My phone buzzes on the rug beside me. Seungchan again.
Bro, where are you? Hyunjin is asking if you’re coming. He says he brought the good stuff.
I stare at the screen, the blue light stinging my eyes. I can’t go out there. I can’t risk smelling an Omega and puking on my shoes, or worse, smelling an Alpha and getting a semi in the middle of the club. My reputation is fragile enough without me acting like a confused pervert in public.
I type back with one thumb.Can’t. Family emergency. Dad summoned me to the main estate for dinner. He’s screaming about quarterly projections. Save yourself.
It’s the perfect lie. Nobody questions a rich kid getting dragged into family drama.
RIP,Seungchan replies instantly.Drink one for me.
"Way ahead of you," I mutter, taking a swig straight from the bottle. It burns going down, hot and angry, but it doesn't drown out the noise in my head.
By Sunday evening, the self-pity has morphed into something physical. I feel like garbage. My skin feels too tight for my body, and there’s a dull, throbbing heat radiating from my bones. Icheck the thermostat. It’s set to a cool twenty degrees, but I’m sweating through my t-shirt.
"Great," I groan, pressing the back of my hand to my forehead. "Hangover fever. Just what I needed."
I stumble into the kitchen, dry-swallow two ibuprofen, and chug a glass of water. I just need to sleep it off. If I can just sleep for twelve hours, I’ll wake up, my brain will reset, and I can figure out how to get a laser to burn Donghwa’s claim off my neck without turning into a keloid monster.
I crawl into bed, burying my face in the pillow. It smells like me, but tonight, the scent feels irritating. Suffocating. I kick the duvet off, then pull it back on five minutes later when I start shivering.
I drift off eventually, but it’s not restful. It’s heavy, black, and full of static.
I wake up with a gasp, my lungs seizing like I’ve been underwater.
The room is pitch black, but my senses are screaming. My heart is hammering against my ribs, a frantic, erratic rhythm that hurts. I’m drenched. My t-shirt is plastered to my chest, soaked through with sweat, and the sheets are damp beneath me.
I try to sit up, but a wave of dizziness slams me back down.
"Fuck," I wheeze.
It’s hot. Unbearably, impossibly hot. It feels like someone lit a fire inside my marrow. And then I realize why the sheets feel so uncomfortable.
I’m hard. Painfully, rock-hard, straining against my boxers. And it’s messy. I realize with a jolt of humiliation that I came in my sleep. I haven't had a wet dream since I was fourteen and obsessed with my swim instructor.
I groan, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to remember what I was dreaming about. But it’s gone, leaving behind nothing but avague, lingering sense ofneed. Not the usual 'I want to get laid' need. This is different. It’s a hollow, gnawing hunger in my gut that feels violent.
I roll over, kicking the damp sheets away, and the movement sends a spike of pleasure-pain straight to my groin.
The smell hits me then.
My scent is everywhere. It’s usually controlled, a carefully constructed blend of expensive cologne and alpha pheromones. Now? It’s raw. It smells like burning wood and aggression, thick enough to taste.
I scramble for my phone on the nightstand, my fingers shaking so bad I almost drop it. I check the date.
September 18th.
"No," I whisper, my voice raspy. "No, no, no."
My cycle isn't due for another three weeks. I’m regular. I’m clockwork. I take my suppressants; I track my dates. I am the master of my own biology.
But my body isn't listening to logic. A cramp twists in my lower abdomen, sharp and hot, and a low growl rips out of my throat without my permission.
This isn't a hangover. It’s a Rut. And it’s not creeping up on me like usual, giving me a day or two of irritability before the fever hits. This is a ambush. It’s hitting me at a hundred miles an hour, skipping the foreplay and going straight to the delirium.
I curl in on myself, clutching my stomach as another wave of heat washes over me. It’s the bond. It has to be. My body thinks it has a mate now. It thinks it has somewhere to put all this aggression and lust, so it’s ramping up production, preparing to knot and claim and breed.
But I’m alone.
