Chapter 4
STELLAN
She's burning. I can smell it from across the keep, her temperature rising, her scent thickening with the first threads of heat. She has no idea what's happening to her body. But I do. I've been waiting for this since the moment she stepped off that convoy.
The fifth day since she arrived. Five days of watching her navigate my world with that stubborn chin lifted and those dark eyes blazing with defiance.
Five days of forcing myself to keep my distance while her scent grew sweeter by the hour, while the suppressants in her blood thinned and failed and let the truth of her nature bleed through.
I stand at the window of my study, watching her cross the courtyard below.
Even from this height, I can see the flush on her cheeks, the way she tugs at the collar of her dress as if the fabric is strangling her.
She snaps at a servant who approaches with a message, her voice carrying sharp enough that I catch the tone if not the words.
The servant retreats with wide eyes and a hasty bow.
My lips curve. The irritability is a symptom.
So is the restlessness, the way she paces within the confines of her room.
The way her gaze lingers on doorways and shadows, searching for something she can't name when she thinks no one is watching.
Her body knows what it needs, even if her mind hasn't caught up.
She needs me.
The thought sends heat coiling through my gut, and I grip the stone windowsill hard enough to feel the edge bite into my palms. Control. I've maintained it this long. I can maintain it a little longer.
But my wolf disagrees. He paces inside me, snarling against the cage I've built, demanding that I go to her.
Claim her. End this torment for both of us.
The mating instinct is a physical ache now, a pressure behind my ribs that sharpens every time I catch her scent on the air.
I want to bury my face in her throat and breathe her in until she's all I know.
To feel her body yield beneath mine, to hear her cry out my name as I make her understand exactly who she belongs to.
Instead, I watch. I wait. I let her unravel one thread at a time.
The door to my study opens, and Torben enters without knocking. He's earned that liberty over the years.
"We have a problem," he says.
I don't turn from the window. "I'm aware."
"Three of the senior warriors came to me this morning. They've noticed her scent." Torben moves to stand beside me, his gaze following mine to the courtyard below. "Ragnar was among them. He asked what you intended to do about the human who smells like an omega in pre-heat."
A growl builds in my chest before I can stop it. "And what did you tell them?"
"That they should mind their own business unless they want to challenge their alpha for mating rights.
" Torben's voice is carefully neutral. "That bought us time.
But not much. If she goes into full heat before you've bonded, every unmated wolf in this keep is going to lose their minds. Including you."
"I know what I'm doing."
"Do you?" Torben turns to face me, and I see the concern he rarely lets show.
"You've been planning this for years, Stellan.
Watching her from a distance, calculating every detail of how this would unfold.
But plans don't survive contact with biology.
If you wait too long, if you let your control slip at the wrong moment, you could hurt her. Or worse."
The words land harder than I want to admit. I think of Iris in the courtyard, flushed and irritable and completely unaware of the danger surrounding her. Not just from me. From what she's becoming, and what that will trigger in every wolf around her.
"I won't let that happen," I say.
"Then stop playing games and claim her. Before someone else decides to try."
The suggestion sends ice through my veins.
The image that follows is worse: Iris cornered by wolves who smell what she is and don't care about blood pacts or alpha authority.
Iris fighting with those skills Helena taught her, fierce and brave and ultimately outmatched.
Iris broken beneath the weight of wolves who would take what I've waited years to earn.
Something dark and violent unfurls in my chest. My claws extend before I can stop them, puncturing the stone beneath my fingers.
"No one touches her." The words come out barely human, my wolf bleeding through. "Make that clear. Anyone who approaches her without my permission answers to me personally."
Torben holds my gaze for a long moment. Whatever he sees there makes him nod once.
"I'll spread the word. But Stellan, you need to move soon. Days, not weeks. Her scent is only going to get stronger."
He leaves me alone with my thoughts and the view of the courtyard below. Iris has disappeared inside, probably seeking the relative cool of the stone corridors. Running from a heat she doesn't understand.
She won't be able to run much longer.
I wait until she's at the evening meal before I search her quarters.
The Omega Suite is exactly as I remember it, silk and velvet masking the bars on the windows and the reinforced lock on the door. A cage dressed in luxury, designed to keep its occupant comfortable and contained. Her bag sits in the corner, still packed, as if she expects to leave at any moment.
She won't. But I admire the stubbornness that keeps her hoping.
I find the pills hidden beneath a fold of clothing, exactly where my sources said they would be.
The bottle is small, amber plastic, completely unremarkable.
I shake it once and hear the rattle of tablets inside.
Fewer than there should be. She's probably been doubling her doses, trying to fight off what her body already knows is inevitable.
Five pills left.
I pocket the bottle and take a moment to examine her other belongings.
The photograph of Helena and her parents, worn at the edges from handling.
The notes filled with cramped handwriting that I've already had transcribed and analyzed.
A few changes of clothes, practical rather than fashionable.
A small knife hidden in the lining of the bag, the kind of blade Helena would have taught her to conceal.
I leave the knife. Let her keep her illusions of defense. They won't matter soon.
The notes gives me pause. I've read the transcripts, studied every word Helena wrote about the Carswell bloodline and the omega gene that surfaces every few generations.
But holding the originals feels different.
More intimate. This was Helena's gift to her granddaughter, a record of everything Iris would need to know when the truth finally emerged.
Helena intended to tell her. The notes make that clear. She was preparing Iris, searching for the right words to explain what she was and why it mattered. Death stole that opportunity, and now the explanation falls to me.
I could be gentle about it. I could sit her down, show her the journal, walk her through the history and the biology and the reasons her grandmother kept her hidden. I could give her time to process, time to grieve, time to accept.
I won't.
I settle into the chair by the fire to wait for her return. My reasons are practical. The bond needs to be completed. The pack needs an heir. Her omega nature needs to be acknowledged and accepted before it drives her mad with wanting.
The justification sounds hollow even in my own head.
The truth beneath is simpler and uglier.
I want her desperate. I want her stripped of the chemical armor Helena wrapped around her, forced to face the full weight of what she is.
I want her to need me the way I've needed her through all those years of watching.
I want her to understand that the craving burning through her blood has only one cure, and I'm the only one who can provide it.
Cruelty dressed as necessity. Helena would have seen through it immediately. Iris will too, eventually. But by then, she'll be mine in every way that matters.
The fire crackles. The minutes stretch. I listen to the distant sounds of the keep settling into evening and let the anticipation build.
She'll return soon. And when she does, the game changes.
The door opens, and Iris steps inside before she registers my presence. I watch the exact moment awareness hits her: the slight hitch in her stride, the tension that locks her shoulders, the way her hand moves instinctively toward the knife she thinks I don't know about.
Then her gaze finds me, and fury ignites in her eyes.
"What are you doing in my room?"
"Waiting for you." I don't rise from the chair. Let her come to me and feel the power differential in every step she's forced to take. "We need to talk."
"We have nothing to talk about." She moves toward her bag, and I see the moment she realizes it's been disturbed. Her hands shake as she digs through the clothing, searching for the bottle that's no longer there. When she looks up, her face has gone pale beneath the fever-flush. "Where are they?"
I pull the bottle from my pocket and hold it up to the firelight. The pills rattle softly inside.
"Looking for these?"
She crosses the room faster than I expected, reaching for the bottle with desperate hands. I close my fist around it and let her fingers scrape uselessly against mine.
"Give them back." Her voice cracks. "Those are mine. You had no right."
"Everything in this keep is mine." I rise from the chair, and she stumbles back a step before catching herself. "Including you."
"I'm not your property!"
"No." I step closer, and her breath catches despite her anger.
The flush on her cheeks deepens, spreading down her throat to disappear beneath the collar of her dress.
Her pupils are blown wide, and I can see the rapid flutter of her pulse at the hollow of her neck.
"You're my mate. Whether you accept it or not, your body already knows. "