"Where..." I started, my voice hoarse, my throat dry.
"Mason's making breakfast," Leo supplied cheerfully, crawling up the bed toward me with predatory grace. "Ethan's doing whatever Ethan does in the morning. Caleb's in the shower. And I..." He reached me, his hand coming up to brushhair from my face, his touch sending sparks cascading down my spine. "I'm on Ava duty."
I flinched away from his touch, my body arching toward it even as I tried to escape. The contradiction made him grin wider.
"Interesting," Leo observed, his gray eyes dark with knowing amusement. "Your body wants me closer. Your mind wants me gone. How does that feel, Red?"
"Like hell," I gritted out, pressing myself against the headboard, putting as much distance between us as the bed would allow.
"It doesn't have to," Leo said softly, something almost like kindness flickering beneath his teasing exterior. His hand reached out again, fingers trailing down my arm with featherlight pressure. "All you have to do is ask."
A sound escaped me. High and thin, catching in my throat like a sob. A keen. A wanting keen, the kind I'd read about in those forbidden books about Omega biology, the kind that meant need and please and I can't stand this anymore.
Leo's eyes darkened, his pupils dilating, his scent sharpening with arousal. "There she is," he murmured, his voice dropping to something rougher. "There's our Omega."
"Stop," I gasped, pressing my hand against his chest, trying to push him away. My fingers curled into his shirt instead, clutching the fabric, pulling him closer. "Please stop."
"Stop what?" Leo asked, his hand sliding up to cup my face, his thumb brushing across my cheekbone. "Stop touching you? Or stop making you feel things you don't want to feel?"
"Both," I whimpered, even as I leaned into his palm, even as another keen built in my throat.
"I can't do either," Leo replied softly, his gray eyes holding mine with unexpected gentleness. "You need touch right now, Ava. Your body is going into heat, and it needs contact with yourpack to regulate. If we stopped touching you completely, you'd go into distress. You'd get sick. You might even die."
"Then let me die," I said, but the words came out weak, unconvincing.
"Never," Leo replied, and the playfulness was gone from his voice, replaced by something fierce and absolute. "Never, Ava. We waited too long for you, searched too hard, loved you too much. You don't get to die. You don't get to leave us. You only get to accept what you are and who you belong to."
He leaned closer, his forehead pressing against mine, his breath warm on my lips. I could feel the heat of him, the want rolling off him in waves, but he didn't close the distance. Didn't kiss me. Just held there, a hairsbreadth away, making me feel every inch of space between us.
"Ask me," Leo whispered, his gray eyes burning into mine. "Ask me for what you need, and I'll give it to you. But you have to ask."
I squeezed my eyes shut, tears leaking from the corners. "I won't."
"Then we wait," Leo replied, pulling back slightly but not letting go, his hand still cupping my face, his thumb still tracing patterns on my skin. "We have all the time in the world, Red. And your heat? It's only going to get worse."
He was right. God help me, he was right.
By midday, I was shaking constantly. The lightest touch sent waves of sensation crashing through me, building and building with nowhere to go. They kept their promise, kept touching me always, but never in the places I needed. Hands in my hair. Arms around my waist. Fingers tracing patterns on my back through my thin shirt.
Caleb sat behind me on the couch, his massive body a furnace of warmth, his hands moving in slow circles across my shoulders. The touch was soothing, comforting, and utterlymaddening. I needed more. Needed his hands to move lower, to slide beneath my clothes, to press against the ache that was consuming me from the inside out. Instead, he just kept rubbing my shoulders, his rough palms catching on the fabric, his chest rumbling with a low, content growl that vibrated through my back.
"Caleb," I whimpered, my head falling back against his shoulder, my body arching into his hands despite my best efforts to stay still. "Please."
"Please what?" Caleb asked, his deep voice soft and patient, his hands never faltering in their rhythm.
"Please stop," I gasped, even as I pressed closer, even as a keen built in my throat.
"You don't want me to stop," Caleb observed, his lips brushing against my temple, his breath warm on my skin. "You want more. You're just afraid to ask for it."
"I'm not afraid," I lied, my voice cracking.
"Then ask," Caleb said simply, his hands sliding down to my upper arms, his touch still maddeningly appropriate, still nowhere near where I needed it. "Ask for what you want, Ava. We'll give it to you."
I couldn't. Wouldn't. Asking meant surrender. Asking meant admitting that I wanted them, needed them, couldn't survive without them. Asking meant giving up the last shred of resistance I had left. I just sat there, trembling in his arms, keening softly with every exhale, my body screaming for something my mind refused to request.
That afternoon, Ethan took his turn. He pulled me into his study, settled me on the leather couch, and proceeded to give me the most clinical, devastating lecture on Omega biology I'd ever heard.
"The heat cycle evolved as a bonding mechanism," Ethan explained, his green eyes sharp behind his glasses, his voicecalm and measured. "Your body is designed to crave your Alphas during this time. The need you're feeling isn't artificial. It's not something we're doing to you. It's what you are."
