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If I stop moving, I’m going to go back. I know I am. And then what, exactly? I ask the nice officers to let me in with the massive wolf who just ripped a table out of the floor because he smelled me?

Great plan, Zahra. Mama would be proud.

* * *

Outside, the cold air smacks me in the face. I suck in a big breath. My lungs are working. I’m breathing. I’m fine.

Except I’m not, because every breath I take feels… empty. Like I’m looking for something in the air, and it’s not there anymore.

I grab the door handle of Cillian’s Escalade to hold myself up.

“Oh, my God.”

“What?”

“I can’t smell him.”

Cillian’s jaw ticks. “Get in the car.”

“Cillian, I can’t smell him anymore, why does that feel like…”

“Zahra. Get in the car. Now.”

There’s just a hint of Alpha bark in his tone. He almost never does that with me. I get in the car, mostly because my knees are about to give out.

The door shuts. Leather. Coffee. Cillian’s expensive cologne, and that faint Alpha-wolf thing under it that I stopped noticing years ago, because he’s my boss, and my brain filed him under absolutely fucking not from day one.

No woodsmoke. No rain. No HIM.

I roll the window down. Cillian gets in, looks at the open window, looks at me, and starts the engine without a word.

I watch the prison get smaller in the side mirror. Concrete, razor wire, and guard towers. He’s in there somewhere. They’re probably strapping him to a bed right now. My eyes fill up again, and I scrub at them with the heel of my hand. This is ridiculous. This is insane! I met the man ten minutes ago!

I know his name. I know his age, his charges, his sentence. I read his file. I know Declan Greene runs the Irish mob on our side of the country. I know he’s a wolf, and an Alpha. I know he killed a man named Patrick Doyle, and I know his rap sheet’s so long it’s got its own table of contents.

And now I know what he looks like with his fangs out, throwing grown men around like bowling pins, because one of them got between him and me.

I should be horrified.

My nipples are so hard they hurt.

Oh, this is bad. This is so bad. My breasts feel heavy and achy against my blouse. There’s a deep, low cramp in my belly that’s got nothing to do with my period. And between my legs… Lord. I’m soaked. I’m sitting in my boss’s car with my panties stuck to me, clenching around nothing, because my body’s apparently decided that the scary convict in the orange jumpsuit is the answer to a question I didn’t know I was asking.

I squeeze my thighs together and stare out the window.

Cillian lasts about thirty seconds.

“How close are you?”

“To what?”

“To your heat.”

My head whips around. “Did you seriously just ask me that?!”

“I’m an Alpha wolf, and I just watched another Alpha half-shift because you walked in. I think HR will let it slide.” He looks at me. “How fucking close, Zahra?”

“I don’t know!”