The driver was silent.

Even the guards refused to ride beside me three trucks trailed behind, none dared ride in front. I sat alone in a silver-lined cage, the metal humming faintly beneath me. Still, it couldn’t suppress the fire raging in my core. Every heartbeat sent another wave of heat pulsing through my veins.

My skin felt too tight. My thighs refused to stay closed. Each bump in the road sent a jolt through my lower belly, until I bit my lip to keep from crying out.

My scent filled the cage, thick, musky, soaked with slick. I could smell it. They could smell it.

And somewhere… he could too.

When we stopped, I felt it before I even saw the gate.

The air shifted.

Heavy. Electric.

Breathing.

Iron Howl.

A prison built for the broken, the savage, the damned. Where Omegas disappeared. Where Alphas rotted. Where a monster named Kael hadn’t spoken to anyone in weeks.

And I was being brought to him.

They didn’t speak to me when they unloaded the cage.

Two guards wore full armor from head to toe, their faces hidden behind silver-filtration masks. One of them gagged. The other muttered, “Don’t inhale. Just move her.”

They wheeled me down into the bowels of the prison. Through the iron gates. Past chained beasts and walls etched with claw marks. Down in The Pit where the worst of our kind were locked away.

Alphas who’d slaughtered their entire packs. Omegas who tore their mates apart during a rut. Betas, who’d snapped so hard they couldn’t tell hunger from hate.

But I wasn’t here for any of them.

I was here for him.

They rolled my cage into a cold, empty cell across from a larger one, located deep in the wall with no windows, no light. Just chains, shadows, and silence.

A guard spoke. “That’s the one?”

The Warden grunted. “Kael hasn’t eaten in three days. He doesn’t sleep. Don’t talk. Last time we brought someone too close, he bit off a man’s fingers. Through the bars.”

Still, my body responded not with fear.

But with need.

That pull again. Deeper this time. More magnetic. Like something primal was awake inside me… and it knew him.

They left me alone in the cell. Locked the gate. No words.

Just the sound of my pulse pounding between my legs.

The moment they were gone, the tension snapped.

I let out a whimper. A low, aching sound that came from somewhere deep in my belly.

Not pain.

Desperation.

My body clenched violently. My slick dripped onto the bench beneath me. I rocked my hips, chasing friction, pressure, anything. Nothing helped. Nothing eased it.

Then a voice cut through the dark.

Gravel and smoke. Rough and low.

“They brought you here… leaking like that?”

My breath hitched. My head snapped up.

It came from the shadows across the hall. From his cell.

“You smell like fire and sin.”

“What are you?”

“I…” I swallowed. “I’m an Omega.”

A pause. Chains scraping stone.

“No, little flame. You’re not.”

The shadows stirred.

I caught glimpses of heavy boots dragging forward, silver shackles clinking with each step. Eyes. Pale gray. Sharp as blades. Not crazed. Not broken.

Focused. Controlled.

Predator.

“Your scent’s screaming,” he growled.

“It’s crawling through the cracks in the walls. Every beast in this pit can smell you now.”

I tried to sit up straighter, but the bindings on my wrists dug into my skin. The cold bench under me grew slicker by the second.

He sniffed the air again loudly, deliberately.

Then let out a sound between a chuckle and a groan.

“God, it’s thick… You’re soaked, aren’t you?”

“Your slick’s all over that bench. Poor little cunt’s fluttering in the air.”

“D-don’t talk to me like that.”

Silence.

Then his voice dropped lower. Darker.

“Then stop fucking dripping where I can smell you.”

My legs clenched tighter. But it only made it worse. The pressure. The ache. I whimpered again, humiliated and hungry.

He stepped forward, chains rattling until they yanked him back. He laughed dry and bitter.

“Smart of them. To bind me before they wheeled you in.”

“Because the way you smell right now…”

“I’d ruin you.”

His words made my pulse flutter.

He wasn’t bluffing.

I could feel the danger in him like a heatwave. But I wasn’t afraid.

I was drawn.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Ardyn.”

He repeated it slowly. Like tasting something sharp and forbidden.

“Ardyn,” he murmured. “Fitting. You burn.”

“How long has your heat lasted?” he asked.

“Two days.”

A low whistle.

“Still raging? No relief?”

I shook my head, barely able to speak.

“You’ve been wet for two days straight?”

“Grinding your hips. Slick soak everything. No knot to fill that greedy cunt?”

“Does it hurt, little flame?”

I whimpered. Couldn’t stop it. My core throbbed at every word. My thighs trembled.

“Do you want it to stop?” he asked.

I opened my mouth.

No sound came.

I didn’t know what I wanted.

He stepped into the faint strip of light that crept between the cells.

Taller than any man I’d seen. Broad. Scarred. Muscles tense under inked skin. Sweat gleamed down his throat. A thick collar of silver-bound iron wrapped around his neck, linking to chains that held him like a beast.

And still…

Still, he looked like he was in control.

“I can stop it,” he said. “I can make the ache go away.”

“But you’d never walk again.”

He licked his lips slowly.

“That’s the price. I give you relief…”

“You give me your fucking soul.”

A flicker of something moved behind his eyes.

Not just. Not hunger.

Memory, maybe.

Regret.

But it was gone in an instant.

“Say it, Ardyn.”

“Say you want me to help you.”

“Say you want me to make you scream.”

I clenched the edge of the bench until my knuckles turned white.

Tears welled in my eyes from the pressure. From the ache. From the terrifying truth I couldn’t deny.

I didn’t care who he was.

I didn’t care what he’d done.

I needed him.

I closed my eyes.

And whispered,

“I want it.”