Chapter 2
Alex
I've been on the floor outside her door for six hours.
My back is against the wall. My legs stretched out in front of me. Every muscle in my body is locked tight with the effort of staying here instead of going in there.
Low-grade rut.
I name it like Dr. Reeves taught me.Acknowledge the physical state. Decide what to do with it.
My heart rate is elevated. Adrenaline spiking. The scent coming from under that door is doing things to my nervous system that a decade of therapy can't fully override.
I want to go in there.
I want to help her.
I want to put my hands on her and make the heat stop hurting her and hold her through it until she can think clearly and then lay every card we have on the table and let her decide what she does with all of it. I want to give her the full picture. I want to give her the choice that nobody has bothered to give her in… ever.
But if I open that door right now, she doesn't get a choice.
She gets me. Heat-drunk and six hours past my limit, with all my instincts clawing toward that door. She gets the version of me that exists before reason catches up. And everything that we've spent months building goes up in smoke.
So I stay on the floor.
I breathe in through my nose. Out through my mouth.
The anger isn't the problem. The anger is the alarm.
It's telling me my omega is in distress and I'm sitting here doing nothing. It's right. And it's wrong at the same time. Doing nothing is the only right thing I can do right now and it is costing me.
Another sound comes through the door.
Low. Desperate. The specific pitch of an omega in heat who is past asking nicely.
My hand presses flat against the wood.
I breathe.
Finn appears at the end of the hallway an hour later. He's carrying water bottles and protein bars, doing what he does when everything is falling apart—finding something practical to manage. His expression is neutral in the careful way that means he's working to keep it that way.
He sits down next to me without asking. Hands me a bottle.
"How's she doing?" I ask.
"Malcolm's got her." He uncaps his own water. Takes a long drink. "She's responding to him despite everything. He's doing well with her."
"He's exhausted."
"He'll manage." Finn adjusts his glasses. "Two alphas would be hard enough for a delayed heat, but one... at least she's stable for now."
Stable.
The word sits wrong. Like calling a forest firecontained.
"She asked for you," Finn says. Quiet. Not accusing.
I don't answer.
