Between my thighs, something warm and slick began to gather, soaking into my underclothes with mortifying speed.
“Aveline—” Thane’s voice, rough and concerned.
I didn’t wait to hear the rest.
I turned and fled.
My legs wobbled beneath me, the cramping in my stomach making each step a struggle, but panic drove me upward anyway. I doubled over, a fist in my lower belly, as I stumbled up the steps. Up the spiral stairs, past the dining level, past thelibrary, all the way to the nest where I could hide, where I could make sense of what was happening to my body.
I slammed the door behind me and threw the bolt, the heavy metal sliding into place with a solid thunk.
My hands were shaking.
I stumbled to the center of the nest and collapsed into the furs, curling into a tight ball as another wave of cramping seized my belly. The slickness between my thighs was impossible to ignore now, soaking through my underclothes and dampening the thin fabric of my gown.
What was wrong with me?
I pressed my face into the nearest pillow, breathing hard, trying to ground myself in something familiar. But even the pillow smelled different now—or maybe I was just more aware of it. Everything, from the furs to the fabric on my skin, seemed overly acute and immediate.
The heat pulsed again, radiating outward from my core, and I whimpered into the pillow, my thighs pressing together instinctively against the ache building there.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs.
“Aveline!” Thane’s voice, closer now. Urgent.
I squeezed my eyes shut, mortification flooding through me in waves that rivaled the cramping. They’d seen me watching. They knew I’d fled. They could probably smell what was happening to me, the same way I could smell them.
A fist hammered against my door, making me flinch.
“Aveline, open the door.” Malric this time, his voice controlled but carrying an edge that made something in my belly clench and my body eager to respond. I resisted, just barely, forcing my legs to remain still.
“No,” I managed, though my voice came out thin and shaky. “Go away.”
“You’re in heat,” Thane said, and the words landed like stones in my chest even though I didn’t fully understand them. “You need?—”
“I need you to leave,” I choked out, another cramp doubling me over. My hand pressed hard against my stomach, as if pressure could contain whatever was trying to claw its way out of me. “Please.”
Silence on the other side of the door. I could hear them breathing, could feel their presence like a physical weight pressing against the wood.
“Aveline.” Malric’s voice was quieter now, but no less commanding. “Let us help.”
“I don’t need your help,” I said, though even I could hear the lie in it. My body was betraying me, producing more slick with each passing moment, the ache between my thighs intensifying until I wanted to sob with the unfairness of it all.
“The tower brought us here,” Thane said. “It opened for us. That means?—”
“It means nothing,” I interrupted desperately. “Go. You need to leave the tower. Now.”
Because if they stayed, if they were here when this got worse—and some instinct told me it would get worse—I didn’t know what would happen. I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t trust my body.
I had hurt my mother. Father had said so. What was occurring felt hazardous and unmanageable, like a force that could annihilate me. I feared that I could harm them. Kill me, like I killed my mother.
Another cramp seized me, harder than the ones before, and I bit down on my fist to keep from crying out.
“We’re not leaving,” Malric said flatly.
“Then stay downstairs,” I gasped. “Stay away from me. I don’t—I can’t?—”
My words dissolved into a whimper as the heat spiked again, so intense that my vision blurred. An obscene slickness gathered between my thighs, my body signaling a response I could neither grasp, accept, nor govern.
