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He grunted. “Lick it?”

“I’m saying, I won’t. I’ll just look. It can’t hurt to look. We both want me to look at it.”

“No,” he snapped. “It won’t be like that, and you and I know it, and no, this feels wrong to me. You’re not in your right head. A heat between an an alpha and omega, it needs to be within an established relationship, so that I know you really want me—not just that your heat wants me—and so that you know that you can trust me, really trust me. This would be the first time with us, and no.”

Maybe that made sense, but I felt rejected again. Tears came to my eyes. “Please, alpha, please. Why don’t you want me? I thought I was a good omega.”

He groaned. “Fuck. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m not trying to make it harder for you. I want you. Trust me, I want you. I’m not touching you because I care about you. I need you to understand that.”

I bit down on my lip. “Say it again.”

“What?”

“That you care about me?”

“Fuck, you know I care about you, Leo,” he said softly. “You know I love you.”

I whined, but it was a good whine. I shuddered in my seat, head thrown back. “Again, please, please, alpha.”

“I love you.” His voice was strained.

It felt amazing to hear him say it.

He pulled the car over.

I opened my eyes to see that we’d pulled off onto a gravel road. There was a chain just in front of us, blocking the road ahead, which wound off into the trees.

“Shift,” he said to me, unlocking the door for me.

I undid my seatbelt and opened the door to the car. I got out.

Shift, I thought.

I tried to remember whatever it was that Vincent had said about merging, but my wolf was so agitated from the heat and the denial of any release, and the stress of everything that my wolf would not stop moving long enough for me to merge with her.

I couldn’t do it.

The first wave of the shift began to overtake me. It hurt. I screamed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

VINCENT KNELT NEXT to me, hand on my bare back, murmuring about picturing the wolf and merging with her, but it wasn’t helping.

I was shifting, but it was slow, my bones snapping, fur forcing its way through my skin, a muzzle tearing its way through my features. Every movement forced another scream through me.

Suddenly, Vincent wasn’t touching me anymore.

I writhed in agony, barely registering that I’d heard the sound of a car engine cutting off.

Vincent was on his feet. His voice sounded like it was underwater. “We agreed you’d keep driving.”

“She’s stuck between forms,” came Damian’s voice. “Let me help her.”

“I’m helping her,” said Vincent.

“I’m her fucking alpha,” roared Damian, pushing past Vincent.

“You are not,” said Vincent.