Page 13 of Omega on the Rocks
The name thundered through my chest like a wrecking ball, and I flinched—so small, so sharp no one saw it. But I felt it. Felt iteverywhere. I shouldn’t have gone to that bar. I told myself that every night. I told myself it didn’t mean anything. Just a drink. Just noise. Just a way to disappear.
But I was lying. Ialwayslied. Because the truth was—I needed that place. I craved the anonymity. The ache of it. The freedom of being nothing to no one. Just a nameless man with a whiskey glass and a heartbeat. For a few hours, I could pretend I wasn’t dying inside.
And then that night he had walked in. Kieran didn’t look at me like I was famous. Didn’t hunger for the fame. Didn’t even know who I was. He looked at me like Iwas real. Like I mattered. Like the broken boy beneath the movie star costume still had worth.
And that… that’s what shattered me.
Go back,my wolf growled, low and raw beneath my ribs.You were warm with him. You were whole.
My throat closed up. I clenched my jaw.
“I can’t,” I breathed, barely audible.
An assistant glanced over, curious. I waved them off.
They’d never understand. No one did. No one knew what it meant to have a voice inside you that never shut up. That reminded you of every sin. Every failure. Every loss.
I hadn’t heard anything but silence since the day my parents dragged me to the edge of the packlands. Not until Keiran. Not until that night.
All I had heard was my own inner voice. Told me I was unnatural. That no real alpha would ever want something likeme. Unbonded. Uncontrollable. Omega male. My father called it a disease.
My mother didn’t even say goodbye. “You don’t belong here anymore.” That sentence became my shadow. So I shed the skin they couldn’t love.
I becameMalachi Grant—perfect, polished, palatable. But never free. Neverhome.
The memory of his scent hit me out of nowhere—so sudden, so vivid it knocked the breath from my lungs. Smooth leather, cinnamon, cloves…Mine…
Kieran.
My stomach twisted. Fire bloomed behind my navel like a secret detonating.
Claimed, my wolf breathed.You let him in. Mate, we have to go back.
“No. Not fully.” My voice shook. I fumbled for my water bottle, but my fingers trembled too much to open it. “He didn’t… he didn’t finish.”
The bond knows. He touched it. He woke it up. You felt it.
I shook my head, but the heat kept growing. Clawing up from my gut like something alive. Something ancient. Somethinginevitable. He can’t still be calling to me. Not from that far. But the echo of his touch still lives in my skin. His scent still lingering in my memory like sin I couldn’t confess.
And now it waswaking up. I shifted on my feet, desperate for control. The smell of hairspray and perfume choked the air, but none of it dulled the instinct rising in me like a tide. My body knew. Mywolfknew.
He marked you. With his hands. His mouth. His scent. And now the bond is hungry.
A tremor rolled through me. I braced a hand on the chair beside me, muscles locking tight as I fought the wave. Someone yelled my name. But it sounded so far away. My head swam. My vision blurred. And I realized—this wasn’t just nerves. This wasn’t stage fright or exhaustion. This wasneed. I was going into heat. Right here. Right now. In front of the cameras, the crew, the world.
“No,” I whispered, chest caving in. “Not now. Please.” But it was happening. The ache spread through my limbs like fire through dry brush. My skin burned. My blood sang. My wolf whimpered inside me.
You were never meant to live a life this clean, he whispered, panting and keening now.You were made to be tied. To be taken. To belong.
“I’m not ready,” I begged, though I knew that didn’t matter anymore. It was too late. This was truth. This was fate. And there was no hiding from it now.
I couldn’t breathe.
The lights above the set scorched through me like midday sun on glass, amplifying every ache already curling deep in my gut. My skin was damp—too damp. My shirt clung to me in places it shouldn’t, and the synthetic fabric burned against my over sensitized nipples. Something inside me was shifting, tilting, threatening to split me in half.
Not here.
“Mal?” Jules stepped in front of me, blinking against the stage lights. Her headset was hanging off one ear, and her script fluttered in her hand like she hadn’t realized she’d stopped reading from it. “Hey, you’re sweating. You okay? You look—pale.”
