I should deny it. Pretend to be fascinated by the trees. The stars. Literally anything else.
Instead, I plant my hands on my hips. “Well, if you’re going to parade around like that, I might as well appreciate the effort.”
Carter throws his head back and laughs, bright and uninhibited. The sound bounces across the water and settles somewhere warm in my chest. Even Seth’s mouth curves into something dangerously close to a real smile.
“That’s our girl,” Kai says.
Our girl.
I drift closer to the water’s edge and find a tree to lean against. The bark is rough through my jacket, grounding me when everything else feels like fever and fantasy.
The river runs chest-deep at the center, and they’re splashing around, laughing and calling out to each other. Kai dunks Carter’s head, who retaliates with a tackle. Seth watches themwith the long-suffering patience of someone who’s seen this exact scene play out a thousand times.
Every nerve ending is lit up, humming, desperate for more of them. The desire is overwhelming. Intoxicating. The kind of sensory overload that makes you understand why Omegas used to lock themselves away during heats.
I’ve been on suppressants for years. They keep my heats manageable—mild discomfort instead of full-blown desperation. But without them, it’s just a bone-deep attraction toward compatible Alphas. The way my body recognizes theirs on some primal level and screamsYes, them, those ones, take us home.
I’ve never felt it this strongly before. Not once. Not with anyone.
Underneath the fear is something reckless and giddy, like standing at the edge of a cliff knowing you’re about to jump.
“So,” I call out, desperate for distraction, “does this ritual actually work? Does it guarantee a win?”
Seth turns to look at me, water dripping down his chest, and I forget how my lungs function. “Every single time.”
“Wow.” My voice comes out breathier than intended. “Bold claim.”
“It’s not a claim.” His blue eyes hold mine. “It’s a fact.”
“We’re kind of a big deal,” Kai adds, surfacing from underwater and shoving wet hair from his face. Droplets cling to his lashes. “Thought you’d have figured that out by now.”
“The collective ego in this river could power a small city.”
“And yet here you are, watching.” Carter floats on his back, and the water hides absolutely nothing. I jerk my gaze up to the sky, cheeks burning.
“I’m chaperoning. It’s my job.”
“Sure it is.”
They roughhouse some more. Diving and surfacing. Every time one of them emerges, I catch glimpses of things I definitelyshouldn’t be staring at. Broad shoulders. Defined abs. The V of muscle disappearing below the waterline, and even more…
I fan myself with my hand before I can stop myself. It’s not even that warm out. My body is just staging a full mutiny.
Carter catches me. “Getting a little flushed over there?”
“It’s a… warm night.”
“It’s fifty degrees.”
“I run hot.”
His grin says he knows exactly why I’m running hot, and he’s enjoying every second of it.
Damn Omega biology.I’ve spent years hiding what I am, building a life where my designation doesn’t define me. And now three cowboys show up with their perfect scents and their perfect faces and their perfect naked bodies, and my carefully constructed control crumbles like wet tissue paper.
Carter wades closer to the bank, water sheeting off his shoulders. “You sure you don’t want to come in?”
“The water’s freezing, and we both know it.”
