Do not partially shift. Do not shift at all, I begged myself.

“I’m going inside,” he said. I was about to offer to come with him when he added, “You stay outside, okay? I need to be alone. I can’t be around you right now.”

I heard the door close, and the deadbolt slid shut. I was a desperate, confused mess. Jules was in heat. I was hurt that he didn’t want to be around me, and I was almost insane with lust. I wanted to rip the cabin door off by the hinges. I eyed the door and felt a calm sense of certainty that I could do it. I could break into the cabin and get to him. That was what I wanted. I wanted to be with him. I wanted him like nothing I’d ever wanted. I wanted him in a way that was crazy. Insane. Unreal. I wanted him in a way that was beyond reality.

I wanted him in a way that was magick. That’s what it was.

I was reacting to Jules as an animal. I was an animal, that was true, but I was also a man. I was still me and Jules was still Jules. He was still my first and best friend and right then, he wasn’t himself. I tried to slow my thoughts down. To think calmly. Rationally. I made a list of the things I knew. Only omegas went into heat. That much I knew for sure. Assholes getting slicked up and being feverish from arousal; those were things that only happened to omegas. I understood that. What I couldn’t wrap my head around was that it meant Jules wasn’t a beta.

How the hell could Jules not be a beta? How was it possible?

And then I remembered, I wasn’t one either.

That sobered me. It snapped me out of it, and for the first time since the rise of the full moon, the fog lifted, and I was able to think clearly. I tried to remember everything I knew about omegas. They took their name from the Greek letter. The twenty-fourth letter of the alphabet. The last letter. They were said to be nurturing and caring. They were known to be sensual. Devastatingly sexy. Irresistible even. There were plenty of stories about alphas becoming all kinds of stupid in the name of an omega. Plenty. It was well known. Their heats were mysterious. Usually activated by a particular phase of the moon. I’d heard that some went into heat every quarter, and some went into heat every month. I’d heard heats could last anywhere from hours to days. I’d grown up hearing disparaging remarks made about omegas in heat. I’d seen it firsthand with the way our pack omegas were treated. Like possessions. Like things.