Paper blackens and curls, sketches becoming ghosts before disappearing. The flames reflect in what remains of the bathroom mirror, doubling the destruction. I watch until the fire consumes the last drawing, until nothing remains but ash and charred paper edges, Ezra’s face erased.
I stop the recording and send the video without hesitation, without text. Let him see his collected images turning to smoke. Let him understand that whatever power those drawings held is gone now, reduced to carbon smudges in my bathtub.
His response comes as I stir the ashes to make sure all the embers die.
Unknown Number
Not nearly as hot as how the real me burns for you.
A laugh bursts from my throat, unexpected and genuine. Even now, with his images turned to ash, Ezra refuses to surrender an inch of ground. His persistence infuriates me, yet the same stubborn certainty draws me like gravity.
What must it be like to want something so single-mindedly, to pursue it across years with unwavering focus?
I splash water on my face, the cool shock grounding me.
I still feel too warm trapped in the bathroom, but when I step out, the burn doesn’t fade. My muscles feel achy, from lack of sleep, I assumed earlier, but now the warmth gathers in my hips, and my skin prickles, my clothes too tight.
I wipe sweat from my brow and pull out my phone, locating my Heat app. The interface is clinical, designed for Omegas to share their cycle data with medical providers, family members, or most commonly, potential mates.
The calendar confirms what I thought. It’s a week too soon, but the early signs are there.
My Heat is coming.
I look back toward the medicine cabinet where my suppressants wait, consider the candles on the hot plates by the doors, waiting to be lit to obscure my scent.
But I don’t go to them.
Then the sound of a car door closing outside draws me to the window, and I peer down into the street to see a luxury sedan parked at the curb, and my pulse quickens.
Ezra came. Of course, he did. He probably knew my Heat was coming before I even realized.
Grabbing a cardigan, I slip it over my bare torso, the worn wool itchy on skin growing oversensitive by the second.
But I don’t care. I need to go downstairs. Need to meetmy Alpha.
After so much wasted time, I won’t give up a second more.
18
The stairs creak beneath my unsteady feet as I descend from my loft to the bookshop below. Heat burns through my veins, turning my skin to fever and my thoughts to smoke.
Each step requires more concentration than the last as my body betrays me with the need to mate.
Ezra will be waiting, I tell myself. Ezra will fix this ache inside me, this unbearable emptiness.
I fumble to open the fire safe door that separates the private space from the business side and step into the darkness of the closed shop.
I grip the banister to steady myself, scanning the shadows between bookshelves. The cardigan I threw on clings to my sweat-dampened skin, the wool scratching my hypersensitive nerve endings. My breath comes in shallow pants that echo in the quiet space.
“Ezra?” My call sounds small and desperate in the stillness of the shop.
Is he still out on the sidewalk? I’m surprised a locked door would keep him away, but maybe this is also part of the process?Waiting for me to let him in, to show my surrender, instead of entering without permission?
I shuffle farther into the shop, painfully hard but determined. Ezra waited so long for me. It’s only fair I be the one to come to him now.
But then the darkness shifts between the poetry section and ancient history, and a figure steps forward, the silver gleam of a gun barrel catching what little light filters through the dusty shop windows.
“Lorenzo Vescari. It’s been a while.”
