I set the water bottle down and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. A shower, that’s what I need. So I get up and make it three steps before the first cramp hits.
It starts low in my belly, a dull ache that blooms into sharp, stabbing pain so quickly I don’t have time to brace for it. I double over with a gasp, my hands flying to my stomach, trying to press against the source of the agony.
“What the?—”
Another cramp. Worse than the first. It feels like something is trying to claw its way out of me from the inside, and I stumble sideways, my shoulder hitting the wall hard enough to leave a bruise.
I can’t breathe or do anything except try to survive each wave of pain as it crashes over me.
“Oh God, what’s happening to me?”
I slide down the wall until I’m crouching on the floor, arms wrapped around my middle, gasping for air. The pain is everywhere now. Not just my stomach but my whole body, every nerve ending on fire, every muscle clenched tight against an onslaught I don’t understand.
I think this is what dying feels like.
Then a warming buzz spreads up my inner thighs. Hot and slick and unmistakable.
My hand moves without conscious thought, reaching between my legs, and when I pull it back, my fingers are coated in something thick and smooth. Something that glistens in the afternoon light.
Slick.
And suddenly everything makes sense. The exhaustion. The nesting. The fever that won’t break. The desperate need to surround myself with my Alphas’ scents.
My heat is finally here.
I let out a sound that’s half laugh, half sob, still crouched on the floor with my back against the wall. After all these weeks of waiting. Nights of lying awake wondering if I was broken, if I would ever experience what other Omegas take for granted, if my body would ever catch up with my heart.
Another cramp rips through me, and the relief is swallowed by a fresh wave of panic. Because reading about heats and experiencing one are two entirely different things. Nothing I read prepared me for this. The intensity. The loss of control. The way my body has suddenly become a foreign country with its own laws and demands.
I stumble to the bathroom, leaving a trail of slick on the hardwood floor that I’ll be embarrassed about later. Right now, I don’t care. Right now, the only thing that matters is cooling down my body enough to function and finding the three men who can make this stop.
The shower is a blur. Cold water that does absolutely nothing to cool the fire under my skin. More slick sliding down my thighs almost as fast as I can wash it away. My hands shaking so badly I can barely hold the soap.
And underneath it all, a craving that’s growing stronger by the second. The desperate need to be filled and claimed and marked.
I dry myself as best I can, but my body isn’t cooperating. Slick keeps coming, soaking through the towel, and I’m trembling so hard my teeth are chattering. I wrap a fresh towel around myself and grip the bathroom counter, staring at my reflection in the mirror.
My eyes are glazed, cheeks are flushed, and my lips are parted, my breath coming in quick, shallow pants.
I look like a woman on the edge of losing control entirely.
Because I am.
I leave the bathroom and head for the stairs, moving as quickly as my unsteady legs will allow. Each step sends friction between my thighs, and the sensation is almost too much. I have to stop twice, bracing myself against the wall, fighting back moans that want to escape my throat.
“Where are you?” I call out. “You won’t believe?—”
I don’t get to finish the sentence.
The three of them emerge from different parts of the house, converging on the living room with expressions of alarm. Seth from the kitchen, Carter from the study, Kai from the yard. They take one look at me, standing at the bottom of the stairs in nothing but a towel, flushed and trembling and barely holding myself together.
“What’s wrong?” Seth demands, already moving toward me. “June, what happened?”
I open my mouth to tell them. To explain that it’s finally here, that my heat has arrived, that I’m not broken after all. But what comes out instead is a moan, low and desperate, as another cramp doubles me over and sends a fresh wave of slick running down my thighs.
They’re at my side in seconds. All three of them, surrounding me, their hands reaching out to steady me. And the moment their skin touches mine, something inside me ignites.
Their nostrils flare simultaneously. I watch their pupils dilate as they inhale the scent pouring off me in waves. For a moment, nobody moves. Nobody breathes.
