The closer we get to Silverthorne, the more I start to doubt the reason for Noa’s agitation.
She’s hardly settled for longer than a handful of minutes at a time. Not even when I try to assure her that we’ll make itthrough. Not when I point at the familiar landmarks that signal how close we are to reaching the small town we have to cut through to reach the roads that’ll take us home.
We’re about ten miles out when she catches me completely off guard.
Her window rolls down without warning.
The wind explodes into the cab, unforgiving and biting, carrying a sheet of snow with it that swirls violently through the space between us. It hits me in the face hard enough to have my chin jerking back like I’ve been physically struck. The cold instantly slices through the layers of clothes I wear.
“Fuck, baby, what are you doing?” I bark, startled, my eyes darting between her and the snow-coated road. I reach for the control panel on my door and hit the button to raise her window again, closing it until only a narrow crack remains. Enough for the fresh air. Not enough to let this bullshit weather in. “It’s freezing outside.”
She’s half risen in her seat, leather creaking as she strains toward the gap, like she’s trying to press her face directly into the path of the frigid wind. She mumbles something I can’t make out at first, words slurred and disjointed.
Then she repeats herself, louder this time.
“Hot,” she pants. “I’m so hot.”
My stomach lurches and I risk another look at her. Holding it longer than is probably safe, it all comes together at once. The flush spreading across her cheeks. The faint sheen at her temples. The way her lashes flutter, as if keeping her eyes open is already asking too much of her.
Fuck.
How long has she been like this?
Guilt lands hard and immediate. I’ve been locked into the road like it’s the only thing that matters, tracking ice, traffic, andworst-case scenarios, so focused on keeping us safe that I missed what was happening right beside me.
“Noa?” I say, and everything I’m feeling folds into that single word. “Talk to me, sweet one. What’s going on?”
I already know, and I wish I didn’t.
I should have caught it sooner. The signs were there in the store and I missed them anyway. Her lips had been almost too hot against mine, the way she clung to that brief kiss like she needed more. She told me my touch had triggered the other ones she’s had, but this…this wasn’t that. This began in the store, the moment her instincts woke and that nesting fog settled in. Omega instincts don’t exist in isolation. They’re braided together, all serving the same purpose. Every intricate part built to prepare and serve her through a heat.
The realization has tension coiling tight and ugly in my gut, because this is the worst possible timing.
She doesn’t answer me, just shifts again, chasing the cold air with a low sound that scrapes straight down my spine. It’s a sound that is syrupy with painful need and threatens to gut me. I keep my eyes forward and reach across the console, pressing my palm gently to her forehead. Heat all but pours off her skin. I curse under my breath and pull my hand back, only to have her protest weakly and lean after it, searching for the contact she needs.
“Baby, I know it’s hard, but you have to focus,” I tell her, my voice rougher than I want it to be, but I have to lace the request with enough alpha command to make sure it lands. Even if something uncomfortable twists in my chest at using it on her.
Her head lolls toward me, neck seeming too weak to hold it upright, and her eyes are glassy when they find mine.
“That’s it,” I say softly. “That’s my good girl.”
The praise pulls another broken sound from her throat, and I grit my teeth against the instinctive drive to give her more than I safely can right now.
“I need to know if this is your heat or a spike.”
She blinks, confusion flickering in her hazy and need-soaked eyes.
“You have to answer me, Noa. This is important.”
It is, but either way, the next step is the same. I need to get her off the road and somewhere safe so I can help her through it. But if this is her full heat, it changes everything. That would mean days, not hours. And if I can’t get her home in time, she’ll be facing her first heat in the very rustic, hunting lodge-style motel in Silverthorne. It’s the only place to stay for thirty miles in either direction.
Her lips part again, breath hitching before the words finally come. “Heat…spike,” she pants. “Just a…spike.”
Thank fuck.
I activate the Bluetooth and call Canaan.
“Where are you?” Canaan answers without preamble.
