Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
WREN
Ihad no idea how long I’d slept.
The room was steeped in shadows, the last light of the day bleeding faintly through the edges of the heavy curtains. But there was light in the next room—muted, pale, artificial. Not morning light.
The bed was empty.
Not cold, though. Roan’s warmth still lingered in the blankets, pressed into the dip of the mattress where his weight had been. But he was gone now. And I wasn’t alone.
Their energy—the three of them—was still here. I could feel it. Like static crawling over my skin. Familiar. Wild. Controlled but charged.
Even muffled behind the bedroom door, the pulse of them was unmistakable.
I drew in a breath and sat up slowly, my head swimming, legs trembling with the effort. Everything ached in that dull, lingering way—like I’d been sick for days and was finally coming up for air.
I didn’t feel better, not exactly. But I could think. That felt like something. I got to my feet and padded to the bathroom, my steps unsteady. My legs hated me. My hips hated me more.
When the hell had heat made me feel so… broken?
That said, I managed the essentials, though.
Peeing took longer than I wanted to admit—my bladder was staging a full rebellion.
I splashed cold water on my face, brushed my teeth slowly.
Even found a comb and wrestled it through my hair, working out the tangles with grim determination and sharp little winces.
A shower was out of the question. I could admit that. I didn’t trust my legs to hold me up for that long.
Instead, I found a robe slung over the back of the door. Soft fleece, unfamiliar but clean. I pulled it on and belted it tight, hoping it would help dull the sharp edges of my scent.
It didn’t. Not really. But it made me feel less exposed, and that counted for something. I was almost to the bedroom door when it opened from the other side.
Jay stood there, a solid shadow framed by light. Calm. Composed. Unflinching as always. His gaze swept over me once, clinical and quick.
“You sure you should be up?”
“No,” I admitted, breathing a little harder than I wanted. “But I needed to move.”
His eyes softened just slightly at the edges.
“I’m thinking clearly,” I added. “Mostly. That’s a good sign, right?”
He didn’t answer that—just tilted his head toward the light behind him.
“Come on. You should be part of this.”
That was the second sign something was wrong.
Jay didn’t extend invitations. He laid out logistics.
I followed him into the living room.
Rhett and Roan were both on the far side of the space, standing by the wide window that looked out over the snow-covered trees. They weren’t speaking, but the silence was sharp-edged. Tactical.
Roan’s arms were folded tight across his chest. Rhett’s fingers were twitching near his belt like they wanted to be wrapped around a weapon.
The instant I stepped into the room, both of their heads turned toward me.
Roan’s eyes—steel gray, cutting and bright—landed on me first. They skimmed over me from head to toe and then back again, expression unreadable. Not cold. But contained.
My heart kicked up. Not from heat.
From instinct.
I didn’t waste time with pleasantries.
“What is it?”
No one answered right away.
Jay moved to stand beside me, a quiet line of support at my side. Roan glanced once at Rhett, then back to me.
Rhett was the one who spoke. “I did some research and made some calls.”
To be honest, I had no idea what I expected him to say but that wasn’t it. Fidgeting with the belt tie on the robe, I frowned. “Okay?” The word came out rough, a little hoarser than I liked but still, clear. “How is that a problem?”
Because I needed more information.
Raking a hand through his hair which caused parts of it to stick up in places, Rhett gave me a frustrated look. “I was looking into the suppressants, and the research and… stuff.”
My stomach bottomed out, but I fought the trembling by folding my arms. “I’m listening.”
The stone stillness from Roan betrayed more than Rhett’s almost jittery upset. My gaze kept tracking back to Roan’s gray eyes but I needed to focus on Rhett so I didn’t miss anything.
“I don’t know which ones you were taking and I couldn’t find them…probably should have done a deeper search of your place but I didn’t go in and they weren’t in your office.”
I left Rhett’s admission of snooping in my office alone. Right now, that wasn’t important.
“There’s a variety of suppressants out in the world, very few that are considered legal or advised for any long-term use. Most seem limited to once or twice a year at most.”
Agitation marked Rhett’s delivery as he began to pace again. If I were to guess, he wasn’t angry—he was terrified.
That had me taking a couple of slow steps forward to the sofa and sitting. “Just… tell me what you found.”
Rhett stopped pacing for a moment, his eyes darting between me and Roan, like he wanted to make sure we were both paying attention. The space between us had thickened, and I could feel the weight of every word he was about to say.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again, as if unsure how to start. Finally, he pushed through.
“Some of these suppressants, the ones that aren’t regulated or that people get off-market, they’re…
they’re dangerous.” He raked a hand over his face, his usual confidence gone.
“Long-term use, particularly if they're not dosed properly or monitored—can fuck with the body in ways that can’t be undone.”
My stomach twisted, my eyes narrowing. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear this, but I needed to. I needed to know what was coming.
“Permanent damage?” My voice was softer than I intended, but the words were there, heavy and weighted. My doctor hadn’t mentioned that, but she had ordered extensive bloodwork, and she’d also insisted that I needed to go off of the suppressants for at least one heat.
Was this what she was looking for? Did she say nothing because she didn’t want to muddle the results?
Rhett’s lips pressed into a thin line as he nodded. “Exactly. Some of the changes are hormonal, neurological—shit like that. But there’s one problem that kept coming up in my search… It can mess with your body’s response to heat.” He grimaced. “In some cases, it can make it worse.”
I felt the air around me get even heavier, but I refused to flinch. The words were gnawing at the edges of my mind, but I didn’t want to hear them. I couldn’t.
Still, I asked, because I had to know. “How much worse?”
The man was going to wear a groove into the wooden floor, with his pacing.
With a sharp exhale, he stopped once again.
“I’m not sure. The studies I found were incomplete, but…
they suggested it could make heat cycles longer, more intense.
It can turn what should be a 24 to 36-hour flare into something that drags on for days. Or worse, become chronic.”
Days.
I didn’t know how to respond. My body felt like it was on fire, and everything in me was telling me to get up and run, to move away from this conversation, but I couldn’t. I was stuck in the thick of it, all of it, all at once.
Days.
I looked at Roan, his face unreadable, still as stone. I could see his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Every muscle in his body was tense, but I couldn’t read the expression on his face. It was like he was holding himself together by sheer force of will, just like I had been.
But the air between us had changed. I could feel the weight of it now, like the tension had spiraled tighter since the moment I’d opened my eyes. It wasn’t just heat I was dealing with anymore.
It was something else.
Rhett cleared his throat and continued. “You’re not the only one, Wren.
This isn’t just a rare occurrence. People who’ve been using suppressants for years…
they’re seeing the effects, especially if they were on non-regulated ones.
It’s a growing concern, but it’s also dangerous territory.
The more I looked into it, the more I saw how little we actually know about long-term effects. ”
I swallowed hard, my throat feeling tight as I tried to process everything. The truth of it, the weight of it.
“They don’t have a lot of conclusive research,” I admitted. “The doctor told me that. Most… most people don’t use suppressants for that long.”
“No,” Rhett said, taking two steps toward me. “They’re not supposed to use them long-term, in fact, you should be getting regular checkups, bloodwork, and monitoring…at least having one to two heats a year to let your system reset.”
Oh, there was anger in Rhett now.
“How the hell could you, of all people, be so careless and stupid?” The question landed like a blow, and I didn’t have it in me to mask my flinch.
“Rhett,” Roan snapped his name like a command.
“I have a right to know,” Rhett argued, but he whirled and focused his temper on Roan. “We all do. She’s been hurting herself.”
That muscle ticking in Roan’s jaw increased in speed and ferocity. Jay shifted his stance until he was nearly standing between me and the other two.
“I didn’t know,” I said before anyone else could launch into this argument. “I still don’t.” The last came out far wearier than the first. “Your research is what? Internet articles? MD sites? Health journals?”
Arms folded, Rhett grimaced before he said something I didn’t quite catch.
“What?” I frowned.
“I called my cousin.” That came out clearer, but there was a faint note of sheepishness. I didn’t get the reference. Rhett came from a fairly large family, but he’d never seemed especially close to any of them.
Roan pinched the bridge of his nose. “You called your cousin?”
“We needed answers.” Rhett sounded defensive now.
“You asked your cousin, the doctor, about suppressants and omegas?” Maybe it was how quiet and even he sounded, but the shock punching through the words declared how appalled he was.