"Mason." His name came out as a moan. "Please. I can't—I need?—"
"I know what you need." He shifted, moving me gently until I was lying on my back, my hair spread across the pillows like a red halo. He braced himself above me, still outside the nest, still not touching me anywhere but where his hands held my shoulders. "And you're going to get it. Soon. I promise."
"Now," I begged, my hips lifting off the mattress, seeking contact that wasn't there. "Please, now, I'll do anything?—"
"Anything?" Something flickered in his eyes—dark and hungry and nothing like the gentle Alpha he usually showed me.
"Anything," I repeated, too far gone to care what I was promising. "Just make it stop. Make it stop hurting." For a long moment, he just looked at me. I could see the war on his face, the desire fighting the control, the Alpha instincts screaming at him to take what was being offered. His whole body was tense, muscles straining, and I could smell his arousal cutting through his sunshine scent like a blade.
Then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and pulled away.
"Not yet," he said, and his voice was rough, barely controlled. "God, Ava, you have no idea how much I want to. But not yet." The sound that came out of me was barely human, a wail of frustration and need that echoed off the walls. I grabbed for him, trying to pull him back, but he was already standing, already moving toward the door.
"Mason!" I screamed his name like a curse. "Don't you dare leave me like this! Mason!"
He paused at the doorway, looking back at me with eyes that burned with barely leashed hunger.
"A few more hours," he said quietly. "Let the fever peak. Let your body finish what it started. And then we'll give you everything you need."
"I need it now!" I was desperate. I know I would look back at this later and hate myself for it.
"You need it when you can remember it." He gripped the doorframe, knuckles white with the effort of not coming back to me. "When you can feel it. When you can look me in the eyes and know exactly what's happening and choose it anyway."
"I'm not going to choose it," I snarled, even as my body writhed with need. "I'll never choose you. Any of you."
Mason smiled, sad and knowing. "We'll see." Then he was gone, and I was alone again, burning alive in a nest that smelled like four men I was rapidly losing the will to resist.
I don't know how long I lasted after that. Time lost all meaning. There was only the fever and the need and the endless, crashing waves of want that left me sobbing and shaking and begging for relief that wouldn't come. I touched myself until my fingers cramped. I screamed until my throat was raw. I cried until there were no tears left, and then I cried some more. Through it all, the scents of my captors surrounded me, sinking into my skin, rewiring my brain, teaching my body that safety and comfort and home smelled like honey and cedar and pine and chocolate.
By the time the door opened again, I was barely conscious. The fever had peaked and broken something fundamental inside me. The resistance I'd clung to so desperately had crumbled, washed away by wave after wave of need until there was nothing left but the raw, primal Omega underneath.
I needed Alpha. I needed pack. I needed to be claimed, marked, filled, owned.
I needed them.
"Please." The word was barely a whisper, my voice destroyed from screaming. "Please, I can't anymore, please?—"
"We know." Ethan's voice, calm and clinical but with something raw underneath. "We're here now."
I forced my eyes open. All four of them stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light from the hallway. Mason in front, golden and steady. Ethan beside him, green eyes burning with intensity. Leo on Mason's other side, all traces of his usual humor gone, replaced by something fierce and wanting. Caleb behind them all, a massive shadow, those ice-blue eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my core clench.
My Alphas. Mine.
No. Not mine. I didn't want—I didn't?—
"Avalon." Mason stepped into the room, moving slowly, carefully, like I was a wounded animal he didn't want to spook. "Can you hear me?"
I nodded weakly, my whole body trembling.
"Your heat has peaked. Do you understand what that means?" He asked, and I knew what was going to come next.
Another nod. I understood. God help me, I understood perfectly.
"We're going to take care of you now." He stopped at the edge of the nest, looking down at me with those warm brown eyes. "We're going to give you what your body needs. I need you to tell me that's what you want."
"I don't—" My voice cracked. "I don't want?—"
"Your mind doesn't want it," Ethan said, stepping up beside Mason. "We know that. But your body does. Right now, your body is going to win." He crouched down, bringing himself to my level, and his voice softened. "Let it win, Avalon. Stop fighting. Let us take care of you."
