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 handsare 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.
