"Outside. Far from my pillow."
“Let’s find you somewhere safe to live.” Fritz disappeared out the door, and continued talking to the mouse. Telling it to find a nice field and stop terrorizing omegas.
Maeve was still laughing, wiping tears from her eyes. "I like him. Don't tell him I said that."
"Your secret's safe with me."
Later, the sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the moors in bruised purples and golds. I sat on the metal steps of the caravan, wrapped in a blanket that smelled like damp and old wool. In my hands was a tuna sandwich Maeve had made.
Maeve sat in a lawn chair nearby, her eyes tracking Fritz with deep suspicion.
"He ate my sandwich.”
Fritz sat on the grass at my feet, his expensive trousers now stained with mud and grass. He was currently using a wet wipe to meticulously clean a small spot on my pillowcase where the mouse had apparently taken a nap. He didn't complain. He didn't look out of place. He just looked content.
“You made it for him.”
“But he’s a billionaire, Pres. They don’t eat tuna sandwiches. I bet the one who bit you wouldn’t.”
“They’re all good men, Maeve.”
"Hastings is complicated, but he's good," Fritz said, not looking up from his task.
"He should have waited," Maeve snapped, pointing her finger at me.
“I presentedmyself to him.”
"You were in your heat. Omegas will do anything in their heat. They'll beg for things they don't want when the fever breaks. It's biology, isn't it? Selfish, if you ask me."
The words hit me like a cold splash of water over my face.
Was that all it was? A biological glitch? Had I only wanted the claim because my heat told me to?
Had Hastings.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I pulled it out, expecting a demand to get back to London but I was staying in my caravan for the night. I just had to let Fritz know.
But it wasn’t a demand, it was a photo.
I tapped it open. My breath hitched.
It was a close-up of the side of Hastings's neck. The lighting was soft, golden, likely from the lamp in his study where he was undoubtedly still pacing. The skin was smooth, unbroken, his pulse point visible and vulnerable. There was an unusual faint shadow of stubble along his jaw.
Below it, a message:
I didn't rein in my need, and I'll spend the rest of my life making that up to you. But if it helps... you can always bite me back. I'm waiting. — H.
A flutter started in the center of my chest, a warm, honey-thick sensation that had nothing to do with heat and everything to do with the man. The scent and mark of himsuddenly didn't feel like a brand. It was more like a tether that I wanted between us.
He was offering himself. He surrendered the very control he prized above all else.
I bit my lip, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.
"Everything alright?" Fritz asked, looking up at me.
I looked at him, then at Maeve, then back at the helicopter waiting in the field like a patient dragon. The caravan was my past. It was safe, and it was small. The frozen pansies and the leaking roof and the electric meter that ran out every week.
