YOU WERE MINE FIRST

Early Heat

CHAPTER 15: Early Heat

The bite on my left shoulder blade would not stop burning.

Not like the gold-white mark on my throat where Rhazien had claimed me after I marked him. That one throbbed warm. Alive. A second heart beating with his. When he purred, it purred. When he brushed it, my back arched and my white ears flicked on their own.

The red-white bite burned different. Cold and hot at once. It pulsed too, but not with Rhazien. It pulsed with something far south, beyond the deadlands. With Sanguine Court. Where Elisande sat and called me sister.

And with every pulse, the hollow place where the iron had lived for eighteen years filled with something new. Not Lyra. Not me. A third thing. It tasted like roses left too long in dark water. Lyra said that water could kill humans.

Lyra paced inside my chest, huge and white, fur standing.

_Get it off, little wolf,_ she snarled, snapping at it through our soul. _Get her scent off our skin. She bit us when we were three days old. The night the witches put the iron in. I let her. I thought font blood would keep us alive through the iron. The iron trapped it. Now the iron is broken and the font blood wakes._

I tried. On the huge black bed, tangled in furs that still smelled like snow and smoke and King, my white dress pushed up to my knees, I tried to do what Lyra taught. I pushed white fire into the red-white light to burn it out.

White light flared in my eyes and lit the ruined bedroom. The red-white bite flared back, brighter. It burned hotter. The heat that had been pooling low in my belly from the gold-white mark turned sharp. Too much. Too fast.

I gasped. My back bowed. My white ears went flat. Claws dug into the furs. A whine tore from my throat that did not sound like me.

Rhazien moved so fast I did not see it. One second he was kneeling beside the bed. The next his huge body caged mine, arms around me, forehead pressed to mine.

"Elara," he breathed, voice raw and shredded. "Little debt, what did you do?"

"Lyra said push," I choked out. Tears slipped, silver-white, sizzling where they hit his bare chest. "She said push white fire into the bite. Get it off—"

"Don't," he said, soft and terrible. One huge hand cupped the back of my head. The other pulled the white dress down over my left shoulder to see it. Bare skin. Left shoulder blade. Where my birthmark used to be, there were now two delicate fangs, white rimmed in red, pulsing red-white. "Don't push, little debt. White fire and vampire font blood do not mix. When they fight, they burn you from the inside. Font blood is old magic. It needs other blood to live. That is what Elisande meant."

Old magic that needs other blood. Lyra went still inside, ears pricked.

_He is right,_ she whispered, shaken. _Font blood needs blood. She needs blood. The pup needs blood. Or the heat will take her._

Heat. The word made my tail thump once under the dress. It made the gold-white mark on my throat pulse hotter. Rhazien felt it through the bond, through his hand on my bare back, and his gold-white eyes went black. Lycan Kings know heat scent.

"Elara," he whispered, nose buried in my white hair, breathing deep. "Little debt, you smell— Goddess, you smell like heat. Like pre-heat. Like a Queen's pre-heat. It should not come for three days. After marking, after your body adjusts to King venom. Why now?"

Lyra knew. She stood inside, nose to the air, sniffing soul, not body, and whined low.

_Font blood,_ she said, voice grim and soft. _Vampire blood heats faster than wolf blood. It needs blood to live, so it heats the body to make the body seek King blood. Seek the bite. She did it on purpose. Bloodsucker sister did it on purpose when she woke the mark. She knew white fire and font blood would fight and heat the pup early. And early heat in a girl caged for eighteen years can harm if not— if not sealed right._

Sealed right. Rhazien heard it through the bond and his huge body shuddered. His back bowed. Black fur rippled over his shoulders then pulled back, the beast trying to break out.

"Sealed right," he repeated, voice raw, gold-white eyes locked on my glowing white ones. "Little debt, Lycan King venom in your blood is trying to hold your human body together while white fire and font blood fight inside. But venom is hot. White fire is cold. Font blood is cold and hot. Three things fighting. A human body cannot hold. Unless— unless you are claimed fully. So King blood floods and seals white fire and font blood inside and makes them stop fighting."

I knew what he meant. The kitchen girls whispered about it. The wolfless girls whispered louder because they would never be claimed like that. Rhazien cupped my face, his huge hands shaking, forehead to mine.

"It means if you let me seal you tonight, tonight only, I can seal it," he whispered, voice wrecked, like prayer and curse at once. "White fire and font blood will sleep behind my venom wall. Then the heat won't harm you. Then the heat will make you a Queen who can stand. But you have to say yes. Goddess law, a Queen must say yes. I cannot take without yes. Even if you burn."

Yes. The word that started everything on the broken altar floor when he claimed my debt contract. I reached up with small white-clawed hands and cupped his scarred face, pulled his forehead down to mine, white ears brushing his cheeks, white tail wrapping tight around my waist under the dress, gold-white mark pulsing with the red-white bite.

"Yes, my King," I whispered, voice layered, mine and Lyra's, and now a faint third voice underneath like crystal chimes. "Seal the poison so it is yours too. Make me yours inside like I am yours outside. So no sister can take what you claimed."

He broke. His mouth pressed to my throat, over the old mark, covering it, sealing it again, pushing more venom, more black-gold King blood into me, claiming, branding, steadying the red-white bite on my shoulder blade.

Heat, bright white-hot, shot through my neck. Then warmth so deep I saw stars. My back bowed off the bed and a cry tore from my throat. His venom poured into my bloodstream, into the hollow place where iron used to be, claiming, sealing white fire and font blood inside, making them stop fighting.

_MINE,_ his beast roared through the bond, deeper, more possessive than before.

_MINE,_ Lyra roared back, and I felt her slam into his beast, white fur meeting black fur, then curling around each other, purring. And then a third presence, cold and crystal and red, hissing, recoiling, because King venom burned vampire font blood and sealed it behind a wall of black-gold.

The red-white bite on my left shoulder blade burned once, bright, then dimmed, then settled to a faint warm glow. Not cold hot anymore. Just warm. Sleeping. Caged again, but this time by a King, not by witches.

The bond snapped tight, complete. White fangs on his throat, black-gold fangs on mine, both glowing, light pouring from both bites, connecting with light that now included the dim red-white glow, three lights tangling but King light winning.

Outside, Black Mountain shook. Every Lycan on the mountain threw their heads back and howled as one, a howl that shook snow off the peaks, heard in Blood Stone, in the northern packs, across the deadlands. Their King was claiming. Their White Queen was in early heat.

Far down the mountain, in the dungeon, the witch with the glowing white handprint on her cheek woke as the King roar shook the walls and laughed through a torn mouth, because Moon Coven felt it too.

And far south, in Sanguine Court, Elisande sat on her throne, red eyes wide, hand clutching her own throat over an old faded white scar, feeling through the dream path crack that was now closing because King venom sealed font blood behind a black-gold wall, feeling her sister's heat spike then settle.

"You locked me out, sister," she whispered, crystal dress shattering, tears of blood falling. "You let the beast lock me out of power that was mine."

Inside the ruined bedroom, I did not hear her anymore. I was held by Rhazien, glowing white, marked black-gold, red-white bite dimmed to a warm glow, forehead pressed to mine, both breathing hard, both bites glowing, lighting the room.

He brushed his mouth over the mark, soothing, hands shaking as he cupped my face.

"My Queen," he whispered, voice broken, tears falling from gold-white eyes. "My Elara. Do you feel it? Do you feel how mine you are now inside and outside? No witch can put iron around you now. No vampire can call you sister and take your power. You are my wife."

Lyra sighed inside, happy and sleepy, curling around the place where white fire and font blood now slept behind the black-gold wall.

_Good, little wolf,_ she whispered. _Now sleep. Let the King guard your first sealed sleep. Tomorrow they will come. But tonight we are sealed._

Rhazien rolled carefully, pulling me with him so I lay on his huge bare chest, ear over his heart hammering steady, huge hand stroking my white ears, white tail, back.

Outside the broken doors, I heard Cain's voice, low fierce choked with tears, "Send word to every pack. White Queen lives. She went into heat early because vampire power woke in her blood. King sealed her to save her. Blackthorn has a Luna again. And if anyone thinks to take her while she is sealed and resting, tell them the Beast King will face the world before he lets her be taken."

Rhazien's chest rumbled under my ear, low purr, broken, ragged. "Sleep, little debt," he murmured into my hair. "I have you. Inside and outside. No iron. No poison. No sister. Just you and me."

And for the first time since I was three days old, I fell asleep not wolfless, not worthless, not rejected, not poisoned. I fell asleep claimed, glowing white and gold and faint red in the arms of the Beast King who claimed my debt contract.

And fifty miles away, a raven made of shadow and crystal dust took flight from Sanguine Court, carrying one message: _She was sealed early. Come before seal hardens. Or white line lives forever._

Moonrise in three hours. Witches would come anyway. Sealed or not.