Chapter 8 Wren #2
I sweep the floors out of habit, check the windows, and fluff the cushions on the lumpy old loveseat in the living space. Everything feels just out of sync, like the apartment isn’t calibrated to the air outside.
Or maybe it’s me. Perhaps I’m the one who’s off.
I prepare Pancake’s food and watch him eat it as I stand at the counter, watching the darkness settle against the bakery windows.
When I finally crawl into bed, it’s not even nine. But sleep doesn’t come easily.
I lie in the dark listening to the wind scrape against the eaves. My legs feel too warm under the quilt, too restless. The scent of my own skin keeps shifting—like it can’t decide what it wants to be.
There’s a sweetness there now, something syrupy and dense, layered under my usual chamomile and citrus balm. And it’s stronger. Sharper. Like bruised fruit left too long on the counter.
I press a hand to my stomach and try to breathe through it.
Simon said it could happen. Hormonal realignment. Early symptoms.
But this doesn’t feel early. This feels like a match catching.
Around midnight, I wake drenched in sweat.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but my tank top is plastered to my chest, and the sheets are twisted around my hips like they’ve tried to tie me down.
My skin feels too tight. Too hot. There’s pressure between my legs that wasn’t there when I closed my eyes. Not arousal—something more primitive.
More insistent.
I sit up and push the quilt off, gasping for air.
The room smells like me. But not me. Not the normal, day-to-day, washed-linen-and-vanilla me. This is different. Muskier. Ripe.
My scent’s blooming in waves I can’t suppress, curling up into my throat and settling there like a stone.
I feel raw. Thinned out from the inside, like my body’s rewriting itself cell by cell.
This is not normal.
I pad to the bathroom and flick on the light. My reflection looks half-wild—flushed skin, eyes glassy, lips parted.
I don’t even feel flushed, but there it is. A fever-sheen on my collarbones. A faint shimmer of sweat under my jaw.
My thighs are damp. My scent’s sticking to me like honey.
I press my hand flat against the cold porcelain of the sink and try to steady my breathing. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
“I’m fine,” I whisper. “I’m fine, I’m fine—”
But my voice catches on the last syllable. Trembles. That’s when I know.
I’m going into heat.
Full, biological heat—not just a blip of stress-triggered imbalance. This is real. This is now.
It’s too early. I haven’t had a proper cycle in so long. My suppressant dosage has always worked. Always.
I stagger back into the bedroom and collapse onto the edge of the mattress, fingers fumbling for my phone. It takes two tries to pull up the prescription from Simon.
I haven’t filled it yet. I was waiting. Telling myself I’d be fine.
Stupid.
I scroll through my contacts, hovering over Norah’s name. I almost call her. But what would I even say?
Hey, I’m drenched in pheromones and might start humping my own pillow in thirty minutes. Wanna help?
No. She has enough to deal with. And she’s not a doctor.
Simon is.
My thumb slides over to his contact.
But then I picture his face. The way he watched me in the clinic. Not leering. Just… focused. Like he was dissecting every molecule of me without trying to.
If I call him now, he’ll know. He’ll hear it in my voice. He’ll smell it the moment I step near him.
And Beau—
God.
The thought of him hits me like a blow to the sternum. His voice. That stupid coffee. His hand on the small of my back when he guided me through the café kitchen last week, barely touching, but it still burned.
I’d told myself it was nothing.
But now…
Now I can’t stop imagining what his mouth would feel like against my throat. What his weight would feel like pressing into me, heavy and sure. That low rumble of his laugh, right at my ear. His scent catches fire on my skin.
I groan and press the heels of my hands into my eyes.
No. No. I won’t let my body trick me.
This is just chemicals—just biology trying to bait me into bad decisions.
I could call Levi. He is a paramedic. He could help get me some Invisira. But then he would tell Simon, right?
The pack would know I was going into heat.
I crawl back into bed, teeth clenched, heart racing. I bury my face in the pillow, breathing shallow, trying not to think and trying not to feel. But it’s useless.
My thighs rub together unintentionally, seeking friction. My hips shift. Every part of me aches. Not with pain—with need. Primal. Consuming. Stupid.
The worst part is—I know what would fix it.
An Alpha.
Not love. Not comfort. Just a hard, claiming rut to chase the symptoms down and burn them out. That’s what my body’s asking for.
But I won’t give it what it wants.
I won’t be my mother, smiling through bruises. Pretending biology is a bond. Excusing every betrayal because it was “instinct.”
No Alpha will ever own me like that.
I swallow down the sob building in my chest and reach for the glass of water on the nightstand. My hand shakes. The water tastes like metal.
I need to get the prescription filled. First thing tomorrow.
I whisper it like a prayer.
Then I lie in the dark, fever-hot and humming with a hunger I can’t name and try not to remember what it felt like to stand too close to Beau.
Or how good it would feel to stop fighting.
Even just once.