Page 14 of The Pack

Protect. Claim. Mark.

I shoved the thought aside, my jaw tightening. This wasn’t the time for instincts. This was a problem. A big one.

“Magnus,”Tobias growled again, louder this time.“Talk to me.”

“She’s going into heat,” I said aloud, my voice cool and collected despite the chaos in my head.

The pack went still.

“What did you just say?”Tobias asked, his tone disbelieving.

“You heard me,” I said, finally letting go of Zara and stepping back. Her body sagged slightly, and she pressed her hands to her thighs, breathing hard.

Tobias’s gaze flicked to Zara.“That’s not possible. Humans don’t?—”

“I know,” I said quickly, cutting him off. “But it’s happening.”

Callum looked back and forth from me to Zara. His snout lifted as he sniffed the air.“Is she…?”

“She doesn’t know,” I said, glancing back at her. “She doesn’t understand what’s happening.”

“What’s happening?” Zara demanded, her voice trembling. She straightened, her fists clenched again, though she looked less sure of herself now. “What are you talking about? What do you mean, ‘heat’?”

I ran a hand through my hair, the familiar tune of an old Irish reel humming under my breath as I tried to think, something I did sometimes when I was stressed or overwhelmed.

This was bad. Worse than bad.

“She’s not staying here,”Tobias said, his voice hard.

“She can’t leave,” I countered, my tone just as firm. “Not like this.”

Zara’s gaze darted between us, her frustration boiling over. “Would someone please explain what’s going on?”

I turned back to her, meeting her eyes with a seriousness that wiped the smirk from my face. “You’re going into heat,” I said plainly.

Her brow furrowed and her face twisted with confusion. “What does that even mean?”

“It means,” I said slowly, carefully, “that your body is doing something it shouldn’t and we’re going to have to do something about it.”

CHAPTER 3

Zara

“I’m going into heat?” I whispered, pressing the back of my hand against my forehead. It was hot—too hot. My skin felt like it was on fire, and the heat wasn’t coming from the morning sun or from the fight.

It was coming frominsideme.

And more specifically, it was coming from a place deep down in the core of my belly.

I didn’t understand what they were saying. Heat? What did they mean, ‘heat’? Humans didn’t go into heat. That wasn’t a thing, right? Animals went into heat. Did shifters go into heat? I wasn’t a shifter. I was human!

But regardless of that, whatever was happening to me wasn’t normal.

Was I drugged? I had to be drugged, right? That’s the only way this could be happening, the only reasonable explanation for a human woman like me going into a shifter heat…

His grip loosened and I staggered back a step, trying to put distance between me and the dark-haired man who had been staring at me like I was some kind of puzzle he wanted to solve. His piercing silver eyes tracked my every movement. The other wolves stood nearby, their gazes just as intense.

The heat was unbearable. It wasn’t just under my skin; it was in my chest, my stomach, curling low in my gut like a storm I couldn’t control. My heart raced, and my body felt alive in a way that terrified me. My nipples ached and my clit pulsed, and I tried to ignore the way my eyes kept dropping to their monstrously big cocks.

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