Heat

Naturally, the selection had been cancelled. Or as they had put it. It had been postponed indefinitely.
The level of anger that Gabrielle was on was phenomenal. How did Ava always luck out like that? Heat? She had entered heat just as Gabrielle was about to take Adrian’s hand.
Couldn’t she have waited for a second or two before letting the heat begin? A few more seconds and Gabrielle would have been Adrian’s consort. His woman in front of the entire pack.
Now, her best-laid plans had been scattered to the wind by her sister.
Gabrielle controlled herself trying to bury her scream before it escaped. She walked into Cynthia’s home. Cynthia would have something for her. Anything. At this point, she was hoping against all hopes and she was desperate enough to do whatever it would take to keep Adrian.
Cynthia sat on her rocking chair with her legs elevated to reduce the swelling around her ankles as she had been wont to these days. Gabrielle launched right into her request.
“Cynthia, I need you to do something. Anything. I want Adrian to leave her for me. You promised me that I would be Luna–”
“That’s enough. I have heard enough.” Gabrielle was startled by the sudden change in Cynthia’s demeanor.
“I have given you so many opportunities, Gabrielle. You keep squandering them one after the other. You had just one job. To spread your legs for him so that you can have a child for him and a say in how things will be in the pack, but you couldn’t even do that. For now, there is nothing more I can do.”
Cynthia looked beyond pissed as well. Gabrielle had a lot to say but she still needed Cynthia as her partner. She would have to come up with a solution to solve this problem by herself.
********”
Adrian was terrified. The moment he stopped touching Ava, she was in pain. So much pain.
They should have been expecting it in hindsight. They were mates with an unconsummated bond. A heat was inevitable.
Ava’s temperature burned so hot that she could have warmed ice-cold water.
Adrian used a small wet towel to pat her down trying to get the fever under control. The pack doctor had been called to check in on her.
“Yes, she is in heat as you suspected.” The doctor had said once she finished examining her.
“Do you have anything for the pain? Or to delay the heat? Anytime my hand leaves her, she is in pain. She is incoherent and can’t stay conscious long enough to say or tell me how she is feeling. What can I do?”
The pack doctor sighed looking at Adrian. “Alpha, we have hormone blockers that can delay the heat but these can only be taken before the heat begins. You should have had her on them the moment the both of you agreed to keep your mate bond unconsummated.”
Adrian felt a wave of hopelessness crash into him. It wasn’t like they had had a formal conversation about not consummating their mate bond. It had just happened. “So what can I do for her now?”
The doctor looked contemplative. “The only way out of this is by consummating your mate bond. Or alternatively, you can wait for the heat to pass while nursing her all the while to keep her stable.”
The latter was what he was doing because the former wasn’t doable. There was no way he could take advantage of Ava while she was out of sorts.
The doctor told him that the heat would come in waves so he would be able to catch his breath. According to her, heat differed based on the individual so she couldn’t give him a guideline to follow.
“Adrian.” Ava moaned in her fever-induced sleep twisting as though looking for him.
Adrian caught her hand, threading their fingers together. “Baby, I’m here.”
Her eyes fluttered open again, her eyebrows were drawn together and her lips were parted as she panted. Her fingers tightened around his as she gasped out.
“I need you, Adrian.”
Adrian sat in his study. He had to leave the room once he was sure that Ava didn’t recoil or sob at the severance of contact between them.
He hesitated then poured himself a drink. He needed it. It had taken all his willpower to leave that room before he did something both of them would regret.
When Ava had looked at him with so much need, even though he knew that wasn’t what she wanted truly and it was as a result of the heat, he couldn’t have minded one bit, he’d wanted to respond to her advances.
He had settled for getting into the bed with her and letting her cuddle with him, her body pressed flush to him, thinking that would be enough. It wasn’t. She began to touch him and rub her body suggestively against his making the most arousing sounds that went straight to his dick as she moved.
He tightened his arms around her middle to stop her movement but it only emboldened her to rub herself against his thigh in an attempt to get off.
Adrian shuddered with need and raised himself from the bed over her and straddled before pinning both her hands to the bed with one of his.
“Damn it, Ava. You don’t want to do this. I can’t do this to you like this.”
Ava looked at him in utter confusion, her black eyes peering at him beneath hooded eyelids.
“But I want this.”
She gyrated her hips beneath him as though to emphasize her point and Adrian nearly lost himself.
She doesn’t really want this, it’s just the hormones from the heat. Once she gets her senses back, she’ll hate you and herself.
“Alright. Let’s do it but only on one condition.” Adrian spoke carefully, watching her to see if reason would penetrate through the haze of lust she was in.
Her eyebrow furrowed thoughtfully as she bit on her lips so sensually that he had to look away from her briefly.
“Condition?” She sounded like she didn’t really understand what he meant or its relevance to their current conversation but at least she was engaging with him.
“We sleep first. Then later we can–”
“Later? No, now!”
Adrian nearly facepalmed. Even while in her heat, her base instinct was still to argue with him.
He locked gazes with her.
“I will not touch you, Ava. Go to bed.”
He laced his words with more than a little Alpha dominance. He watched her struggle against it. He almost thought that she would shrug off his mental hold then slowly she relaxed and fell asleep.
He had stayed in with her for more than a few seconds waiting to see if she would wake up and he had waited a few minutes more before leaving the room to see if she would cry out in pain from the absence of his touch. She hadn’t.
He didn’t understand Ava. He didn’t understand himself. His hand shook as he poured himself another shot.
His mind flew unbidden to the day he’d opened the door of their room to see her with that wolf. His hand clenched around the shot glass and it broke in his grasp tearing open his skin.
He barely felt the pain. If the wolf had still been alive, he would have killed him again.
The door to his office opened.