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Seven days of captivity etched into my bones through systematic starvation and methodical torture that would break lesser beings.

But I am not lesser.

I am Jinx fucking Blackwood.

My legs remain crossed despite the discomfort, physical discipline mastered years ago through training that would make military commanders weep with envy. The padded cell stretches around me in pristine white – their feeble attempt at sensory deprivation.

As if emptiness could ever silence the chaos in my mind.

A laugh bubbles up from my chest, escaping through cracked lips as I tilt my head back against the wall. The sound echoesoff the institutional padding, transforming into something that would make psychiatrists reach for their prescription pads with shaking hands.

"Twenty-seven minutes until they come back," Maverick's voice crackles through the subdermal implant nestled behind my ear. "You should conserve your strength instead of giggling like a maniac."

I ignore him, lips pursing into a whistle instead –a hauntingly familiar melody that feels like home in ways no physical structure ever has.The notes drift through recycled air, dancing with memories I usually keep locked behind carefully constructed walls.

But what's the point of walls when I've finally come home?

"You're doing that thing again," Maverick sighs, his concern evident even through the technological distortion. "That dissociative thing the doctors warned about. Your vitals are all over the place."

Silly beta. Always worrying about physical indicators when the real damage lives in places no monitor can reach.

"I heard that,” he mutters.

A technical error in my consistency at not talking out my thoughts.

Oh well.

The tune grows stronger as my mind splinters with practiced ease, part of me remaining present in this sterile hell while another part drifts backward through time. Six years, then more – reaching for the memories that matter, the ones that have kept me functioning through a life that never belonged to me.

My first heat.

My first Alpha.

Riot.

The whistling falters as his name echoes through neural pathways, triggering a cascade of sensation that no amount ofmedication has ever fully suppressed. His face forms in my mind's eye with perfect clarity – not the feral creature these walls have likely created, but the man who first showed me what protection felt like.

The memory pulls me under like a riptide, and I surrender willingly to its embrace.

Seven years ago…

The underground fighting arena stinks of blood, sweat, and primal dominance.

Alpha pheromones thick enough to choke on saturate the air as I huddle in the gilded cage suspended above the combat pit. My body burns with unfamiliar heat, skin hypersensitive beneath the flimsy white dress they've forced me into.

I don't understand what's happening – only that something fundamental has changed within me overnight. The doctors had been ecstatic, their clinical masks barely hiding their excitement as they documented my "breakthrough."

"Early onset presentation – remarkable response to experimental treatment protocol."

"Subject 496 demonstrating classic omega heat symptoms despite chronological age indicators suggesting premature development."

"Blackwood genetic markers proving exceptional once again."

Their voices blend together in my memory, clinical detachment masking the predatory interest beneath. All I know is that I'm burning from the inside out, and these men in the pit below are fighting for the privilege of extinguishing that fire –or fanning its flames higher.

Twenty alphas entered the pit at the announcement of an omega in heat.

Only one remains standing now.