Chapter 304  Alpha-Mark Heat Without A Blood Moon

The water was ice. Agnes had made sure of it.

She’d drained the bath twice and refilled it with water so cold her teeth were chattering before she even stepped in. Warmth was the enemy. Everything below her waist was the enemy, and had been since she woke up at midnight with her skin on fire and her wolf howling loud enough to split her skull.

Heat.

She knew the signs all too well, and she had every intention of handling this with dignity.

What she hadn’t expected was for it to happen now.

Yes, marking is what triggered heat cycles. Agnes was marked. Fine.

But she had never heard of a woman going into heat without a full moon, let alone a woman marked by an Alpha. Alpha-mate heats were tied to Blood Moons. Once, maybe twice a year. Some years, none at all.

The moon was barely a sliver tonight.

Garrett was born a Gamma. He carried an Alpha aura now, but only because of the Ascension Rite. Maybe that was why? A transferred aura instead of a born one. It had to be.

If it wasn’t that, then there was something wrong with her, and Agnes Viremont was not broken. She was a limited edition.

She sank deeper into the freezing water. The cold helped for about ninety seconds at a time before her body overruled it, heat flooding back through her veins with a vengeance that felt personal.

Agnes squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her forehead against the rim of the tub. The stone was cold. Good. She needed cold. She needed a glacier, an ice age, a full extinction-level winter event aimed directly at her reproductive system.

What she needed to avoid was Garrett Darkhowler finding out.

Because Garrett would help. That was the problem. Garrett would take one look at her, recognize exactly what was happening, and respond with the full earnest, decent, horrifyingly tender weight of his personality. He would hold her. He would ask what she needed. He would mean every word.

And she would break.

She’d been keeping herself together through sheer force of will for weeks. The guilt lived in her chest like a second heartbeat, and heat had a way of stripping defenses until there was nothing left to hide behind.

Her father’s face flashed through her mind. The letters. The coordination. The things she still hadn’t told Garrett because telling him would mean watching that steady, trusting expression collapse, and she wasn’t ready for that. She might never be ready for that.

A thought kept circulating in her head.

He deserves to know. You are afraid he will leave.

Agnes’s throat tightened. She pressed harder against the stone rim until it hurt.

“I’m protecting him.”

You are protecting yourself. There is a difference, and you know it.

Agnes slammed her palm against the water. The splash hit the floor and the wall and she didn’t care. Her body was burning through the cold faster than the tub could replenish it, and the cramps were getting worse, deep and rhythmic and demanding in a way that made her want to scream.

She heard the door open.

“Agnes.”

Garrett’s voice. Low. Careful. Already knowing.

She didn’t turn around. “I’m fine.”

“You’ve been in here for two hours.” He paused in the doorway. “The water is ice cold. I can see your breath.”

“I enjoy cold baths. It’s a skincare ritual.”

“In the middle of the night.”

“Skin has no schedule, Garrett.”

Silence. She could feel him studying her. That infuriatingly patient, methodical assessment he did before making a tactical decision. The same look he gave battle maps and border disputes, aimed at her shaking shoulders.

“You’re in heat.”

She finally turned her head. His frame filled the doorway, arms crossed, expression unreadable except for the slight flare of his nostrils. He could smell it. Of course he could smell it.

“Congratulations. You figured it out.” Her voice came out brittle. “Now leave.”

He didn’t leave. He crossed the room and knelt beside the tub, close enough that his scent hit her and her wolf practically detonated inside her skull.

MATE.

Agnes gripped the rim of the tub so hard her knuckles went white. “Garrett, if you stay this close to me, I am going to do things that neither of us can undo.”

“Why were you hiding it?”

The question was quiet. Genuine. Free of accusation, which was somehow worse, because accusation she could fight. Sincerity dismantled her.

“Because I can handle it myself.”

“You’re shaking.”

“I shake elegantly.”

His mouth twitched. Almost a smile. He reached into the water and touched her hand, and the contact sent a bolt of heat up her arm so intense her vision blurred.

“Agnes.” His thumb traced across her knuckles. Gentle. Deliberate. “Let me help you.”

Her jaw clenched. A cramp rolled through her abdomen, vicious and deep, and she couldn’t stop the sound that escaped, a low, pained whimper that Agnes Viremont would deny to her dying breath.

Garrett’s expression shifted. The patience was still there, but underneath it was something harder. Protective.

He lifted her out of the water.

She should have protested. She had a speech prepared about independence and personal boundaries and the feminist implications of a woman being unable to endure her own biology.

The speech evaporated the second his arms closed around her, because his body was taking the heat from her and the relief obliterated every argument she had ever constructed.

The cramps eased instantly. Her wolf went quiet for the first time in hours. Quiet, satisfied, and unbearably smug.

He carried her to the bed and set her down with a gentleness that made her chest ache.

“You’re being careful with me,” she observed, voice thin. “I’m in heat, Garrett. I’m hardly made of glass.”

“I know what you’re made of.” He sat beside her, his hand resting on her hip, thumb tracing small circles through the wet fabric. “I also know you’ve been sitting in freezing water for two hours instead of coming to me, and I’d like to understand why.”

Because I’ll tell you everything. Because heat strips away every defense I’ve built, and the things behind those defenses will end us.

She didn’t say any of that.

“Pride,” she said instead, which was partially true.

He watched her for a long moment. Then he leaned down and kissed her forehead, and Agnes felt something crack open behind her ribs that she hadn’t given permission to move.

“You’re allowed to need things,” he said against her skin. “Even you.”

Her eyes burned. She blinked it away fast, because Agnes Viremont didn’t cry because of a heat. Agnes Viremont should be making demands during her heat. She was a commander. She certainly did not lie on a bed with wet hair and burning eyes while a decent man kissed her forehead and said things that made her feel like she deserved them.

The guilt surged. Hard. Fast.

Tell him. Tell him about the letters. About Father’s contacts in Orosia. About the things you overheard before you left Viremont. Tell him while you still can, before the lie grows roots so deep it kills what you’re building.

She swallowed it. Pushed it down where the heat couldn’t reach it. Locked it behind the same iron will that had kept her alive her entire life.

Later. She’d tell him later. When she could control the delivery. When the timing served the confession instead of sabotaging it.