~ RONAN ~

After ensuring that they’ve all left, I open the door to her room and am immediately hit with the full force of her heat scent. It coats my senses in something sweet, intoxicating, and absolutely maddening.

Every instinct I have is screaming at me to go to her, to touch her, to wake her from that misery, to kiss her sweet, addictive lips and assure her I’m right there with her. I want to lick the slick sweetness from her skin, bury myself deep inside her to the hilt, washing away the ache of her heat, and smother her completely with my cock.

Fuck. Just the thought alone has my dick straining painfully against my pants.

Inside my head, Kael is in absolute misery.

’Mate,’ he snarls, his voice raw with need. ’Our mate. She’s calling for us. We need to go to her. We need to claim her—fill her, knot her, breed her until her heat breaks.’

"No," I say firmly, cutting him off before he can finish that thought.

Dr. Elias is standing near a cabinet, preparing something, and he glances at me with an expression that clearly says he understands exactly what I’m struggling with.

"If you’re going to mate with her," he says matter-of-factly, "it would help her get through the heat. Her body is calling for the bond. The heat would ease considerably if you—"

"No," I repeat, more sharply this time.

Elias raises an eyebrow. "Alpha, I understand your restraint, but—"

"She doesn’t consent," I say, my voice carrying the finality of an absolute decision. "She’s not in her sane state. She’s suffering and confused and traumatized. Taking advantage of that, regardless of how much my wolf wants it, would be nothing but greed on my part."

Kael lets out a frustrated growl that vibrates through my entire body.

’You’re torturing us both,’ he snarls. ’She needs this. We need this.’

"Not like this," I say internally, and I mean it with every fiber of my being.

I’m forced to look at her when she lets out a small cry that sounds like pure anguish cry. Big mistake.

She’s curled up on the bed, body drenched in sweat, her skin flushed a deep, feverish crimson that screams of the heat tearing her apart from the inside out. She’s in real pain, physical, agonizing pain, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it without crossing the line I swore I wouldn’t cross.

The last thing I want to do as a sane man is take her while she’s in this state, her skin still raw and injured from what those fuckers did to her. It would be inhumane.

I have every fucking need screaming at me to want her, to claim her, to rut her until the heat breaks... but I refuse. I want her conscious. I want her willing, clear-headed, and hearty when I finally bury myself inside her and make love to her the way she deserves.

"Make it stop," she signs, helplessly. "Please, make it stop. It hurts. Everything hurts."

The pain in her eyes, the desperation in her hands as she signs, the way her body is trembling with need that she doesn’t understand — it’s almost more than I can bear.

I know what a woman in heat feels like. The intensity is almost unbearable, the need for a male overwhelming, the physical sensations so acute that it borders on torture. And she’s experiencing this while still recovering from wolfsbane smoke inhalation, while still traumatized from being kidnapped and tortured just hours ago.

Her next broken whimper nearly brings me to my knees. I clench my fists so hard my nails bite into my palms, fighting the overwhelming urge to crawl onto that bed and pull her into my arms.

I take one shaky step closer, then another. Her scent is thicker in here, sweeter, more desperate. It’s coating my tongue, flooding my veins, making my cock leak and throb against my zipper like it has a mind of its own.

"Fuck... baby, I’m here," I whisper hoarsely, even though every instinct is screaming at me to rip my clothes off and sink into her soaked, aching pussy until she’s screaming my name instead of crying.

"Is there something else you can do to ease her pain?" I ask Elias, my voice tight with barely restrained fury. My hand reaches out to brush the damp strands of hair from her face, and the sight of the fresh marks and bruises on her hands sends another wave of rage burning through me.

Dr. Elias seems to understand my resolve because he nods once and moves toward her with a syringe in hand.

"Luckily for you both," he says, his voice professional and calm, "this is a mini heat, not a full cycle. I can sedate her, stop the heat from progressing further. It will buy us time to figure out what’s causing this."

"Do it," I command.

Elias approaches the bed and injects her with something that causes her to relax almost immediately. Her body stops trembling, her breathing slows, and within moments, she’s asleep again, her face finally showing some semblance of peace.

The relief is immediate but short-lived because Elias turns to me with a frown etched across his features.

"She’s wolfless, correct?" he asks, his tone shifting from being professional to being more puzzled.

"Yes," I confirm.

Elias nods slowly, his facial expression clearly stating he’s about to say something that will fundamentally change everything I thought I knew.

"That’s the problem," he says quietly. "Wolfless people don’t have heats, either mini heats, or full heats. Heat cycles are triggered by the presence of a wolf and the biological drive to bond with a mate. If she’s truly wolfless, she shouldn’t be experiencing any of this."

The words hang in the air between us, and I feel my entire worldview shift.

"What are you saying?" I ask, though I’m already beginning to understand.

"I’m saying I’ll have to run a test to confirm whether my assumption is correct."

I nod, staring at my Roselle as she sleeps peacefully. The sweat that once coated her face is beginning to dry, and her breathing has finally evened out. I lean down and press a gentle kiss to her forehead before Elias tells me I need to wait outside.

The moment I step out, my mind starts racing, my wolf is agitated, and every second that passes feels like an hour of torture. Finally, after what must be two hours, Elias emerges from the room.

One look at his face tells me that whatever he found, it’s not good.

"She does have a wolf," he says simply. "A fully functional wolf with no biological issues that I can detect."

My stomach drops. "What?"

"But," Elias continues, holding up a hand before I can speak, "her wolf is being suppressed by a chemical compound. I ran the bloodwork three times to be sure. The results are consistent: her system contains trace amounts of a chemical suppressant that’s been designed to keep her wolf dormant."

The words hit me like a physical blow.

"Someone has been poisoning her," Elias says flatly. "Deliberately, systematically, with a chemical designed to suppress her wolf. The traces suggest it’s been in her system for years."

I feel the rage building inside me, a hot, consuming fury that makes the curse feel like nothing more than a minor inconvenience. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"How?" I demand, my voice dropping into something dangerous. "How is someone poisoning her without her knowing?"

"Multiple methods," Elias explains, his clinical tone doing nothing to dampen my fury. "It could be in her food, her water, her medications. It could have been administered through injection or inhalation. The point is, whoever has been doing this knows what they’re doing. This isn’t amateur work."

I turn away, my fists clenching so hard my nails draw blood from my palms.