Page 6 of Knot My Type

“Ugh,” I mutter, dragging my fingers through my hair. But there’s something else—something thicker, deeper. Not physical. Not really. It’s a tug in my gut, a weight blooming low in my belly, and I know that feeling.

It’sheat.

Not now. Not again.

I’ve spent years keeping this part of myself boxed up, sealed tight, locked behind a pharmacy shelf of inhibitors and hormone patches and careful, calculated denial. The pills numbed it. Flattened it. Reduced those drives to background noise I could drown out with ambition and caffeine and occasional regret.

But heat doesn’t forget. It just waits., and right now, my body is remembering everything.

The air smells different. My own scent is turning syrupy, slow, sweet. There’s no one here—no Alpha, no pack—but my instincts don’t care. They stir anyway, like muscle memory.

I exhale through my teeth. The room is quiet, but my thoughts are loud with memories I haven’t touched in years.

The last time this happened, I’d been in the woods. Not literally. Figuratively. Emotionally. I’d been mid-tour, three cities into a five-city author panel series, and I had stupidly thought I could skip my dose for a few days to “feel more in tune with myself.” Like some kind of poetic primal self-care ritual.

Idiot.

I remember locking myself in a hotel bathroom while my body tried to come apart at the seams. Clutching the cold tile floor, panting into a hand towel, wishing for anyone to touch me. I’d shoved a ragged T-shirt that still smelled like him between my thighs and cried until I vomited. Then, the worst part hadn’t been the pain or the desperation.

It had been the fact that no one came.

I sit bolt upright now, breath catching, the room around me gone sharp at the edges. My heart slams like it’s trying to beat its way out of my chest.

The couch creaks, I feel so thirsty, so I grab the tea which I put to the side.

“Cold. Great. It’s cold.”

How long was I in heat? It felt like seconds, but time means nothing when I’m in heat, it can last a few seconds or like just now, a few minutes. My blanket smells like cedarwood, like old pages, likehim.

I yank it off like it’s on fire, tossing it across the room. It hits the bookshelf and slides to the floor like a discarded memory.

My mouth is dry. My throat tight. There’s a film of sweat at my hairline, and I suddenly hate the silence in this room. I dig the heels of my palms into my eyes and breathe.

This isn’t real. It’s just a memory, bubbling up like sap through an old wound. My body knows better.

One second I’m on the couch in my sad little cottage with lukewarm tea and a spiraling sense of self-pity—and the next, I’mthere.The shift isn’t gentle. It doesn’t glide in like a dream. Ityanks.

The air changes, because I’m standing in a forest. There are pines stretching high above me, their trunks blackened by shadow and memory. Moonlight slices through the canopy in sharp, white lines, casting my surroundings in that silver-blue that only exists in memories and nightmares.

The scent hits first, sharp, wild,alive.The forest floor is damp with moss and old leaves. There’s the metallic tang of something deeper in the air—blood, maybe.

And then:him.

That unmistakable scent. Smoky. Warm. With the kind of grounding musk that used to anchor me when everything else fell apart.

My Alpha.

I stumble forward for some reason without my books. My feet sink into the soft earth. My breath fogs. My skin tingles—not from cold, but from the crawling tension ofbeing watched.The branches ahead shift, but I hear voices, which ripple like wind through the trees.

This is the clearing where everything’s fractured.

Figures appear at the edge of my vision, flickering in and out between trees like ghosts. My pack. They stand close together, tense, like prey animals who already know the hunter is coming.

My feet move on their own as I approach the edge of the clearing. Every hair on my arms rises as I see him—tall, sure, dangerous in a way that only Alphas can be when they think they’re doing what’s best.

“Is it done?” he asks.

The others shift. One nods, slow. Another glances over their shoulder.

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