Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
MASON
Twelve hours.
I'd watched the clock the entire time, unable to focus on anything else. Every minute felt like an hour. Every hour felt like a lifetime. Through the bond, I could feel her, distant and muffled by the concrete and steel, but still there. Still suffering.
Still ours.
"It's time," Ethan said from his monitoring station, his green eyes fixed on the screens that showed her vital signs.
His voice was calm, but I'd known him long enough to see the tension in his shoulders, the tightness around his mouth.
"Her temperature has been elevated for the past six hours.
Heart rate increased. Hormonal markers consistent with early pre-heat. "
"Pre-heat?" I moved to stand behind him, staring at the data on the screen. Numbers and graphs that translated into our Omega, alone in the dark, her body betraying her. "Her cycle isn't due for weeks."
"Stress accelerates it," Ethan replied, pulling off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I theorized this might happen, but the speed of onset is remarkable. She's progressing faster than any case study I've reviewed."
"Is she in danger?" Caleb asked from the corner where he'd been sitting for the past twelve hours, refusing to leave, his ice-blue eyes fixed on the thermal image of Ava's curled form.
"Not yet," Ethan assured him, replacing his glasses and turning to face us. "But if we leave her much longer, the combination of isolation and accelerating heat could cause genuine psychological damage. The correction has served its purpose. It's time to move to the next phase."
I didn't wait for further discussion. I was already moving toward the door, my footsteps quick on the hardwood floor. Behind me, I heard the others following, Caleb's heavy tread, Leo's lighter steps, Ethan bringing up the rear.
The basement stairs stretched downward into darkness, and I took them two at a time, my heart pounding with something that felt too much like fear.
She was ours. She was suffering. And even though we'd chosen this, even though it was necessary, some part of me hated every second she spent in that room.
The steel door loomed at the end of the hallway, solid and unforgiving.
I pressed my thumb to the scanner, heard the beep of recognition, felt the lock disengage.
I opened the door.
The smell hit me first. Omega in distress, sharp and sweet and desperate, layered with the unmistakable musk of approaching heat. It cut through the cold air like a blade, making my Alpha instincts surge forward, demanding I protect, claim, possess. I forced them down and stepped inside.
The room was dark, the single bulb still off, but light from the hallway spilled across the threshold, illuminating the small space. The thin mattress. The untouched water bottle. The bucket in the corner.
And Ava.
She was curled on the mattress, her body a tight ball of misery, shaking so hard I could see it from the doorway.
Her red hair was tangled and wild, spread across the thin fabric like blood on snow.
Her skin was pale, almost translucent, but her cheeks were flushed with fever heat.
She didn't look up when the door opened.
Didn't react to the light or the sound or my presence.
Just lay there, trembling, her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes squeezed shut.
"Ava," I said softly, crouching at the edge of the mattress, keeping my voice gentle despite the turmoil raging inside me. "It's over. You can come out now."
She flinched at the sound of my voice, a full-body shudder that made my chest ache. Slowly, painfully, she uncurled enough to look at me, her green eyes huge in her pale face, pupils dilated, rimmed with red from crying.
"Mason?" Ava whispered, her voice hoarse and cracked, barely recognizable. She blinked at me like she wasn't sure I was real, like I might be a hallucination conjured by twelve hours of darkness and cold.
"I'm here," I confirmed, reaching out to brush a strand of hair from her face. Her skin was hot beneath my fingers, fever-warm despite the chill of the room. "It's over. Come on."
She didn't move. Just stared at me with those huge, lost eyes, her body still shaking, her breath coming in shallow gasps.
"I can't," Ava said, her voice small and broken, nothing like the fierce woman who had stood in the wreckage of the kitchen and dared us to punish her.
"I can't move. I'm so cold, and I'm so..
. I feel..." She trailed off, her face crumpling, tears spilling down her cheeks.
Through the bond, I felt her confusion, her shame, her desperate, unwilling need.
She was going into heat. Here. Now. Triggered by the stress and isolation, her body crying out for her pack even as her mind rejected us.
"I know," I said softly, gathering her into my arms. She was lighter than she should have been, fragile despite her fire, and when I lifted her from the mattress she made a sound—a whimper, a moan, something primal and involuntary, and pressed herself against my chest.
"I hate you," Ava whispered against my throat, but her fingers were clutching my shirt, her body curling into mine like I was the only warm thing in a frozen world. "I hate you so much."
"I know," I repeated, carrying her toward the door, feeling her shiver against me.
"But you're still mine. And I'm still going to take care of you.
" The others waited in the hallway. Caleb's scarred face was tight with anguish, his ice-blue eyes tracking every tremor that ran through Ava's body.
Leo's usual smirk was nowhere in evidence, replaced by something softer, something almost like tenderness.
Ethan observed with clinical attention, his green eyes cataloguing her symptoms, her responses, her condition.
"She's further along than I anticipated," Ethan said quietly as I carried her past. "Her scent has already shifted. Full heat could hit within forty-eight hours."
"Then we have forty-eight hours," I replied, climbing the basement stairs with Ava still clinging to me, her face buried against my neck, her tears soaking into my collar. "To decide how we handle this."
"Handle it?" Caleb's deep voice was rough with confusion. "We help her through it. That's what pack does."
"We could," I agreed, reaching the top of the stairs and moving toward the living room.
Someone had cleaned up the worst of the damage while we'd waited, the broken glass swept away, the torn books removed, the shattered dishes disposed of.
The space looked almost normal, almost like a home instead of a battlefield.
I settled onto the couch with Ava in my lap, her body still curled against mine, still shaking, still radiating that desperate heat. She'd stopped crying, but her fingers hadn't loosened their grip on my shirt.
"Or," I continued, looking at the others as they filed into the room, "we could use this opportunity to teach her something more important than consequences."
Ethan's green eyes sharpened with interest behind his glasses. "What are you proposing?"
"She's going into heat," I said, stroking Ava's hair, feeling her press closer at the touch. "Her body is going to be desperate for us. Aching for us. Every instinct she has will be screaming for our touch, our presence, our claiming."
"And you want to deny her," Ethan said slowly, understanding dawning on his face. "Controlled denial. Enough contact to prevent bond-sickness, but not enough to satisfy."
"Not just deny her," I corrected, my hand settling on the back of Ava's neck, feeling her pulse flutter beneath my palm.
"Make her ask for it. Make her admit what she needs.
She's been fighting her feelings by staying angry, by destroying things, by maintaining constant conflict.
This time, she won't have that option. Her body won't let her. "
"That's cruel," Caleb said quietly, his ice-blue eyes fixed on Ava's trembling form. His massive hands were clenched at his sides, every line of his body radiating discomfort.
"Yes," I agreed without flinching. "It is. And it's necessary. Because she's never going to accept us as long as she can keep running from her own desires. She needs to be confronted with them. Forced to acknowledge them. She needs to learn that we're not her enemies, we're her relief."
"And if she breaks?" Leo asked, settling into an armchair across from us, his gray eyes dark and serious. "What if we push too hard and she just... shatters?"
"She won't," I said with more confidence than I felt.
"She's too strong. Too stubborn. She'll fight us every step of the way, right up until the moment she realizes she doesn't want to fight anymore.
" Silence fell over the room, heavy with implication.
Through the bond, I felt their conflict—Caleb's protective instincts warring with his trust in my judgment, Leo's concern tempered by his understanding of our Omega's psychology, Ethan's clinical interest balanced against his genuine care.
Ava stirred against me, her face lifting from my throat, her green eyes hazy with exhaustion and the first stirrings of heat-need.
"What are you talking about?" Ava asked, her voice slurred, her gaze unfocused. "What are you planning?" I cupped her face in my hands, tilting her head up so I could meet her eyes. She was beautiful like this, vulnerable, stripped of her defenses, all that fire banked to embers.
"You destroyed something Caleb spent a lot of time making for you," I said softly, watching her flinch at the reminder. "You tore apart your nest. You wrecked the library. You shattered dishes and scattered glass that cut your own feet."
"I said I was sorry," Ava whispered, tears gathering in her eyes again.
"You were scared….I get that…," I corrected gently, brushing my thumb across her cheekbone. “but…you will be sorry. And you will mean it. By the time this heat is over, Avalon, you're going to understand exactly what you almost threw away."
"What are you going to do to me?" Ava asked, and there was fear in her voice now, but underneath it, something else. Something darker. Something that made my Alpha instincts purr with satisfaction.
Interest. Despite everything, despite the fear and the anger and the twelve hours in a concrete cell, she was interested. Her body was already priming itself for what was to come, already anticipating our touch, already craving the relief that only we could provide.
"We're going to take care of you," I said, letting my voice drop to something softer, more intimate. "We're going to feed you, and bathe you, and keep you warm. We're going to touch you constantly, hold your hand, stroke your hair, rub your back."
Ava's breath caught, her pupils dilating further. "That doesn't sound like punishment."
"It won't be," I agreed, a small smile curving my lips.
"It will be much, much worse. Because every touch will remind your body what it needs.
Every brush of skin on skin will make the ache grow stronger.
And we won't give you relief, Avalon. Not until you ask for it properly.
Not until you admit what you need. Not until you stop fighting and accept what you are. "
"And what's that?" Ava asked, her voice barely above a whisper, her body trembling in my arms. I leaned closer, pressing my forehead to hers, letting her feel the warmth of my breath against her lips.
"Ours," I said simply, the word heavy with promise and possession. "Completely, utterly, inevitably ours. And by the time this heat is over, you're going to know it. Not because we forced you to accept it, but because you won't be able to deny it anymore."
Ava stared at me, her green eyes wide, her lips parted, her whole body taut with anticipation and dread.
"I won't beg," Ava said, but her voice shook, and through the bond I felt the lie in her words. She was already closer to begging than she wanted to admit.
"We'll see," I replied softly, pressing a kiss to her forehead—gentle, tender, nothing like the heat that was building between us. "We have forty-eight hours, Avalon. And I'm a very patient man."
I felt her shudder against me, felt her fear and her fury and her terrible, unwilling want.
Good.
The teaching had begun.