Page 192 of Beautifully Scarred Omega

“Hot,” she says. “I feel—really hot.”

I glance over my shoulder. She’s on the floor where we left her, her knees drawn up, one hand pressed to her cheek. Her face is flushed a deep, vivid pink, and even from across the room I can see the slight shine of sweat at her temples, the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

“Hot how?” Ethan asks. He’s moved slightly closer to her, his eyes tracking her.

“Like my skin is—” She pauses, her brow creasing. “—on fire. Like every nerve is. I don’t—” She looks down at her hands, then back up, and there’s a genuine bewilderment in her face that tightens something in my chest. “Is it supposed to feel like this?”

She’s been on suppressants her whole life and she’s never experienced a natural heat. This is the real thing, unmedicated, her body experiencing it for the first time.

“This is your first real heat, Sophie,” Ethan says gently. “Your body has never been through this before.” He keeps his voice level. “It’s going to intensify. But we’re going to take care of you. Okay?”

Sophie stares at him. She suddenly looks very young, the operative and armor gone, just a woman experiencing something overwhelming and frightening for the first time with no framework to put it in. “Okay,” she whispers.

Max is still at the glass door. I can see the tension in his back from here, the effort in every breath. A bead of sweat tracks down the side of his jaw. His knuckles are white where he grips the door frame.

“Max.” I say it quietly.

“I know,” he says. Just that.

Ethan gets up and moves to the shelving unit at the back of the room. He comes back with two emergency blankets. He spreads them on the floor in the center of the room, overlapping them to make something soft out of what’s available, and crouches down beside them.

“Sophie. Come here. You’ll be more comfortable.”

She gets up slowly, a little unsteady, moving like she doesn’t quite trust her own body. She crosses to the blankets and sits down in the middle of them, pulling her knees to her chest.

Ethan starts to straighten.

Her hand shoots out and closes around his wrist.

“Ethan.” Her voice is small. “Don’t leave.”

He goes still. I watch him look down at her hand on his wrist, then at her face, and I watch him lose the battle with his own instincts right there in front of me.

“Okay,” he says quietly. “Okay, sweet girl.” He sits back down beside her, and she moves immediately—turning into him and climbing into his lap, pressing her face into his neck, breathing him in. His arms come around her, and I watch his eyes close briefly before he opens them again.

“How long?” Max asks.

Ethan checks his watch. “Before full onset? Ten minutes. Maybe less.” He glances at the door. “The room temperature is a factor. Heat accelerates with warmth.”

“Great,” I say. “Fantastic. Wonderful news.”

“Finn.” Max, warning.

“I know, I know.” I drag both hands through my hair. My pulse is loud in my ears. The rut is a low, constant pressure at the base of my skull, a heat in my blood that has nothing to do with the room temperature, and Sophie is twenty feet away pressed against Ethan’s side making small sounds of distress that are doing absolutely nothing to help me stay on the right side of my own self-control. “I’m fine. We’re fine.”

Max looks at me. His face is sheened with sweat. “We’re really not fine,” he says.

“No,” I agree. “We really aren’t.”

Sophie’s scent intensifies.

It happens in waves—each one stronger than the last, cresting and pulling back and cresting higher, and with every wave I can feel the rut tightening its grip. My vision hasn’t narrowed yet but it will. My hands are shaking slightly and I’m not sure when that started.

Across the room, Sophie pulls back from Ethan’s neck.

“Why is it getting worse?” Her voice has changed—lower, a little unsteady, like she’s losing her grip on it. “Ethan, why does it feel like⁠—”

“It’s the heat progressing,” he says. His voice is tight in a way it almost never is. “It’s going to keep intensifying. What you’re feeling is your body’s response to our presence—our scent is accelerating it. That’s normal. That’s—” He swallows. “That’s how it’s supposed to work.”