WILLOW
Cold sweat stuck to the back of my neck. I lost all sense of time, trapped behind these stone walls. I rubbed at the irritated skin on the inside of my wrist, not knowing if it had been three days or three hours since Vittorio had forced that sludge-like liquid down my throat.
I toyed with a loose thread on the thin blanket he had graciously brought me, like some grand offering tohissoon-to-be omega. I tried to banish the unwanted image. The last thing I wanted was to belong tohim.
Silent tears slid down my cheeks. I trailed my thumb over the ring still on my finger. Surprisingly, Vittorio hadn’t stolen it from me. Either he hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared. Or maybe he let me keep on purpose, getting some sick satisfaction out of seeing me wearing it when he planned to bite me.
I buried my face in my hands, wiping the beads of sweat off my brow. With my eyes closed, I tried to remember Kaelen’s scent—whisky and coffee.
The memory enveloped me, staving off the dampness in the air. My hand spread over my sternum. A dull ache throbbed in the pit of my stomach, a thrum I first dismissed as anxiety.
But it morphed into something familiar, something unsettling. The knot in my belly unfurled. A prickling sensation erupted over my body, dragging across my sensitive skin like sandpaper.
Soon, a series of cramps twisted in my abdomen, and I cried out, curling into a ball on my pathetic excuse for a bed.
Everything that was happening felt wrong.
Usually, in the days or hours before my heat, my body tingled with anticipation, a joyful urge dulling some of the more unpleasant symptoms. This time, however, a foreboding doom hung over me.
My body screamed, resisting every twist and gush of slick.
“No. No. No,” I whispered, sniffling and hating how my biology betrayed me.
I only wanted to spend my heats with one person.
Kaelen.
My husband.
My alpha.
“Alpha,” I moaned into the dim light.
Alpha. Alpha. Alpha.
The words chanted over and over again in my head, followed by a chorus ofmate, mate, mate.I kicked the blanket away, my nesting instinct hidden under my fear.
This wasn’t a nest, wasn’tmynest.
It was a cage.
Images of Kaelen’s tattooed arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me into him in our nest filled my mind. The phantom scent of fresh espresso rose to the surface.
I imagined stroking my nails through his beard, tugging his hair free from its well-styled bun at the back of his head. I’d run my fingers through it while he groaned a pleased noise, scenting me.
A grating sound cut through the guttural silence, and I crawled as far away from the noise as I could. The scrape of metal on stone echoed in the small space as the door creaked open.
The now familiar scent of cigar smoke and rancid fruit greetedme, and I hissed. My omega protested the wrongness of it all. Vittorio’s broad silhouette filled the entryway. A slow, predatory glimmer alighted in his features as he shut the door behind him, leaving the two of us alone.
Pressed black trousers hung around his slightly protruding stomach. The older alpha was showing his age. His bloodshot eyes narrowed as he rolled the sleeves on his shirt, stepping closer with precise movements.
Each one stole more air from my lungs, my eyes darting around the room. The walls closed in around me, making my chest constrict as I gasped for air.
“You’re close,” he said in a gravelly voice that made my hands tremble. “I can smell your cunt from the hallway. Your omega is calling out, desperate to be bred and bonded, needing your alpha. Don’t worry. I’m here.”
He pounced with surprising speed, pinning me beneath him. My heart hammered against my ribs, the blood rushing in my ears drowning out most of the garbled words he said, his hot breath fanning over my flushed cheeks.
I needed an alpha.Myalpha.
