Coming back to consciousness was a grueling struggle. My mind drifted in and out of focus, hovering on the brink before sinking back into a dark, suffocating abyss. An agonizing, unnatural heat scorched me from the inside out, and my limbs felt utterly paralyzed, as though thick steel cables were coiled around my body, binding me to the bed and pinning me completely immobile.
"Easy now. Tell me what’s wrong," a deep, distantly familiar voice filtered through the heavy haze.
"I’m so hot..." I croaked out, swallowing hard only to be seized by a fit of coughing as the movement scraped against my parched throat.
The crushing pressure around me slackened, and a broad hand gently cradled the back of my neck, tilting my head up as a cold glass of water was pressed to my lips. The liquid tasted impossibly sweet, refreshing, and divine—so much so that I felt a pang of regret for every droplet that escaped, trailing down my chin and neck. But I couldn’t swallow much before I began to choke and cough again.
The glass was pulled away, and a searing hot palm swept over my skin, wiping the moisture clean. The heat of that simple touch ignited a sudden shiver across my nerve endings, cascading all the way down to my toes. A strange, intense coil tightened deep in my core from his bare contact alone.
The broad hand supporting my neck slowly guided me back onto the soft pillows, giving me time to anchor myself to reality. As the fog cleared, I realized the darkness in the room wasn’t from closed eyes, but from the heavy twilight draped over the space. As my pupils adjusted, the surroundings slowly materialized into focus.
I recognized this room instantly. It was Magnus’s master bedroom.
"Magnus?" I called out softly, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
I lay on the bed facing the window, swathed in the heavy duvet, fully conscious of his presence towering behind me. Thick. Oppressive. While a faint prickle of unease lingered, an overriding sense of safety settled over me—as if an ancient, instinctual part of my soul knew he would never allow harm to come to me.
"Yeah?" The mattress creaked under his weight as his deep voice resonated mere inches away.
I turned my head slowly, outlining his silhouette in the gloom. He sat perched on the edge of the mattress with his back to me, elbows resting on his knees. Tense. Motionless. Like a predator waiting in the dark.
"What happened?" I asked, straining to piece together the fractured fragments of my memory. The university. The classroom. The blood. His hands—slick and stained crimson. The roar of the car engine. And then... total void.
"You collapsed," he answered clipped and low, without looking back. "On the drive home. I took you straight to the medical wing."
"The medical wing?" I echoed, an icy drop of dread falling into my stomach. "How long was I out?"
"Two days."
Two days. I had been unconscious for two whole days with no memory of the lost time.
"Why?" My voice broke into a hollow whisper. "What’s wrong with me?"
Magnus turned his head by inches, revealing his harsh, razor-sharp profile in the dim twilight. His heavy gaze slid over me—evaluating, possessive, and so intense I swallowed hard against the dryness in my throat. He looked at me as though he were reading the raw code of my soul, peering into the darkest corners I kept hidden from the world.
I caught sight of his broad hands. The knuckles were raw and battered, yet clenched so tightly the skin stretched stark white over bone. A lethal tension coiled through him, as if he were holding back from putting his fist through the wall—or breaking another throat.
Strangely enough, I could see every detail with striking clarity. His hands. The subtle shift in his expression. Usually, I was practically blind in the dark.
"Your breeder gene has begun to awaken," he stated flatly, his emotionless words dropping between us with heavy, fateful weight.
The revelation hit me with a confusing wave of relief and rising anxiety. An awakening was supposed to be a sudden, total transformation, like that in regular werewolves when they finally awakened their wolves; yet I felt no profound shift inside—only the uncanny sharp sight in the dark, and the heat. That suffocating, relentless heat scorching my blood.
"What do you mean... begun to awaken?" I asked, pushing myself up on one elbow as a bead of sweat traced a slow path down my spine.
A desperate urge to wash the grime from my skin seized me; I felt drenched. If Magnus had been lying beside me through the fever, it explained everything—his body radiated the heat of an open furnace.
He let out a heavy, harsh breath through his teeth and shifted to face me completely. His features were set in stone. Something dark and wild burned in his silver eyes, making my inner beast shrink back, tempting me to pull the covers over my head.
"Your awakening is going to be brutal. And long. That’s what the healers said," he told me, holding my gaze captive.
"Why?" My voice trembled as my fingers tightened into the fabric of the duvet.
He remained silent for a long moment, studying my face with an agonizing intensity before speaking again.
"You aren’t just an ordinary omega breeder, Lang. You’re an alpha breeder. Your body produces an absurdly high concentration of the same pheromones as mine."
I blinked, completely lost. I had never heard of such a thing. An alpha breeder? What did that even mean in our world?
Sitting up straight and pulling the slipping blanket over my chest, I suddenly realized I was wearing nothing but an oversized T-shirt. It wasn’t mine. It was his. His scent hung thick on the soft cotton—sharp, masculine, and entirely enveloping, carrying a distinct trace of dark, intoxicating spice.
I prayed that he hadn’t been the one to strip off my ruined clothes... I flicked a glance toward Magnus, but he remained utterly silent, so I decided not to voice the question. I had far more dangerous mysteries to untangle.
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