My eyes drift upward to the bright moon as we walk. I try like hell to ignore the slick heat already gathering between my thighs, but it’s so hard with the thick scent of that alpha still stuck in my nose.
I sniffle loudly, trying to clear my head. My bare feet catch on nothing, and the beta at my side grabs my wrist.
“Careful, sweetie,” the beta murmurs, draping my arm over her shoulder.
I snort before I can stop myself.
She’s a few inches shorter than me, small, soft, absolutely not built to support anyone. It feels like she’s simply hanging off my side while I drag both of us forward.
My head tips back again. The moon blurs as we walk. The tents blur. There are so many of them. Rows and rows, stretching into the trees.
For a dazed second, I swear the forest is made of canvas.
Are there a million tents here?
Two million?
Do they grow when I’m not looking?
The beta grunts as she hauls me toward another massive tent, her steps quick and practiced like she’s done this a hundred times.
“Almost there,” she says.
I’m not sure if she’s reassuring me…or herself.
The next tent yawns open in front of us, blindingly bright compared to the moonlit dark outside. I squint, eyes straining and watering as the beta drags me inside.
Everything is white.
White canvas.
White lights.
White tables lined with brushes and powders and bottles.
Hands immediately descend on me.
Someone touches my hair, tugging it into place. Someone else smears something slick across my lips—gloss? balm? glue? My head lolls as they turn my face side to side, murmuring to each other like I’m a mannequin they’re prepping for a display window.
The beta holding me tries to keep me steady, but she mostly just gets jostled while the others swarm.
A man steps forward, adjusting his glasses.
I recognize his voice before my vision clears enough to see him.
Dr. Plume scans the chart in his hand. His eyes flicker from the paper to my face like he’s afraid I’ll bite him.
“Let’s give her ten more cc’s of the sedative. I want her calm tonight for her new alphas,” he says, though he doesn’t look convinced it’ll work. “Also…” His mouth tightens as he looks at the beta tucked under my arm. “Notify her new pack that her heat-suppressants may not last the full thirty days. They could wear off much, much faster.”
Thirty days.
The number lands in my head like a rock splashing into a lake, ripples spreading before sinking into nothing.
“Understood.”
Before I can ask what any of that means—or why the hell I suddenly feel warm all over again—a needle is shoved in my arm, then I’m yanked forward. The tent spins behind me in blurred streaks of white and gold as the beta pushes me toward a flap at the back.
The canvas parts.
