It starts in the bones.
A fever blooming at the base of Vera’s spine, curling hot and heavy down her thighs, coiling behind her navel like molten need.
Not hunger.
Not lust.
Something deeper.
More violent.
More wrong.
Her second heat.
And this time, there’s no collar.
No enchanted iron to dull the edge.
No spell to mute her scent.
No chain between her and the monster pacing the halls for her like a starving god with blood in his mouth.
She locks herself in the room out of mercy.
For him.
For herself.
It doesn’t help.
His scent still presses through the cracks in the stone—oak, wild wind, smoke, and Alpha.
It lands on her skin and lingers in her lungs.
It turns her thighs slick just breathing.
She strips, trembling, and falls to her knees in front of the mirror like a wol
