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.
