What happened in that hotel room didn’t feel like career advancement.
I never told anyone. Not really. Dropped hints to Mason once, when I was drunk enough to let my guard down, but he didn’t push. Mason never pushes. He just waits, patient and steady, ready to catch me whenever I finally decide to fall.
Is that why I avoid alphas? Why the very thought of them always made my hackles rise, makes some primitive part of my brain screamdanger danger dangereven when there’s no actual threat?
Or is it simpler than that? Maybe I’ve just built my entire adult life around running from what I actually need.
My heat is peaking, and with it comes what feels like strange clarity. The fog in my brain shifts, rearranges, shows me patterns I’ve been too blind or too scared to see.
All those betas I’ve partied with. Safe, uncommitted, meaningless. Bodies in my bed that never demanded anything more than a few hours and a story to tell their friends. I told myself I was being independent, liberated, free from the oppressive omega stereotypes that defined my mother’s generation.
But maybe I was just scared.
Scared of wanting. Scared of needing. Scared of giving anyone enough power over me to hurt me the way Laurence did.
If I just accept what my body so obviously wants, maybe everything would be easier.
Maybe the reason I’m so miserable isn’t because I’m an omega in a world that devalues omegas. Maybe it’s because I’ve been fighting what I am instead of just accepting it.
The heat is clouding my judgment. I know this. Some tiny rational part of my brain waves a red flag, warning me that heat-induced thoughts are not to be trusted, that the chemicalsflooding my system are designed specifically to override logic and self-preservation.
But that voice is getting quieter with every passing minute.
And the voice sayinggive in, let go, stop fightingis getting louder.
A soft knock at the door. My head lifts from the pillows, every nerve ending suddenly alert.
“Phoenix?” Atticus’s voice, muffled through the wood. “Mason sent me to check on you.”
Of course he did.
I should tell him to go away. Should curl back into my nest and suffer in dignified solitude, the way I’ve handled every other heat since I was old enough to understand what they meant.
Instead, I hear myself say: “Come in.”
The door opens slowly, like he’s giving me time to change my mind. Atticus steps through, hands up in a universal gesture of harmlessness and wearing an expression of genuine concern that doesn’t at all match his reputation as a playboy.
“Mason said you might need company. That I should…” He trails off, clearly uncomfortable. “He said it didn’t seem like you wanted to be alone.”
Silence stretches between us when I don’t immediately reply. Atticus stands just out of reach of the bed, clearly unsure whether he should stay or go. His presence fills the room in a way Mason’s didn’t—alpha pheromones seeping into the air, mingling with mine, creating a chemistry that my heat-addled brain interprets asyes, this one, this is what you need.
I watch him through half-lidded eyes, cataloging details I’ve tried not to notice before. Like the strong line of his jaw. Or the way his tight shirt stretches across his chest when he breathes.
Atticus Sloan might be the most physically attractive man I’ve ever met.
I grab his wrist and yank him into the nest.
The momentum takes him by surprise—or maybe I’m stronger than I look, supercharged by the hormones raging through my system. Either way, he lands on his back with a grunt, and before he can recover, I’m straddling his hips, pinning him with my weight and my desperate determination.
“Phoenix—”
“Shut up.” I press my hands to his chest, feeling his heart hammering beneath my palms. Through the thin cotton of his shirt, his skin burns almost as hot as mine. “Just…shut up for one second.”
He goes still beneath me. Those green eyes are wide, pupils blown dark with arousal he’s not bothering to hide anymore. Beneath me, I can feel the evidence of his interest—hard and insistent against the apex of my thighs.
The sensation makes me gasp. Roll my hips instinctively. Watch his jaw clench as he fights for control.
“You want me,” I say, and it’s not a question.
