"Not tonight." I accepted the override match.
A location pin and a time-sensitive passcode downloaded to my screen — a neutral zone safehouse in the human sector of the city, magically reinforced, designed for this.
I grabbed my leather jacket. "I'm going."
"Keep your location active," Chris said. "If the heat broke the dorm wards, rogues might already be tracking the scent trail."
"No backup," I said, pulling the jacket on. "The beacon requested a single suppressor. I'll stabilize the fever with my aura, wait for the cycle to crash into safe sleep, and leave before they wake up."
Simple. Clinical. Anonymous. I didn't know who the omega was. Didn't need to. A transaction — I'd provide the biologicalanchor necessary to save a life, and the physical exertion would burn my own anxiety clean for a few hours. Mutually beneficial.
I walked out of the gym, locked onto the mission, unaware I was walking straight into the center of a myth that would rewrite the world.
7
WREN
The neutral zone safehouse vibrated with ancient containment magic.
Chloe had dragged me by my coat collar from the Uber, her arm around my waist in a desperate attempt to keep me upright. We found the address the app had pinged — a nondescript brick building halfway down a dark alley in the human sector of the city.
The unmarked steel door unlocked the moment I pressed my thumb against the biometric scanner.
"I can't go in there with you," Chloe whispered, face pale in the alley light. The wards repelled her human biology — I could feel the magic pushing back against her like a wall. "You promise me this is safe?"
"I promise," I gasped, lying through my teeth as another cramp tore through me. The alternative was burning alive on wet concrete. "Go back to the dorm. I'll text you."
I stumbled through the doorway. The steel door slammed shut behind me and locked with the sound of a bank vault sealing, cutting off the city entirely.
The basement apartment was a sensory deprivation tank.
No windows. Walls lined with acoustic foam that swallowed even the ragged sound of my own breathing. Climate-controlled, odorless, filtered air. The only light came from faint red LED strips along the baseboards.
Anonymous by design. A space built for apex predators to meet desperate prey without the complication of identity or consequence.
In the center of the room was a low, utilitarian bed.
I collapsed onto it. The white cotton sheets felt like sandpaper against my fever-flushed skin. The heat was escalating — not just a high temperature anymore, but a total biological hijacking. My conscious mind was fragmenting, narrowing to a single screaming point of physical need.
I curled into a ball at the center of the mattress, shivering despite the sweat soaking my turtleneck.
Every nerve felt raw and exposed. And beneath it all, the broken bond scar throbbed — a relentless biological reminder of my defectiveness, even in the middle of a survival crisis.
Just hurry,I prayed silently.Just get it over with and let me leave.
The steel door clicked.
Tiny, muffled by the foam — but to my heightened senses it sounded like a gunshot in a canyon. A draft of freezing night air swept down the stairs, immediately followed by an alpha scent that hit me like a blow to the chest.
Driving rain on hot asphalt. Ancient northern pine. The sharp ozone tang of lightning about to strike. Pure, overwhelming dominance.
The scent triggered an involuntary physiological response. My spine arched off the mattress, a keening whine tearing out of my throat before my rational mind could stop it. My fever-addled body lunged for the scent like a drowning person grabbing a lifeline.
Heavy, deliberate footsteps descended the stairs.
He was a massive silhouette moving with silent predatory grace toward the bed, the red light at his back casting his face into shadow.
"You're burning up."
