Wild Honey
The world was a burning, suffocating blur.
I was vaguely aware of Alpha Silas carrying me through the dark stone corridors of the royal wing. His massive, armored chest was a solid wall against my cheek, and his heavy, frantic heartbeat echoed the panicked rhythm of my own.
He kicked the heavy oak doors of his master suite open, completely shattering the iron lock, and strode inside. He didn't take me to my small adjoining room. He carried me directly to his massive, four-poster bed and laid me gently onto the cool, dark silk sheets.
"Aria," Silas's voice was a desperate, vibrating rumble. He immediately began unbuckling his heavy combat leather, throwing his broadsword and chest plate onto the floor. "I need to cool you down. You are burning alive."
"No," I whimpered, curling into a tight ball, my hands gripping my stomach.
The wolfsbane poison was completely failing. My Omega wolf, starved and suppressed for two decades, was violently shattering her cage. The sheer force of her awakening was tearing through my nervous system like wildfire.
Silas ignored my protest. He practically teleported to the adjoining bathroom, returning seconds later with a heavy silver basin of freezing water and a soft cloth.
He dropped to his knees beside the bed. His massive, calloused hands were incredibly gentle as he wiped the freezing cloth across my burning forehead and down my neck.
But the water was a fatal mistake.
The cold water mixed with the heavy, feverish sweat coating my skin. It acted as the final solvent, completely and utterly washing away the last, desperate layers of industrial bleach and coarse lye soap I had scrubbed into my pores.
The chemical mask dissolved.
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the massive bedroom.
I gasped for air, my chest heaving, and suddenly, I smelled it. The air in the room was no longer filled with the sharp, blinding scent of cleaning supplies.
It was replaced by a massive, intoxicating explosion of wild honey, rain-soaked vanilla, and pure, raw desire.
My scent. The scent of an unbound, untamed Omega.
The wet cloth slipped from Silas's massive fingers, hitting the stone floor with a soft slap.
The Mad King went completely, terrifyingly rigid. He was still on his knees beside the bed, leaning over me. For a microsecond, the universe seemed to stop spinning.
Silas slowly inhaled.
A sound tore from his throat—a deep, demonic, earth-shattering groan of absolute, starving possession that vibrated through the mattress beneath me.
His massive hands gripped the edges of the bed frame so hard the thick mahogany actually splintered under his claws. His head snapped up.
The King's icy blue eyes were entirely gone. They were completely, blindingly gold. The feral, unhinged beast that had been tearing his mind apart for days had finally, unequivocally found its target.
"It was you," Silas breathed, his voice a distorted, ragged whisper. He leaned closer, his nose brushing against my collarbone, inhaling the pure scent of honey and vanilla as if it were the only oxygen left on earth. "The courtyard. The rain. It was always you, hiding in plain sight."
I squeezed my eyes shut, tears slipping down my burning cheeks. "Please... please don't lock me in a cage."
Hearing the sheer, absolute terror in my voice seemed to strike the feral Alpha like a physical blow.
Silas flinched, his massive frame shuddering violently.
A brutal, agonizing war waged across his scarred face.
His inner beast was screaming at him to claim me, to bite my neck and mark me as his breeding prize right then and there.
The Omega scent was completely intoxicating, stripping away his human sanity.
But as I let out another sharp, agonizing gasp of pain, curling tighter into a ball, Silas's obsessive need to protect violently overpowered his feral need to claim.
"You aren't just sick," Silas growled, his golden eyes widening in sudden, terrifying realization as the heavy, sweet pheromones in the room continued to thicken. "The poison you took... it didn't just suppress your wolf. Breaking it triggered your biology. Aria... you are going into Heat."
My breath caught. An Omega's Heat. It was a biological, agonizing fever designed to force a mating. It was why Omegas were hunted.
"Silas, it hurts," I choked out, my suppressed wolf whining desperately for the Alpha hovering above me to fix it.
"I know, little mouse. I know," Silas's chest heaved. He looked at me—writhing in pain, my scent driving his beast insane—and he made a choice that defied every Alpha instinct in his DNA.
He pushed himself away from the bed.
Silas practically sprinted across the massive bedroom. He slammed the heavy oak doors shut. Because he had broken the lock kicking it open, he dragged a massive, solid oak dresser—something that would normally take four men to move—and shoved it directly against the doors, barricading us inside.
He locked the heavy iron shutters on the windows. He plunged the room into absolute lockdown.
"Alpha?" I whimpered, terrified by the darkness.
Silas walked slowly back to the bed. He didn't climb onto the mattress. He sat heavily on the floor, resting his broad back directly against the base of the bed frame, putting himself between me and the barricaded door.
"Your scent is going to bleed into the hallways," Silas's voice was a low, vibrating rasp, thick with the agony of suppressing his own feral desires. "Every unmated guard in this fortress is going to lose their minds. But they will have to kill me to get into this room."
I reached out with a trembling hand, my fingers brushing the thick, dark hair at the nape of his neck. "Silas... what about you?"
Silas closed his glowing golden eyes, leaning his head back against the mattress near my hand. He was shaking, practically vibrating with the primal need to pull me into his arms and claim me.
"I am a monster, Aria," the Mad King confessed, his voice breaking with a raw, agonizing vulnerability. "But I will not be your monster. I will chain my beast to the floor before I take advantage of your Heat. You are safe with me. I swear it."