Chapter 1
Violet
First Chapter Heat Clinic. We’d been there ten days ago to get the medication to put me in heat and get a sample of Logan’s sperm for them to wash.
The doctor believed Logan, and I had a “minor” incompatibility issue resulting in my body rejecting his seed. They promised that they could isolate his strongest sperm, push them into me with a fake knot, and I’d not only get pregnant but stay pregnant.
And that thought terrified me.
My eyes sealed shut as I pressed my forehead against the passenger window of Logan’s car. He’d been nice enough to turn on the air conditioning and point all of the vents toward me, but that didn’t stop me from panting.
Logan swore the last ten days had been torture for him. He said it constantly, casually, like a joke I was expected to laugh at. The pills. The injections. The forced cycle.
“You smell stronger,” he’d complained, like I’d done it on purpose. “Do you know what it’s like having you around and not being able to touch you?”
He framed it like restraint; he was some saint holding himself back for the greater good. He wanted his wife pregnant, and this was the “sacrifice” he had to make.
Meanwhile, I’d entered the worst heat in my life. For the past ten days, I’d been unable to eat, barely able to drink, and hardly restraining the urge to tear myself apart just to escape my own skin.
It was so bad that my breath tasted like smoke.
Still, I held myself together enough to make a scent-blocking sachet to hang on my necklace. It wasn’t anything special, just salt, lavender, crushed sage, and dried orange rind. But I think it worked.
The rest of the mob wasn’t in rut, and that was good enough, at least I thought it was.
A large hand slipped up my skirt and planted itself on my thigh.
“After this, we’ll stop and get lunch okay?” Logan asked. “We can go to that pizza place you like. Gotta keep up your strength, you know, for the baby.”
My stomach roiled at the idea. He didn't even have to name the restaurant, and immediately I knew where we’d go, not because I liked it, but because he did.
Giovanni’s.
The pizza there was so greasy it made my stomach hurt. The cheese slid off in clumps, the sauce was always too sweet, and the place reeked of greasy meat and cigarettes. But Logan liked it.
He liked how the staff knew his name and how they called me “Mrs. Stellar” and asked about the baby that didn’t exist yet.
And, when the public treated us like the loving couple Logan wanted to be, it made him feel important. Like someday, we’d be everything he ever dreamed of and more.
I clenched the sachet against my chest as the car slowed in front of the clinic. Logan parked in the space closest to the door before hopping out into the oppressive Florida sun.
Mrs. Stellar was not allowed to open her own door, if she did, Logan looked like an inadequate mate.
When I’d first been sold to him, I didn’t know that.
First time, when he parked outside a restaurant, and I reached for the handle, already halfway out of my seat, he smiled, took my hand in his, and broke every single finger. All the while, he explained my place was to wait.
People were watching, and Mrs. Stellar was never to disrespect her alpha by acting like she didn’t need him.
I never made that mistake again.
Now my hands stayed obediently folded on my purse, trembling only a little as Mr. Stellar circled the car as slowly as possible, leaving me to bake just so he could ensure as many people as possible saw him.
The perfect husband, the devoted alpha, the man who took such good care of his fragile little wife.
His shadow poured through the windshield before he opened the door and leaned in, fingers unfastening my seatbelt.
“Let’s go, Little Dove,” he said softly, offering me his hand. “We have a baby to make.”
A wounded whimper escaped my throat before I could stop it, and my bottom lip trembled. I hated that he saw it.
“Don’t be so sad, my pet,” he cooed, pressing a kiss to my temple. “No matter how many children we make, I will always have time for you.”
Always have time for you.
No matter how many children we make.
Those words bounced around my skull until they turned my brain to mush. If–no, when–this worked and the clinic did what it was infamous for, there would be no more trying. No more failed heats, no more miscarriages, just results.
Just a child that was half me and half Logan.
Then another.
And another.
And another.
He’d keep me swollen and silent while he paraded me around and others praised him for having such an obedient wife. I’d be nothing more than an incubator with a name.
The second they got his cum inside me, I’d be trapped.
Forever.
My breath hitched, and I stumbled over the heels he forced me to wear. No sneakers for Mrs. Stellar, Logan said I was too small, and they helped us look better together, but I knew the truth. He made me wear them so I couldn’t run.
“You’re okay,” he murmured. “This is going to fix everything.”
Terror clawed through my chest, sending a bolt of electricity down my spine. For so long, I’d survived by being the perfect wife. I was obedient; I did what was expected of me.
Always have time for you.
No matter how many children we make.
The words echoed inside my head once more, and this time something in me snapped.
Once I walked in those doors, I had two options.
I could do what I’d always done.
Be good, be quiet, be compliant. I could let them strap me into a bed and pump me full of Logan’s “solutions.” As long as I did what I was told, life could be easy after that.
Strangers would congratulate me on the street, and I could live through a cushy American dream that never belonged to me as they finished erasing every hint of who I was in favor of the Stellar name.
Or, I could do something terrifying, and stupid, and likely to get me killed.
I could run.
The idea wasn't brave or thought out; it was just raw instinct roughly shaped by panic.
The last time we came, they needed a urine sample, and there was a little window in the bathroom. It was high up, but if I tried just hard enough, maybe I could reach it.
Just the idea brought a smile to my face.
“You look excited, Little Dove.” Logan placed his hand on the small of my back and guided me into the clinic.
Air conditioning rushed to greet us, and I breathed a little easier.
I nodded and hummed in approval.
“Good, you should be.”
I kept smiling because I had a plan, an escape. All I needed was the bathroom.
“Alright, Ms. Stellar,” the nurse following me down the hall said. “All we need is for you to pee in this cup–” She paused and handed me the plastic cylinder. “–then we’ll take you to your nest, and before you know it, everything will be over.”
I nodded as she led me to the bathroom.
“You sure are a quiet little thing. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to have your alpha in the room?” she asked. “Here at First Chapter Heat Clinic, the omega’s comfort and desires come first.”
I shook my head.
“Alright, we’ll just grab the clothes he brought and scent the room for you, and as soon as you’re done, we’ll be ready for you.”
I offered a small smile and another nod as the nurse turned and walked away, the soft rhythm of her footsteps vanishing down the hall.
The door clicked shut behind me, and I was greeted with beautiful silence.
I turned the lock with trembling fingers and placed the cup on the sink.
Then, I looked up, and there it was.
The window.
Small and rectangular, barely a slit in the wall, right over the back of the toilet.
I let out a shaky exhale and pressed a hand against my chest. The sachet was still there, warm from my skin. I didn’t have time to be afraid right now.
This was my chance.
I stepped out of my shoes, toes curling against the cold tile for balance. The room hummed softly with the vent above me as I swallowed hard and climbed onto the toilet seat.
My palm braced against the wall as I steadied myself and looked up.
Even like this, my fingers didn’t graze the windowsill.
Carefully, I climbed onto the tank.
It wobbled beneath me, and I froze.
My toes curled against the lid as I regained my balance, pressed one hand to the wall, and used the other to reach up.
This time, my fingertips brushed the edge of the window.
Yes.
I grew to my tiptoes and Jackpot.
My fingers wrapped over the edge of the sill. Slowly, I pushed against the glass.
At first, it didn’t budge. My pulse spiked. I nudged harder, and my breath caught in my throat. The frame groaned and paint cracked, and then—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“Mrs. Stellar? Are you doing alright in there?” The nurse called.
My heart stopped, and I nearly fell from the tank.
Then another voice joined hers, this one lower.
“Violet’s a mute, she won’t answer you,” Logan said.
I squeezed my eyes shut as bile rose in my throat.
“She’s just so excited to make this baby that she doesn’t know what to do with herself. You can go,” he added. “I’ll handle her.”
No.
My hands moved before my mind could stop them, dragging my body upward with a strength I didn’t know I had.
I rested as much of my body as I could on the sill before bashing the window with my shoulder. I didn’t care if it broke or opened; either way, I’d be getting out of here.
The doorknob jiggled.
“Little Dove,” Logan sang. “If you’re okay, knock on the door twice. We’re all getting worried about you.”
My stomach lurched.
There was no way for me to knock. Which meant Logan would know I was up to something, and he’d break the door down and come get me. But I couldn’t give up, not when freedom was so close I could taste it.
I grit my teeth and shoved my shoulder harder into the window. The glass finally yawned open, letting in a thick rush of humid air and disrupting my center of balance.
And before I could stop it, I fell forward.
The rough edge of the window scraped my side as I tumbled through, gravity yanking me toward a narrow strip of grass behind the building. The ground was still soft and damp from last night’s rain, but it did little to cushion my landing.
Pain bloomed across my knees and elbows as I hit the earth. For a second, I just lay there, blinking up at the sky, then instinct took over.
Scrabbling to my feet, I glanced around my surroundings, and then I ran.
The section of brush behind the clinic became my path to freedom. Twigs clawed at my arms, and damp sand stuck to my feet as the unstable ground sucked at my heels, but I didn’t stop.
A few branches whipped my face as the heat writhing under my skin reached a fever pitch, but I could deal with it later. I’d find a nice alpha and take his knot. I didn’t care if I got pregnant, or if I stayed pregnant, as long as it wasn’t Logan’s I’d be okay.
I broke through the trees and stumbled out onto the first stretch of road. The feeling of asphalt under my feet forced me to pause at the worst possible time.
A horn split the air, and my head jerked to the side only to be greeted by the screech of tires.