And my secret is out.
Oh, also, I’m in a stranger’s house with three alphas only one flimsy door away.
Everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve sacrificed for—my career, my independence, my identity—it’s all at risk now. One slip, one moment of weakness, and I could lose everything.
But as I look around this room, designed with such care for someone exactly in my position, I feel something unexpected take root alongside my fear: resolve.
I can get through this. I can weather this storm—both the one raging outside and the one building within me. And I don’t have to do it alone.
I curl up on the bed, pulling one of the impossibly soft blankets around my shoulders. Through the fog of fever and fear, one clear thought emerges:
For the first time in my life, I’m going to face what I am instead of running from it.
Whether that’s courage or surrender, I’m too exhausted right now to figure out.
FOURTEEN
HOLLY
I wake disoriented,tangled in sheets that feel too smooth against my hypersensitive skin. For a moment, I can’t remember where I am—the room is unfamiliar, the quality of light all wrong. Then it comes rushing back: the blizzard, the alphas finding me, Kai’s mansion.
My heat.
I kick off the blankets, my body burning from the inside out. Sweat plasters my t-shirt to my skin, and every nerve ending feels raw. Exposed. This is worse than I imagined, and I know it’s only the beginning.
According to the medical literature—the clinical, sanitized descriptions I’ve studied with detached interest—I’m still in the preliminary phase. The true heat hasn’t even started yet. This is just my body adjusting to the absence of suppressants, recalibrating after years of chemical interference.
God help me when the real thing hits.
I force myself to sit up, taking stock of my surroundings with more clarity than I managed last night. Sunlight streams through the windows, reflecting off the snow outside to create a brilliance that makes me squint. The storm must have passedovernight, leaving behind a transformed landscape of pristine white.
The room is even more impressive in daylight. What I took for simple luxury last night reveals itself as thoughtful design. The bed sits at an angle that catches morning light without it becoming blinding. The furniture arrangement creates natural pathways through the space. Even the color palette—soft blues and greens with accents of warm amber—feels intentionally soothing.
Who designed this room? Kai doesn’t seem like the type to obsess over paint swatches and furniture catalogs.
Then again, I don’t know anything about him. Maybe he just makes a habit of giving random omegas a safe place to experience their heats with no strings attached.
Paranoia tingles at the edge of my senses. Maybe there are strings attached to this that I just haven’t seen yet.
The question nags at me as I swing my legs over the side of the bed, testing whether they’ll support my weight.
They do, barely. I shuffle toward the bathroom, desperate for a shower to wash away the night’s sweat. The bathroom continues the theme of understated luxury—marble countertops, a glass-enclosed shower big enough for three people, and a deep soaking tub positioned beneath a window with a view of snow-laden pine trees.
I catch sight of myself in the mirror and wince. My hair is a tangled mess, my eyes fever-bright, cheeks flushed. I look exactly like what I am—an omega in early heat—and the sight sends a wave of panic through me.
This isn’t me. This can’t be me.
But it is.
The woman in the mirror is Holly Chang—medical doctor and hidden omega, now stripped of pretense and chemical barriers. This is what I’ve been running from all these years.
I turn away from my reflection and step into the shower, adjusting the temperature to just shy of scalding. The water pressure is perfect, the rainfall feature living up to its name as water cascades over my heated skin. For a few minutes, I simply stand there, letting the water sluice away the sweat and fear.
When I finally emerge, wrapped in a towel that feels impossibly soft against my skin, I feel marginally more human.
A knock at the door startles me so badly I nearly drop my towel.
“Holly?” Noah’s voice calls through the wood. “I wanted to check how you’re doing.”
