But still I ran. From what should have been perfect. From what might have been healing. From the only people who had ever seen me as I truly was.
I ran not toward anything, but away from everything… including the parts of myself I wasn’t ready to face.
CHAPTER 18
The heat hit me in waves as I reached the outer corridors, each surge more demanding than the last. My skin felt too tight, like something inside me was expanding against its confines, seeking escape. I pressed my palm against the cool stone of the wall to steady myself, the contrast between its chill and my burning flesh almost painful. Three counts in. Hold for four. Release for five. The technique that had sustained me through years of suppression now felt laughably inadequate against the tide rising inside me. This wasn’t just desire. This was an awakening.
Another wave crashed through me, stronger than before, bending me forward at the waist. The corridor seemed to contract and expand with my vision, the ornate sconces blurring at the edges. Behind me, somewhere in the depths of the palace, I felt them. My three princes calling to me through the bond that still hummed between us despite the growing distance.
All three were waiting for my return. No. Not waiting. Hunting me. Pursuing me to take me back to them.
My body understood this with a clarity that bypassed thought entirely. Every cell, every nerve ending, every drop of blood recognized what I was walking away from. The bond wantedcompletion. My biology demanded it. The omega in me… the part I’d never been allowed to be while Lady Morvane had spent years suppressing with chemicals and calculated humiliation, surged to the surface with the vengeance of the long-denied.
I took another step forward. Then another. Each one a deliberate choice against instinct.
A palace guard turned the corner ahead, freezing mid-stride as my scent hit him. His nostrils flared, his posture shifting from formal patrol to something more alert, more focused. I watched his pupils dilate, his hand tightening on his weapon. Not drawing it, but anchoring himself to something solid as the pheromones I was releasing without control registered in his hindbrain.
"Are you—" he started, then stopped, struggling to maintain professionalism against biology. "My lady, do you require assistance?"
What I required was beyond his capacity to provide. What I required was either the princes’ proximity or their complete absence. Hopefully the balance of the bond would be restored with enough distance that its pull would fade to manageable levels. This middle ground was torture, my body and mind caught between the past and the future.
"I’m fine," I managed, the words scraping my throat raw. "Just… let me pass."
He nodded once, sharply, moving to the far side of the corridor to create as much space between us as the architecture allowed. His eyes tracked me as I moved past him, something conflicted in his expression. I didn’t blame him. This wasn’t a situation his training had prepared him for. How could it be, when what I was had been erased from the kingdom’s memory centuries ago?
I reached the end of the corridor, turning left toward what I hoped were the palace’s outer gates. My sense of direction wasfragmenting under the assault of the heat, my thoughts scattered and reforming with each surge of need. Three counts in. Hold for four. Release for five. I clung to the rhythm like a drowning woman to floating debris, forcing my lungs to cooperate when they wanted to seize, to gasp, to surrender.
The corridor opened into a grander hall, its ceiling arched high above, moonlight filtering through stained glass windows in jewel-toned patterns across the marble floor. The space wasn’t empty. A cluster of nobles lingered near the far entrance, their evening apparently not yet concluded despite the disruption our exit from the ballroom had caused. Their conversations died mid-word as I entered, heads turning with eerie synchronicity as my scent reached them.
The Alphas among them straightened, their bodies responding before their minds had processed what they were sensing. The betas looked confused, catching the edge of something they couldn’t fully interpret but recognizing its significance through the reactions of those around them. And the single omega present, a beautifully dressed woman whose formal collar marked her as belonging to the Alpha at her side, went utterly still, her eyes widening as she registered what I was. What was happening to me.
I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. Stopping meant giving my body time to win the argument it was having with my mind. I kept moving, head high despite the fire in my veins, despite the weight of their stares, despite the pull behind me that grew more insistent with every step I took away from it.
One of the Alpha stepped into my path. Not blocking me entirely, not yet, but positioning himself so that I would have to acknowledge him to pass.
"You’re the omega from earlier," he said, his voice carrying that particular resonance of Alpha command… the tonedesigned to make omegas pause, to consider, to yield. "The one with the princes."
The one with the princes. As if that defined me. As if all that had happened tonight could be reduced to a simple statement of ownership or association.
"Move," I said, the word emerging with a force that surprised even me.
He didn’t. His nostrils flared, taking in more of my scent, processing what it meant. What I was. "You’re in heat," he said, the statement carrying neither question nor concern, only calculation. "Unclaimed. Unbound." A pause, heavy with implication. "Alone."
Heat flooded up my neck, across my cheeks, down my spine in a molten wave that made my knees tremble with the effort of remaining upright.
"I’m not unclaimed," I said, pulling my hair aside to reveal the permanent bite marks. "Now move. Or I’ll make you move."
The threat was absurd. I was a single omega in the throes of emerging heat, facing an Alpha in his prime with a lifetime of dominance behind him. Yet something in my voice, or perhaps something in what he sensed beyond my voice, made him take a half-step backward. Not surrender or retreat, but reassessment. His eyes narrowed as he took in whatever he was seeing in me that didn’t match his expectations.
"What the…?" he murmured, the unfinished question carrying genuine confusion beneath its demand.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t owe him an answer. Instead, I moved past him with deliberate purpose, my shoulder nearly brushing his as I passed close enough to make it clear that I was not yielding, not acknowledging his attempt to assert dominance over my path.
The remaining nobles parted before me, creating a corridor of space that led to the grand entrance. Not from respect.From uncertainty. From the recognition that something was happening that didn’t fit neatly into their understanding of how the world was ordered. An omega in heat didn’t walk away… didn’t maintain eye contact with Alphas. An omega in heat didn’t move with purpose toward freedom rather than submission.
But I did.
Each step cost more than the last. The bond tugged with renewed desperation as I approached the palace doors. I felt it like physical pressure against my back, urging me to turn, to return, to surrender to the completion it offered. And beneath that, I felt them, the princes, searching for me. Desperate for my return.
