When Signe finishes, she gathers her supplies and slips past me into the corridor. I close the door and lock it, ignoring the sob that follows, ignoring the sound of fists pounding against wood.
Signe stands beside me, studying my face with those pale, assessing eyes.
"You could end her suffering," she says.
"Not like this."
"You're either the most honorable alpha I've ever met, or the cruelest." She tilts her head, considering. "I haven't decided which."
"When you figure it out, let me know."
She leaves without another word. I resume my position against the wall and listen to Iris weep, and I tell myself this is necessary. I tell myself the reward will be worth the cost. I tell myself a lot of things as the hours crawl past and her cries echo through the empty corridor.
None of them make the waiting easier.
The second day breaks me open in ways I didn't know I could break.
I haven't slept. Haven't eaten. The stone wall beside my post is gouged with claw marks, fresh ones layered over old whenever her moans grow too desperate to bear. My own rut has reached a fever pitch, my body demanding release with an urgency that borders on pain. Twice I've had to trust my beta to guard her so I can shift and run the perimeter until my lungs burn and my legs give out, just to keep from turning that handle.
Iris is delirious now. She calls my name in one breath and curses it in the next, her voice hoarse from screaming. Sometimes she begs, promises me anything if I'll just touch her, just once, just enough to take the edge off. Other times she threatens, swears she'll kill me when this is over, describes in vivid detail exactly how she'll do it. The threats are easier to bear than the begging. The threats let me pretend she's still fighting.
The begging reminds me that I'm the reason she's suffering.
Torben finds me around midday, his expression grim as he takes in my disheveled state. Blood stains my shirt and trousers. My hair hangs lank around my face, unwashed and unkempt. I probably look like something dragged from a battlefield, and I feel worse than I look.
"You need to rest," Torben says. "Let me take over for a few hours. You're no good to anyone like this."
I'm on my feet before he finishes speaking, my hand around his throat, slamming him against the wall hard enough to crack the stone. A snarl tears from my chest, more wolf than man, and my claws prick the skin beneath his jaw.
"No one else guards her." The words come out barely recognizable, distorted by fangs that have descended without my permission. "No one else breathes near that door. She's mine, Torben. Mine to protect. Mine to keep. Mine to claim when she's ready. Do you understand?"
Torben holds perfectly still, his eyes lowered in submission, his throat bared despite the claws threatening to tear it open. Smart wolf. He's been my beta for fifteen years. He knows when to push and when to yield.
"I understand," he says quietly. "But Stellan, you're in rut. You haven't slept in two days. If you lose control now, after everything, you'll never forgive yourself. And neither will she."
The words penetrate the haze of instinct clouding my mind. I release him slowly, stepping back, forcing my claws to retract and my fangs to recede. The effort costs me more than I want to admit. My control is a threadbare thing, worn thin by hours of wanting and waiting, and Torben is right. If I break now, I lose everything I've been working toward.
"I won't lose control," I say, but the words sound hollow even to my own ears.
"Then let me bring you food. Water. Let me stand at the end of the corridor, far enough away that your wolf won't considerme a threat, close enough to intervene if something goes wrong." Torben straightens his collar, rubbing the marks my claws left behind. "You've waited years for her, Stellan. Don't let the last few days destroy what you've built."
I want to argue. I want to snarl and snap and drive him away from what's mine. But beneath the instinct, beneath the rut and the exhaustion and the overwhelming need, a sliver of rationality remains. Torben isn't wrong. And if I collapse now, if I break down that door in a frenzy of need, I'll be no better than the monsters Iris already thinks we are.
"End of the corridor," I say through gritted teeth. "No closer."
Torben nods and retreats to his assigned position. A few minutes later, a servant approaches with a tray of food and a pitcher of water, leaving them on the floor beside me before scurrying away. I force myself to eat, to drink, to maintain the body that will eventually claim hers. The food tastes like ash. The water does nothing to quench the thirst burning through my veins.
Inside the room, Iris has gone quiet. The silence is almost worse than the screaming. I press my ear to the door and listen for her breathing, for any sign that she's still alive, still fighting, still waiting for me on the other side of this hell we're both enduring.
A soft whimper reaches me through the wood. Then another. She's crying now, quiet sobs that shake her weary body. The sound carves something out of my chest and leaves a hollow space behind.
I rest my forehead against the door and close my eyes.
"Hold on," I whisper, though she can't hear me. "Just a little longer. Hold on."
The third day dawns gray and cold, and the scent filtering through the door has changed.
I notice it immediately, the change from desperate heat to something softer. Still sweet, still undeniably omega, but lacking the sharp edge of biological imperative that has been driving us both mad for the past seventy-two hours. The heat is breaking. The worst has passed.
