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.
Breathing hard, chest heaving, eyes already gone solid black—no gold left, no humanity, just the endless dark of an alpha in full rut. His shirt hangs in tatters around his shoulders; he must have partially shifted to get the strength to break through, claws shredding fabric before retracting. Those claws are out again now, curved and gleaming, flexing at his sides like they're hungry for something to tear.
Every muscle in his body is taut with barely-contained violence. The veins in his forearms stand out like cords. His scent rolls through the room like smoke—woodfire and musk and the dark, animal smell of a predator who's found his prey.
His rut fully risen. Called up by my heat. Both of us caught in the oldest dance there is.
"You broke my door," I say, and my voice comes out strange and distant, like someone else is speaking through my mouth.
"You locked me out." He takes a step into the armory, glass and splinters crunching under his boots. "During your heat. While you're armed and feral and—" His nostrils flare, scenting the air, and something in his expression shifts. Gets darker. Hungrier. "You smell like battle."
"Good." I'm on my feet before I consciously decide to move, instinct overriding thought. The practice sword is three feetaway; I grab it, the wrapped leather grip familiar in my palm. "Because you're about to get one."
His eyes track the weapon. Something shifts in his expression—not quite a smile, but close. The kind of look a wolf gives another wolf right before they start circling.
"You want to fight me." Not a question.
"I always want to fight you." The heat is building higher with every breath, rage and need tangling together until I can't tell where one ends and the other begins. "That's what I am. What my bloodline is. Warrior omegas don't submit. We don't soothe. We don't lie down and bare our throats and hope our alphas will be gentle." I shift my grip on the sword, settling into a fighting stance. "We fight."
"I know." He reaches behind him without looking and pulls a practice sword from the rack by the ruined door. The wood looks almost delicate in his massive hand. "So fight me, little omega. Show me what you've got."
Then he attacks.
Fast—faster than something his size should be able to move. The practice sword whistles toward my head and I block on pure instinct, the impact jarring up my arms hard enough to rattle my teeth. If I'd been a second slower, he'd have cracked my skull.
He's not playing.
Good.
Neither am I.
I counter with a strike at his ribs, putting my whole body behind it. He deflects and our swords crack together with a sound like breaking bone. We're both moving now—circling, testing, looking for openings in each other's guard.
This isn't practice. This isn't the careful sparring I do with Carter, where we both pull our strikes and stop before anyone gets hurt.
This is combat with the thinnest veneer of civilization stretched over it, ready to tear at any moment.
I feint left and strike right. The wooden blade catches his shoulder—not hard enough to break skin through his ruined shirt, but hard enough to bruise deep. He grunts, and his eyes flash gold through the black for just a heartbeat, the man surfacing briefly through the beast.
Then he's pressing the attack, and there's no more time to think.
Fast combinations drive me back across the armory floor, each strike flowing into the next like water over rocks. My feet find their rhythm without conscious input—dodge, parry, counter, retreat. The movements are instinctive, written into my muscles by years of training and generations of warrior blood. My body knows how to fight even when my mind is dissolving into heat-fog.
Especially when my mind is dissolving into heat-fog.
The fever makes everything sharper. Clearer. The world narrows down to him and me and the space between us, measured in sword-lengths and heartbeats.
I duck under his swing and drive my shoulder into his ribs, using his momentum against him. We both go down hard, hitting the stone floor in a tangle of limbs. The practice swords clatter away, spinning across the flagstones.
Then it's just hands and teeth and the desperate struggle for dominance.
I rake my nails down his back—my new nails, sharper than they should be, harder than human keratin. I feel skin part beneath them like silk beneath scissors. Feel blood well up hot and wet, soaking into what's left of his shirt.
