Cadens POV
I know something’s wrong the second she goes quiet.
One second she’s curled up against me, sweaty and pale, burning up in the passenger seat while May and Mum try to talk her into drinking more water. The next… she stops answering me.
I twist to face her. Her throat’s tight. Shoulders shaking. Her lips are parted like she’s trying to breathe through fire, and it’s hitting me too — that smell.
Fuck.
It hits me like a truck to the chest.
She’s in heat. Not just any heat—this is banshee-level. Supernatural. Otherworldly. Her scent fills the car like smoke, like s*x, like pain, like something sacred and wrong all at once.
“Drive faster,” I snap, heart slamming into my ribs as sweat prickles at the back of my neck.
We pull up to Granny’s house, just past the community square,
