AVA
The hours blurred together after that.
I lost track of time somewhere between the third cold shower that didn't work and the fifth orgasm that left me more desperate than before.
The fever had become a living thing, a creature that had crawled inside my skin and taken up permanent residence, burning through every defense I'd ever built.
I stopped trying to fight it. Not because I'd given up, I hadn't, not yet, not completely, but because fighting took energy I didn't have anymore.
Every ounce of strength I possessed was being consumed by the fire in my blood, leaving nothing left for resistance.
I lay in my nest, surrounded by their scents, and let my body do what it wanted.
It wanted a lot of things I refused to think about.
The cramps came in waves now, rolling through me every fifteen or twenty minutes, each one worse than the last. I'd read about this, the biological punishment for denying a heat, the body's way of forcing compliance.
Without an Alpha to ease the symptoms, the pain would only intensify.
Some Omegas had been hospitalized. Some had died.
I wasn't going to die. They wouldn't let me. But I was starting to wish I could.
"Make it stop," I whimpered into the pillow that smelled like Caleb. "Please, just make it stop." No one answered. No one came. They were giving me space, I realized dimly. Letting me exhaust myself. Waiting for the moment I broke completely.
Smart. I hated how smart they were. Another cramp hit, and I screamed, a raw, animal sound that tore out of my throat without permission.
My back arched off the mattress, every muscle seizing, the pain so intense I saw white.
Slick gushed between my thighs, soaking through the sheets I'd already ruined, and my body clenched around nothing, desperate to be filled.
"Alpha," I heard myself sob. "Alpha, please, Alpha—" The word kept falling from my lips like a prayer, like a curse, like the only thing left in my vocabulary. I didn't mean it. I didn't want it. But my body didn't care what I wanted anymore.
The door opened. I couldn't see who it was, my eyes were squeezed shut, tears streaming down my face, my whole world narrowed to the agony pulsing through me. But I smelled him. Honey and sunshine and fresh-cut grass. Mason.
"I'm here, Red." His voice cut through the haze, steady and calm and so fucking gentle I wanted to scream. "I'm right here."
"Hurts," I gasped, reaching blindly toward the sound of his voice. "Mason, it hurts, I can't—"
"I know." The mattress dipped. He was on the bed now, outside the nest but close, so close I could feel the heat radiating from his body. "I know it hurts. Let me help you."
"No." But even as I said it, my hand was grabbing at him, fingers fisting in the fabric of his shirt. "No, I don't want—I can't—"
"You can." His hand covered mine, warm and steady. "You're so strong, Avalon. Stronger than anyone I've ever known. You don't have to be strong right now. You can let go. I'll catch you."
Another cramp slammed through me, and I curled into him without thinking, pressing my face against his chest, breathing in his scent like it was oxygen.
The relief was immediate, not complete, not nearly enough, but something.
The edge of the pain dulled. The fire banked slightly.
My body recognized Alpha, recognized pack, and some of the desperate tension leaked out of my muscles.
"There you go," Mason murmured, one hand coming up to stroke my hair. "That's it. Just breathe."
"I hate this," I whispered against his chest. "I hate what you've done to me."
"I know."
"I hate that it helps when you touch me." I told him, my voice barely more than a whisper.
"I know that too."
"I hate you." His hand stilled in my hair for just a moment. Then it resumed its gentle stroking, and when he spoke, his voice was rough with emotion he rarely showed.
"You don't. Not really. But it's okay if you need to believe that for now.
" I wanted to argue. To insist that I did hate him, that nothing about this was okay, that his touch was a violation no matter how much my body craved it.
Another wave of need crashed through me, and all I could do was whimper and press closer.
"More," I heard myself beg. "Please, Mason, I need more."
"I know what you need." His arms tightened around me, pulling me fully against him. I was naked, I'd stopped bothering with clothes hours ago, and the thin cotton of his t-shirt was the only thing between my skin and his. "But not yet. You're not ready yet."
"I am." The words came out slurred, desperate. "I'm ready, I need it, please—"
"No." He pressed a kiss to my forehead, achingly tender.
"When we claim you, you're going to be present.
You're going to understand what's happening.
You're going to remember everything." Caleb had said the same thing.
They'd talked about this. Planned it. Decided together how they would take me apart.
The thought should have terrified me. Instead, it sent a pulse of dark heat through my core that had nothing to do with the fever.
"I'm not going to survive this," I whispered.
"You are." Mason pulled back just enough to look at me, those honey-brown eyes boring into mine.
"You're going to survive this, and then you're going to thrive.
You're going to let us take care of you the way we've always wanted to.
Someday, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, but someday, you're going to be happy. "
"You don't know that." I told him with disbelief.
"I do." He smiled, soft and certain. "I know you, Red.
Better than you know yourself. I know that underneath all that fear and anger, there's a part of you that wants this.
That's always wanted this. You just have to let yourself admit it.
" I couldn't respond. Couldn't think. The fever was spiking again, the brief respite from his touch already fading, and my body was demanding more than comfort.
"Mason." His name came out as a moan. "Please. I can't—I need—"
"I know what you need." He shifted, moving me gently until I was lying on my back, my hair spread across the pillows like a red halo.
He braced himself above me, still outside the nest, still not touching me anywhere but where his hands held my shoulders.
"And you're going to get it. Soon. I promise. "
"Now," I begged, my hips lifting off the mattress, seeking contact that wasn't there. "Please, now, I'll do anything—"
"Anything?" Something flickered in his eyes—dark and hungry and nothing like the gentle Alpha he usually showed me.
"Anything," I repeated, too far gone to care what I was promising.
"Just make it stop. Make it stop hurting.
" For a long moment, he just looked at me.
I could see the war on his face, the desire fighting the control, the Alpha instincts screaming at him to take what was being offered.
His whole body was tense, muscles straining, and I could smell his arousal cutting through his sunshine scent like a blade.
Then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and pulled away.
"Not yet," he said, and his voice was rough, barely controlled.
"God, Ava, you have no idea how much I want to.
But not yet." The sound that came out of me was barely human, a wail of frustration and need that echoed off the walls.
I grabbed for him, trying to pull him back, but he was already standing, already moving toward the door.
"Mason!" I screamed his name like a curse. "Don't you dare leave me like this! Mason!"
He paused at the doorway, looking back at me with eyes that burned with barely leashed hunger.
"A few more hours," he said quietly. "Let the fever peak. Let your body finish what it started. And then we'll give you everything you need."
"I need it now!" I was desperate. I know I would look back at this later and hate myself for it.
"You need it when you can remember it." He gripped the doorframe, knuckles white with the effort of not coming back to me. "When you can feel it. When you can look me in the eyes and know exactly what's happening and choose it anyway."
"I'm not going to choose it," I snarled, even as my body writhed with need. "I'll never choose you. Any of you."
Mason smiled, sad and knowing. "We'll see." Then he was gone, and I was alone again, burning alive in a nest that smelled like four men I was rapidly losing the will to resist.
I don't know how long I lasted after that.
Time lost all meaning. There was only the fever and the need and the endless, crashing waves of want that left me sobbing and shaking and begging for relief that wouldn't come.
I touched myself until my fingers cramped.
I screamed until my throat was raw. I cried until there were no tears left, and then I cried some more.
Through it all, the scents of my captors surrounded me, sinking into my skin, rewiring my brain, teaching my body that safety and comfort and home smelled like honey and cedar and pine and chocolate.
By the time the door opened again, I was barely conscious. The fever had peaked and broken something fundamental inside me. The resistance I'd clung to so desperately had crumbled, washed away by wave after wave of need until there was nothing left but the raw, primal Omega underneath.
I needed Alpha. I needed pack. I needed to be claimed, marked, filled, owned.
I needed them.
"Please." The word was barely a whisper, my voice destroyed from screaming. "Please, I can't anymore, please—"
"We know." Ethan's voice, calm and clinical but with something raw underneath. "We're here now."
I forced my eyes open. All four of them stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light from the hallway.
Mason in front, golden and steady. Ethan beside him, green eyes burning with intensity.
Leo on Mason's other side, all traces of his usual humor gone, replaced by something fierce and wanting.
Caleb behind them all, a massive shadow, those ice-blue eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my core clench.
My Alphas. Mine.
No. Not mine. I didn't want—I didn't—
"Avalon." Mason stepped into the room, moving slowly, carefully, like I was a wounded animal he didn't want to spook. "Can you hear me?"
I nodded weakly, my whole body trembling.
"Your heat has peaked. Do you understand what that means?" He asked, and I knew what was going to come next.
Another nod. I understood. God help me, I understood perfectly.
"We're going to take care of you now." He stopped at the edge of the nest, looking down at me with those warm brown eyes. "We're going to give you what your body needs. I need you to tell me that's what you want."
"I don't—" My voice cracked. "I don't want—"
"Your mind doesn't want it," Ethan said, stepping up beside Mason. "We know that. But your body does. Right now, your body is going to win." He crouched down, bringing himself to my level, and his voice softened. "Let it win, Avalon. Stop fighting. Let us take care of you."
"It's not—it's not consent if my body—" I protested with a whimper.
"We know." Leo appeared on my other side, his gray eyes serious for once. "We know it's not the same. We know you'd never choose this if you had a real choice. But you don't have a real choice, sweetheart. Not anymore. So let us make it as good as it can be."
I was crying again. I didn't know when I'd started, but tears were streaming down my face, mixing with the sweat and the slick and the general ruin of my body.
"I don't want to want this," I sobbed. "I don't want to need you. I don't want—"
"We know." Caleb's voice, rough and low, cutting through my spiral. He hadn't moved from the doorway, but his presence filled the room anyway. "We've known from the start. But you do want it. You do need us. We're not going to let you destroy yourself pretending otherwise."
I looked at him—at all of them—and felt the last of my resistance crumble.
They were right. God help me, they were right.
My body wanted this. Needed this. Had always needed this, ever since I was fifteen and presented and felt the first stirrings of a desire I'd spent six years trying to bury.
I could keep fighting. Keep resisting. Keep pretending I didn't feel what I felt, didn't want what I wanted.
But my body was going to win eventually.
The heat would see to that. And if I was going to surrender, if I was going to let them have me, then maybe, just maybe, it was better to do it with my eyes open.
To remember. Like they kept saying. To be present for every moment.
"Okay." The word came out as barely a whisper. "Okay." Mason's whole face transformed. Relief and joy and hunger all tangled together, making him look younger, more open, more like the boy I'd had a crush on when I was Sixteen.
"Okay?" he repeated, like he couldn't quite believe it.
"Don't make me say it again." I closed my eyes, unable to look at them anymore. "Just... just do it. Whatever you're going to do. Just make it stop hurting." I felt rather than saw them exchange looks. A silent communication between Alphas, deciding who would go first, how they would take me apart.
Then the mattress dipped, and Mason's scent wrapped around me like a blanket, and his hand cupped my face with devastating tenderness.
"Open your eyes, Red," he said softly. "I want you to see me."
I opened my eyes. He was right there, inches away, his honey-brown gaze holding mine with an intensity that made my breath catch. Behind him, the others watched. Waiting. Letting their Prime go first.
"I love you," Mason said. "I've loved you since you were Sixteen years old. I'm going to love you for the rest of my life. Right now, I'm going to show you exactly what that means."
Then he kissed me, and the world caught fire.