Chapter 12 Kess
Kess
Something's wrong.
I've felt it all morning—a restlessness beneath my skin that won't settle, an itch I can't scratch. I blamed it on too little sleep, on the dreams that keep waking me in the dark hours. Dreams of golden eyes and blood in my mouth and a knot swelling inside me until I can't breathe.
But it's not the dreams.
Carter and I have been sparring for an hour, and I can't focus. My timing is off, my strikes sloppy. Twice now he's landed hits that should never have gotten through my guard.
"You okay?" He lowers his practice sword, frowning. "You seem distracted."
"Fine." I reset my stance, rolling my shoulders to loosen them. "Again."
But I'm not fine.
The armory feels too warm. The wool of my training leathers itches against my skin. Every sound is too loud—the scrape of boots on stone, the distant clang of the smithy, Carter's breathing. And underneath it all, a low hum in my blood that I'm trying very hard not to recognize.
It's too soon.
My last heat was five weeks ago. Heats are supposed to come every three or four months, not every five weeks. The bond is doing something to my cycle, speeding it up, pulling my body toward his on a schedule that has nothing to do with normal omega biology.
I should have paid more attention. Should have tracked the signs—the heightened senses, the restless nights, the way my skin has felt too tight for the past two days. Should have locked myself in my chambers this morning instead of coming to train.
Too late now.
The first real wave hits me mid-strike.
One moment I'm swinging my practice sword toward Carter's guard. The next, fever crashes over me like a rogue wave dragging me under, and I'm stumbling, vision bleeding red at the edges, the world tilting sideways beneath my feet.
Fuck.
Not here. Not now.
"Lady Kess?" Carter lowers his sword, concern creasing his young face. "Are you—"
The fever spikes so hard my knees nearly buckle. Slick floods between my thighs, hot and urgent, soaking through my training leathers. The rage starts low in my belly—that familiar red tide rising, the feral thing inside me waking up and stretching its claws.
"Get out." The words scrape past my teeth like broken glass. "All of you. Now."
The guards exchange uncertain glances. Carter takes a step toward me, one hand extended like he's approaching a wounded animal. "You need the healer—"
"I need you to GET OUT." My voice comes out half snarl, more animal than woman, and even I flinch at the sound of it. The practice sword is shaking in my grip—or my hands are shaking around it, I can't tell anymore. "Go. Before I do something we'll both regret."
They smell it then.
The shift in my scent—sweet turning sharp, calming turning wild, the soft omega fragrance that's supposed to soothe alphas curdling into something that makes them want to run or fight. My heat building like a storm on the horizon, pressure dropping, lightning about to strike.
Carter's eyes go wide. He backs toward the door, motioning the other guards to follow, all of them moving with the careful haste of prey animals who've just realized they're in the wrong territory.
"We'll get the king—"
"Don't."
But they're already gone, boots pounding stone, practically running for the exit like the hounds of hell are snapping at their heels.
The door slams behind them.
I drop the practice sword and it clatters against the floor, the sound too loud in the sudden silence.
My whole body is trembling now, fine shivers running through my muscles like I'm standing in a snowstorm instead of a warm armory.
The fever climbs higher with each heartbeat—faster than my previous heats, more demanding, like my body remembers exactly what it wants and is furious at having to wait.
Five weeks. Only five weeks since the last heat.
Whatever his blood is doing to me, it's speeding everything up.
Lock the door.
The thought surfaces through the heat-haze, clear and sharp as a blade. I lunge for the armory door and slam the heavy bolt home, iron sliding into stone with a satisfying thunk that echoes through my bones.
There.
Now I just have to ride this out alone. Lock myself in here with the practice dummies and the weapon racks until the worst of it passes.
Until the fever breaks enough that I can think clearly.
Until I can make it back to my chambers without leaving a trail of slick on the corridor stones for everyone to smell.
Until—
The bond pulls.
Hard. Insistent. That invisible chain connecting me to Rhystan yanking taut like someone's got hold of the other end and is reeling me in, hand over hand, inexorable. I feel him through it—feel his awareness spike, feel the answering heat kindling in his blood.
He knows.
Of course he knows. The guards probably ran straight to him, or maybe he felt it through the bond the moment my heat triggered—my fever calling to his rut like a bell ringing in the dark, impossible to ignore.
I press my back against the locked door and slide down to sit on the cold stone floor.
The chill seeps through my sweat-soaked leathers, a brief relief against the inferno building under my skin.
The armory stretches out before me, full of weapons—practice swords and real swords, spears and bows, arrows fletched with crow feathers.
All the tools I'd need to hurt him if he tries to get in.
All the tools I want to use on him even though using them means getting close.
Means touching.
Means letting him see what I become when the heat takes over.
Footsteps in the corridor outside. Fast. Heavy. The particular cadence of a large man moving with predatory purpose.
Him.
"Kess." His voice through the door, already rough around the edges, his rut rising to meet my heat like tide answering moon. "Open the door."
"No."
"You're in heat. Locked in the armory. Surrounded by weapons." A pause, and I hear him exhale—a controlled sound, like he's fighting to keep himself leashed. "You'll hurt yourself."
"I'll hurt you if you come in here." I wrap my arms around my knees and squeeze, trying to hold myself together.
The fever is unbearable now, a living thing crawling through my veins.
Sweat runs down my temples in slow rivulets.
My nails are changing—I can feel them extending, hardening, turning into something halfway between human fingernails and predator claws.
The contamination. Spreading faster when my heat rises.
"Then hurt me." The door shudders against my back—he's leaning into it, pressing his weight against the wood like he can will it to open. "Come out and fight me if that's what you need. But don't lock yourself in there alone."
"I've survived heats alone for six years."
"You blacked out for six years." His voice drops lower, rough velvet scraping over my nerves. "You told me yourself—you'd wake up covered in blood with no memory of what happened. That's not surviving, Kess. That's just not dying. There's a difference."
I dig my nails into my palms. The sharper edges bite deeper than they should.
"You're not blacking out anymore," he continues, relentless. "You're conscious through it now. Aware. Feeling every second of the heat without the mercy of forgetting. That's harder. Let me help you through it."
"Your help comes with a knot and three days I can't get back."
Silence from the other side of the door. Then, quietly: "Yes. It does. But at least you won't be alone."
The words hit somewhere deep in my chest, somewhere I thought I'd armored over years ago.
Alone. I've been alone my whole life—through every heat since my grandmother died, through every blackout, every bloody morning-after.
Waking up in the forest with the taste of raw meat in my mouth and no memory of the hunt.
Not alone sounds dangerous.
Sounds like something I could get used to.
Sounds like something that will gut me when it's taken away.
"Go lock yourself in the dungeons," I manage. "Chain yourself to a wall if you have to. I'll be fine."
Silence from the other side of the door. Long enough that I think maybe he's actually listening. Maybe he's going to walk away, leave me to burn through this alone the way I've burned through every heat since I was sixteen.
Then I hear it—a low sound, barely audible through the oak. Not words. Something deeper. A growl building in his chest, vibrating through the wood against my back.
"Kess." My name sounds different now. Rougher. Less human. "I can smell you through the door. I can smell how much you need—"
"Don't."
"—and I'm trying." His voice cracks on the word.
"I'm trying to be what you need me to be.
Trying to give you space. But the rut is—" A thud against the door, his fist or his forehead, I can't tell.
"I can't think. Can't breathe. Can't do anything but stand here wanting to break through this door and—"
"Then go. Walk away. You've had three hundred years of practice controlling yourself."
"Not with you." The words come out ragged, torn. "Never with you. You're different. The bond is different. Everything is different and I don't know how to—"
His voice cuts off. I hear him breathing on the other side of the door, harsh and uneven.
Then the wood begins to splinter.
Not slowly—first a crack running through the grain, then another, the oak groaning under pressure no normal hands could exert.
I scramble away from the door just as it gives, the iron bolt tearing free of the stone like it was set in sand, hinges screaming as three inches of solid oak rips apart and crashes inward.
He's there.
Standing in the ruined doorway.