The silence is suffocating.
My heart is racing because this is it. This is the conversation I’ve been dreading since the moment I smelled her heat come on.
“Cole—”
“I’m just saying,” he continues, speaking faster now, “we’re pack. We trust each other. And despite everything, Sierra trusted us enough not to back out when she realized we’d be here. If it came down to it, if she was really suffering and needed help... would it be the worst thing if one of us offered?”
The question lands like a bomb.
Yes, I want to say. Yes, it would be the worst thing. Because I can’t help her without exposing myself. Without showing her everything I feel. And when she inevitably rejects me, because why would she want me, wantus,who’ve been competing professionally with her, it will destroy me.
But the words won’t come.
Because another part of me, the same part that’s been noticing her smiles and memorizing the way she gestures when she’s passionate about something and memorizing every tiny detail about her for longer than I want to admit, that part is screaming yes, help her, be what she needs, give her everything.
“It would complicate things,” Malik says carefully, and I can tell he’s actually considering it. “But Cole has a point. We’re already complicated. We’re a pack stuck in a house with our professional rival. And if she’s in genuine distress...”
“The toys will work,” I say, but even as I say it, a treacherous part of me adds: And if they don’t? If she needs more? Would I really let her suffer just to protect my own feelings?
The answer, I realize with sinking certainty, is no.
If Sierra needs help, truly needs it, I’ll give it to her. Even if it means she’ll know. Even if it means risking everything.
Even if that means she’ll throw me away after. What that says for my self-esteem is something I’ll have to look at after this storm has passed.
Dax has stopped pacing. He’s staring at the floor, jaw working like he’s chewing on something difficult.
“You okay?” I ask him.
He looks up, and his eyes are pure alpha. Dark, and intense, and barely human. “I can smell her from here,” he says roughly. “Her heat, her slick, everything. And my rut is telling me to go down that hall and fix it.”
“We all feel it,” Malik says.
“Yeah, but...” Dax shakes his head. “Never mind.”
“But what?” Cole presses.
Another long silence. When Dax finally speaks, his voice is so quiet I almost miss it.
“But what if she wants help? What if she’s in there suffering alone because she thinks she has to be, not because she actually wants to be?”
The question rewrites everything.
Because he’s right. We’ve all been assuming Sierra wants to handle this alone, that she’s chosen isolation. But what if she’s just being... Sierra? Trying to maintain some semblance of the professional rivalry we’ve had, even though we’re all stuck in this absurd situation together.
What if she’s waiting for one of us to offer, but would never ask herself?
“We can’t know that,” I say, but my conviction is wavering. “We can’t just assume?—”
“So we ask,” Cole says simply. “We check on her, make sure she has what she needs, and if she wants help... we offer it.”
“And if she says yes?” Malik asks. “Then what? Which one of us helps? All of us?”
The room goes very quiet.
The image of all four of us helping Sierra through her heat is so vivid, so appealing, that I have to actually shake my head to clear it.
But another thought follows immediately after: What if she only wants one of us? What if she chooses someone else?
