Chapter 16
The heat hit me without warning.
I was sorting through Lucien’s postoperative files in the hospital’s archive room when something inside me snapped.
A rush of heat surged up from my lower spine. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, my breath turned ragged, and scents became painfully sharp.
I glanced at my wrist–red, glowing, as if a second pulse had awakened beneath the skin.
My body was going into heat.
But this wasn’t an Omega’s body.
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Or at least, it wasn’t supposed to be.
I shoved the files into my bag and stumbled toward the stairwell. My knees barely held. The scent of disinfectant and blood warped into something sweeter–like iron and heat and desperate, needy want.
“Alpha Evelyn!”
I barely registered Omega Silas’s voice as he caught me at the bottom of the stairs.
“You’re burning up.” His arm curled around my waist. “Your scent–this isn’t normal. Your suppression’s failed.”
“I can’t hold it down,” I gritted out.
“You don’t have to,” he said quickly. “Just breathe. I’ll handle it.”
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We burst into one of the hospital’s VIP isolation rooms. The lights were dim, curtains drawn, the air sealed.
Omega Silas moved fast. He lowered me to the bed, rolled up his sleeves, and grabbed a vial of highgrade calming brew.
“Don’t move until I say so.”
I could barely breathe. My skin was on fire, my throat parched. The Alpha body wasn’t built for this. It didn’t know what to do with the Omega heat screaming through it.
He took off his jacket and draped it over me.
“I won’t touch you,” he said softly, “unless you ask me to.”
My fingers trembled. “You’re not afraid I’ll mark you?”
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He smiled, gentle and warm. “I’m more afraid you won’t.”
I almost cried right then.
“Don’t say things like that. I’m not… me right. now.””
“But your scent, Alpha Evelyn-” He leaned in, brushed his knuckles down my flushed cheek. “It’s not Emily’s. It’s yours.”
I stared at him, dizzy and high on scent markers.
“You don’t care which half of me you’re talking to?”
“I care that it’s you,” he whispered, pressing his forehead to mine. “Just you.”
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His lips brushed the side of my power. He didn’t bite. He didn’t claim. He just… gave.
“Let me anchor you,” he whispered. “Just a little of my scent. To help you through this.”
His Omega scent wrapped around me like snow and smoke, soothing the fire inch by inch.
For a moment, I thought I might actually survive this.
But then-
The door slammed open.
“Get the fuck away from her!”
Alpha Ethan’s voice cracked through the air like a thunderclap. He stormed into the room like a hurricane in human form.
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In the next second, he punched Omega Silas straight across the face.
Omega Silas staggered, crashing into the wall. Blood trickled from his temple.
“You touched her?” Alpha Ethan was shaking, his scent bursting out in waves of pine and blackwood fury. “You let him touch you?”
I gasped, barely upright. “What does it matter to you?”
“I marked you!” he bellowed. “You’re mine!”
“You marked a corpse,” I spat. “You killed Emily. You don’t get to own her shadow.”
He lunged for me. I slapped his hand away.
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“You don’t love me,” I snarled. “You love guilt. You love what you lost.”
He opened his mouth–but before he could speak, another scent blasted through the air like a galeforce wind.
Alpha Daniel.
He stormed down the hall and into the room, silver eyes ablaze.
“Step back,” he ordered.
Alpha Ethan turned, livid. “Don’t you dare touch her”
“She’s in heat,” Alpha Daniel growled. “And you’re both fucking unstable.”
He strode to my side, eyes locked on mine. “Alpha Evelyn. Come with me. I’ll get you out
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of here.”
I laughed bitterly. “Out of here? To what, Alpha Daniel? To be your prize?”
His jaw twitched. “No.”
“Then what?” My voice cracked. “You want to protect me? Save me like he did?”
“I just don’t want to be late again,” he said quietly.
Alpha Ethan grabbed his collar. “She’s not yours!”
Alpha Daniel punched him. “She’s not yours either!”
I screamed, grabbed the calming brew, and jammed it into my own neck.
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Everything exploded.
My power spasmed. My scent shattered.
I collapsed.
Alpha Daniel was the first to move.
He pulled his coat off and threw it over me, crouching low to hide my exposed neck.
“No one looks,” he growled at the nurses. “Anyone who does–gets out.”
My vision blurred, but I caught a glimpse of Alpha Ethan’s face.
White. Empty. Horrified.
“She’s… she’s emitting a second scent.”
“What?” someone gasped.
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Alpha Daniel yanked my collar aside.
There it was.
A second power frequency.
Omega.
“She has an Omega power,” Alpha Daniel whispered. “It’s… embedded. Latent.”
The room fell silent.
And then
The Marcus pack arrived.
Long coats: Cold eyes. Sealed warrants.
“The subject bears mixed power expression,” the enforcer said. “As per bloodline law, she
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must be taken for purification.”
“Don’t you dare,” Alpha Ethan snarled.
“You’re not of Marcus blood,” the enforcer replied coolly. “This is not your territory.”
I tried to speak, but the calming brew dragged me into unconsciousness.
I heard Omega Silas try to rise. “Don’t touch her-”
Alpha Daniel gripped my hand. “I won’t let them take you.”
I opened my eyes one last time, met Alpha Ethan’s frozen stare, and whispered:
“Now tell me–who’s the monster here?”
Outside the hospital, the car waited.
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I turned back once.
Three men stood on the steps, in silence.
One bleeding.
One broken.
One burning.
I closed my eyes.
If I wasn’t allowed to exist-
Then I’d burn down everything that said I couldn’t.
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