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The suitcase handle dug into my palm as I dragged it across the driveway. My arms ached, but I refused to ask for help. Not now. Not when everything felt so wrong. "Aria, hurry up!" Mom called from beside the sleek black car. Her voice had that excited edge I'd been hearing for weeks now. I gritted my teeth and pulled harder. "I'm coming!" The driver finally took pity on me and loaded my luggage into the trunk. I slumped into the back seat, staring out the window as we drove away from our small apartment—the only home I'd ever known. Mom turned around, her eyes sparkling. "Aren't you excited, sweetheart? We're going to live in the Steel villa! Can you imagine?" No, I can't. And I don't want to. Even the Steel villa couldn't change the fact that I was just a wolfless Omega. School was already frustrating enough—three years of being invisible, of watching other wolves shift and run while I remained painfully, permanently human. And lately, my body had been acting strangely. Feverish at night, sheets twisted and damp with sweat. Restless, like something was crawling beneath my skin, demanding to get out. The dreams were the worst part—vivid, searingly hot dreams that left me aching and empty when I woke, my thighs pressed together, trying to ease the unbearable throb between them. I'd researched it obsessively on my phone at 3 AM: early heat symptoms in late-blooming Omegas. The articles said it could happen, even without a wolf. That my body might be preparing for something my mind wasn't ready to accept. The timing couldn't be worse. Moving into a house full of Alphas—powerful ones—while my body was doing... this? It felt like walking into a trap my own biology had set. "Sure, Mom," I muttered, pressing my thighs together as another hot flush rolled through me. Not here. Not now. She reached back and squeezed my hand. "I know this is hard, but Marcus is wonderful. You'll see. And his sons—" "The Steel brothers," I interrupted, my stomach twisting. "Yeah, I know them.
