Oh, there was anger in Rhett now.

  “How the hell could you, of all people, be so careless and stupid?” The question landed like a blow, and I didn’t have it in me to mask my flinch.

  “Rhett,” Roan snapped his name like a command.

  “I have a right to know,” Rhett argued, but he whirled and focused his temper on Roan. “We all do. She’s been hurting herself.”

  That muscle ticking in Roan’s jaw increased in speed and ferocity. Jay shifted his stance until he was nearly standing between me and the other two.

  “I didn’t know,” I said before anyone else could launch into this argument. “I still don’t.” The last came out far wearier than the first. “Your research is what? Internet articles? MD sites? Health journals?”

  Arms folded, Rhett grimaced before he said something I didn’t quite catch.

  “What?” I frowned.

  “I called my cousin.” That came out clearer, but there was a faint note of sheepishness. I didn’t get the reference. Rhett came from a fairly large family, but he’d never seemed especially close to any of them.

  Roan pinched the bridge of his nose. “You called your cousin?”

  “We needed answers.” Rhett sounded defensive now.

  “You asked your cousin, the doctor, about suppressants and omegas?” Maybe it was how quiet and even he sounded, but the shock punching through the words declared how appalled he was.

  “I asked carefully,” Rhett argued and I raised a hand as Roan started to round on him. To my utter shock, all three went still and the weight of their regard slammed into me like a fierce wind.

  “Rhett…” My voice was hoarse, raw, but I couldn’t seem to smooth it out.

  Jay moved abruptly and returned before I finished getting my thoughts together with a fresh, and very cold, bottle of water. I took it gratefully, unscrewing the top and drinking down several gulps.

  “Thank you,” I murmured, and Jay nodded.

  The world was starting to blur at the edges, there was almost a lens flare effect. Not only was the room filled with my scent, but I could taste theirs now and it was in every single breath I took.

  So much for getting past the heat. I blinked slowly, trying to recover where my thoughts went. Oh. Heat. Meds. System reset. Another drink of water then I focused on Rhett again.

  “We can worry about this later,” I said slowly. “I can call my doctor tomorrow. She has my records. She—she can of course check.”

  “Did she warn you about this?” Roan asked, his intensity so visceral it was like he wrapped around me again and where it had muted the throb beneath my skin before, it only seemed to enhance it now.

  “Not this, specifically. She just said…” I tried to remember her exact wording, but the syllables were slipping away before I could fully grasp them. “Fuck…”

  The last word came out a groan because Jay had drifted closer, and the rich amber of his scent was so heady, that I swore I was damn near drunk. He smelled so good. They all did really.

  “Don’t touch her,” Roan ordered. Who was he talking to? Then I realized my eyes were closed, so I forced them open again. Jay was a half step from me and on one knee, his whole body seemed to be leaning in my direction.

  “She’s hurting.” The protest from Jay was remarkable enough to make me focus again.

  “Not… pain.” It came out reedy, and winded, like it had taken me a lot of effort to push those words out. “You’re just pretty.”

  Jay blinked and he wasn’t alone. Rhett’s lips twitched, but Roan’s entire being seemed to turn to stone.

  “You’re all so damn pretty.” There was no hiding the shaking now. Maybe I should call the doctor now? When I couldn’t even think of her name, I had to discard that idea. The men were moving around me, and I frowned as Roan lifted me. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking you back to bed,” he said.

  “Oh… will we get naked there?” Some part of my mind said I probably shouldn’t have asked that, but the rest of me just threw up my arms with a why the fuck not? My nipples were tight, my cunt slick and pulsing, my body on fire, and Roan hadn’t even touched me for real yet.

  Skin-to-skin… that’s what we needed.

  I fumbled with the tie of my robe.

  Roan let out a little growl. An actual growl. It was the kind of aggrieved sound he only used when he was truly aggravated. The need bloomed inside of me like a gas explosion racing through to consume all the oxygen.

  I was going up in flames.

  “Stop,” he told me in a voice that was a low rumble, power and need vibrating in the single syllable. I turned my gaze up to him, trying to push away the sting of that rejection.

  “You don’t want me?” The question broke free before I could stop it—barely a whisper, more wound than words.

  Roan didn’t answer right away. His grip shifted on me as he carried me toward the bedroom, his arms like iron bands, his jaw locked so tight I could feel the tension in him. Every step he took was deliberate. Controlled.

  Too controlled.

  That only made it worse.

  “I didn’t say that,” he ground out at last.

  “Then say what you do want,” I whispered, fingers curling in the soft fabric of his shirt. My heart was a thunderclap behind my ribs. I could smell myself—my heat, my need—and beneath it, the way he was trying to cage every shred of his own instinct.

  The restraint in him was maddening. Dignified. Terrible.

  Because I could feel it—under his skin. The want. The war.

  He laid me back down in the bed with excruciating care, like I might break apart if he moved too fast. I wanted to scream. I wanted to pull him down with me. I wanted⁠—

  “I want you whole,” he said, voice low and gutted as he leaned over me. “Not like this. Not because your body’s on fire and you’re desperate for relief. Not because you can’t help it.”

  “But I can,” I breathed. “I do. I’m still me, Roan. I know what I want. Even now.”

  His eyes flared, heat igniting behind steel. For a second, I thought I’d broken through. For a second, I thought⁠—

  But then he reached down and tugged the robe back together with a care that was somehow more intimate than anything else he could’ve done. His fingers brushed the hollow of my throat before they moved away entirely.

  “You’re not asking me to choose you,” he said, voice rough with restraint. “You’re asking me to take advantage.”

  “No,” I said, voice cracking. “I’m not⁠—”

  “You don’t understand how hard this is.” His hands clenched into fists again. “How much I want you. But if I cross that line now, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop. Not when you need my control.”

  Tears stung behind my eyes, hot and frustrated. “What if I don’t want you to stop?”

  He shook his head and stood up straight, stepping away from the bed like distance might help him breathe again. It didn’t. He still looked like he was barely holding it together.

  “I want more than this,” he said.

  I blinked. “More?”

  Roan stared at me like the words were being carved out of his chest. “I want you, Wren. Not your heat. Not the chemical wildfire you’re riding out. You. The woman who slices through my plans with one line of logic. The one who watches over all of us like we’re her mission. The one who never needed me—but still always had my back.”

  Every word landed like a blow. Like a balm. Like both.

  “Then why does this feel like punishment?” I asked, curling in on myself as much as the ache would allow. “Why does doing the right thing hurt?”

  Roan turned away before I could read his expression again, voice barely audible as he said, “Because I want you too damn much.”

  And then he was gone.

  He pulled the bedroom door shut behind him like it weighed a thousand pounds.

  I was alone again. Only this time, it wasn’t the fever that was burning me alive. It was the truth.

  Chapter

  Twenty

  RHETT

  The door closed with a quiet click, but it echoed like a gunshot in the back of my skull.

  Roan stood just on this side of it, fists clenched, chest rising like he’d just run a damn marathon. His ironclad control seemed a hair’s breadth from cracking.

  And I wasn’t much better.

  I scrubbed my hands down my face and turned away, trying not to breathe too deep. Not to inhale her. Like that ever worked. Her scent was everywhere. Seeped into the walls. Saturating the fabric. In the fucking floorboards.

  Thick. Wild. Sweet.

  She wasn’t just in heat, she was in distress. Her body was screaming for relief, and every damn one of us could feel it in our bones. And worse, every instinct in my body wanted to give it to her.

  Again and again and again until the scent faded, until her thighs stopped shaking, until her body melted into ours with exhaustion instead of suffering.

  I’d never felt anything like this. I’d been around omegas in heat before. I'd seen the effects. Smelled it. Wanted it, sure. But not like this.

  Not her.

  I dropped into the nearest chair, hands gripping my knees, trying to lock my joints to hold myself still. My voice was low when it finally came.

  “We may not be able to wait.”

  Roan turned toward me, slow, like even that movement took effort. His face was pale, lips pressed together, jaw tight enough I thought his teeth might crack under the pressure.

  “I heard her,” I added, quieter this time. “What she said. She’s breaking apart in there, and you—” I cut myself off and looked away, guilt flaring. “You’re holding it down, but Roan… if you fracture, the rest of us are gonna shatter.”

  He didn’t deny it. Didn’t look at me, either. Just stared at the floor, unmoving.

  I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. “Her scent is worse than when we got here. Stronger. It’s not fading.”

  “Because she’s getting deeper into it,” Roan said, voice a low rasp. “The suppressant damage…you said it altered things and dragged it out. She’s stuck in it.”

  The unspoken truth hit like a freight train.

  She might not get out of it.

  Not without help.

  I lifted my head and stared at him. “You know what that means.”

  Roan didn’t answer.

  My throat burned. My gut twisted.

  “We’re past the wait-it-out plan. Past moral high ground and noble restraint. She needs an alpha, she—hell, she probably needs all of us. If you think I’m just gonna sit here while she⁠—”

  “She didn’t ask for us.” Roan’s voice cracked like thunder, sharp and final. “She didn’t invite this. She didn’t consent.”

  “No,” a calm voice said from the kitchen where he’d shifted after Roan carried Wren away. “But she’s also not throwing us out.”

  Jay.

  He moved back into the room like a shadow, posture steady, composed—like always—but there was heat under his skin. I could see it now. He was white-knuckling the same restraint Roan was, the same leash I’d been chewing through since we got here.

  How fucking bad was it if Jay, a beta, was struggling? No wonder I was in hell. Roan turned his head slightly, not quite meeting Jay’s gaze.

  “She doesn’t have to ask,” Jay said simply. “She’s letting us stay. She’s letting us touch her. She’s been naked under your hands, Roan, and you wrapped her up like you were covering a damn flame. She let you.”

  That sat between us like a line drawn in ash.

  Not permission. Not consent.

  But not refusal either.

  Jay folded his arms, voice quiet and solid as granite. “We’re not here to take advantage. But if we wait too long, it won’t be a choice anymore, for her or us. You know that.”

  Silence spun out.

  No, if it continued at this pace, it would be absolute madness. The primitive, biological drives would take over. I didn’t even question whether or not I would be susceptible to it. Wren touched me in ways no one ever had—alpha, beta, or omega. The fact that her need was a keening demand in the air called to me on the most fundamental level.

  I stood slowly, because sitting wasn’t helping anything. Neither was pretending that my hands weren’t shaking, that my breath didn’t hitch when I thought about her voice breaking, about her looking at Roan like he was the only damn lifeline she had left.

  I swallowed hard.

  “You’ve always led us,” I told Roan. “So lead now. Tell us what the hell we do.”

  Roan didn’t answer right away.

  His shoulders stayed tight, spine straight, like if he let his posture give even a little, the whole dam inside him would crack open. I could see the war on his face, the tension riding every muscle. The alpha in him was screaming and he was denying it with everything he had.

  And I knew why, for the same reason I was. It wasn’t about ego or pride, but Wren. This was our Wren. That possessive hit like a Mack truck.

  Ours.

  She was ours.

  The woman who drank her coffee blacker than sin and smiled like a knife’s edge. Who kept us out of scandals and fights and jail cells. Who’d been our handler, our babysitter, our sharp-eyed guardian long before any of us even noticed who she was underneath.

  Roan had noticed. Maybe longer than the rest of us. Maybe too long.

  “She’s not some omega in heat,” he said finally, voice tight with barely checked strain. “She’s Wren.”

  “We know that,” I snapped, too fast, too hard.

  His head jerked slightly like I’d hit him, but I didn’t back down. The pressure had been building in me since we walked through that door and smelled her on the air like wildfire. And I wasn’t proud of the temper coiling through my gut, but I wasn’t ashamed of it either.

  “If she wasn’t Wren,” I went on, louder now, “we wouldn’t be here. You think I’d be fighting every goddamn instinct in my body right now for just anyone? You think Jay would be sitting on his hands, burning from the inside out, if she wasn’t her?”

  Roan turned to me slowly, and I saw the flicker in his eyes. Pain. Conflict. Guilt.

  “She matters,” he said, so quietly it barely made sound.

  I stepped in closer, jaw clenched. “Then stop acting like she only matters to you.”

  That did it.

  Something behind his gaze flared hot, challenge, or maybe grief.

  Jay didn’t move, didn’t even breathe loud, but I felt him right behind me, that steady presence grounding me before I went too far. But I wasn’t finished—not yet.

  “She’s important to all of us,” I said, voice quieter but sharper than before. “You’re not the only one who sees her. Who’s seen her for years. She’s not your burden to carry. She’s not some line you have to walk alone while Jay and I pretend we’re not coming apart at the seams.”

  Roan’s hands flexed open at his sides, then clenched again.

  “She didn’t ask for this,” he said.

  “No,” I agreed. “But she’s in it now. She’s suffering. And if you think standing in this room while she burns alive in the other one is the noble fucking choice, then maybe you’re not thinking as clearly as you believe you are.”

  Roan’s nostrils flared. His mouth opened—then shut.

  The silence that followed was tight and charged.

  Jay broke it, his voice low, certain. “We can’t fix this by pretending it’s not happening.”

  Roan finally looked up at us both. Really looked.

  Then he dragged a hand down his face, exhaling like it gutted him.

  “Damn it,” he muttered. “Damn it, damn it.”

  He didn’t argue with us anymore.

  For the first time since this whole thing began, I saw the exact moment Roan stopped trying to fight his nature—and started trying to figure out how to control it, for her sake.

  Not to deny what she was.

  But to meet her in it.

  To meet us in it.

  Roan dragged both hands over his face, like he could scrub the war out of himself by force.

  Then, voice low and raw, he asked, “What exactly did your cousin say? About… the heat. How bad it could get? How long?”

  I blew out a breath and rubbed at the back of my neck. “Not much. That’s the problem. No one really knows. There aren’t enough controlled studies because no one’s supposed to use suppressants that long. But what research exists says there’s a pattern. A dangerous one.”

  Roan’s stare locked onto mine, and it hit like a steel bar across the chest.

  “She’s already past the 36-hour mark,” I said quietly. “And her reactions are intensifying. You saw her—this isn’t tapering off. This is climbing.”

  “And if it keeps climbing?” he asked, jaw clenched.

  “Then it’s going to get worse.” I hesitated, then added, “There’s no map for this, Roan. No clear line. No guarantee. All we can do now is what she wants. What she needs.”

  Roan’s expression turned colder, sharper. “That’s not an answer.”

  “It’s the only answer we’ve got,” I shot back. “We don’t decide how this plays out. She does.”

  He didn’t like that, obviously. Roan thrived on control, on strategy, on being the one with the plan. But there was no plan here. No command post, no playbook. Just the heat and the ache and her.

  Jay’s voice came from the far side of the room, calm and deliberate. “You don’t have to stay, Roan.”

  That pulled both our gazes to him, sharp and fast.

  “She wouldn’t blame you if you left,” he said. “None of us would.”

  “The hell I wouldn’t,” I muttered.

  Jay ignored me. “You’ve been shouldering this since the second we smelled her. You’ve been trying to protect her, protect us, and keep yourself in check. But if you can’t be here for what she actually needs, then⁠—”

  “I’m willing,” I cut in sharply, eyes locked on Roan. “Whatever she needs—however she needs it—I’m in.” I paused, just long enough for the lie to come out with teeth. “And if she pushes me away after, if she never looks at me again? I can live with that.”