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My grandfather's words came back to me - about how I would need all three of them to survive what was coming. About how the changes in my body weren't just about desire but about power awakening.

I felt another cramping wave and moaned, curling tighter around myself. Slick gathered between my thighs despite the water washing over me, my body preparing itself without my permission. The arousal was becoming impossible to ignore, a constant thrumming need that made my inner walls clench around nothing.

"Mother Nature, you absolute bitch," I hissed, glaring up at the ceiling as if she might hear me. "You couldn't even give me my fifteen minutes?"

The water continued to pummel me, freezing and useless. I'd been in here long enough that my fingers were pruned, but my core temperature hadn't dropped a single degree. If anything, I felt hotter than when I'd started.

Time became fluid, minutes stretching and contracting as I sat there. How long had I been in the shower? Five minutes? Twenty? I couldn't tell anymore. My mind drifted, caught between lucidity and a strange, dreamlike state where fantasies of my three mates played out in vivid detail.

Callum's mouth on my neck, his hands pinning mine above my head.

Archer's ice-blue eyes darkened with lust as he pushed inside me.

Rowen's deep voice growling filthy promises in my ear.

I whimpered, pressing my thighs together against the fresh surge of arousal. It didn't help. Nothing helped. The need was becoming all-consuming, a living thing inside me demanding satisfaction.

A knock on the bathroom door barely registered through the fog in my brain.

"Sierra?" Rowen's deep voice cut through my haze. "Are you alright in there?"

I opened my mouth to respond but couldn't find the words. What would I even say? 'No, I'm not alright. I'm burning alive from the inside out, and all I can think about is having all three of you inside me right now'?

The door opened when I didn't answer, and Rowen's massive frame filled the doorway. His obsidian eyes found me immediately, huddled on the shower floor with water pouring over me. Concern replaced the usual stoic expression on his face.

"Sierra?" he stepped closer, his voice taking on that commanding edge that never failed to make me shiver despite my current state.

Still, I couldn't answer. My tongue felt too large for my mouth, my thoughts scattered like leaves in a windstorm. All I could focus on was the way his scent cut through everything else—smoke and spice and something darkly elemental that called to the primal part of me.

Rowen reached into the shower, his large hand testing the water temperature. He cursed violently, a string of words that would have made a sailor blush, many of them in languages I didn't recognize.

"What the fuck, Sierra?" he growled, turning off the water with a savage twist of his wrist. "That's fucking ice water!"

I looked up at him, water dripping into my eyes as I tried to focus on his face. "Doesn't matter," I managed to croak. "Still hot."

His expression softened slightly, though the concern remained etched in the lines around his eyes. He crouched down by the shower, seemingly unconcerned about getting his clothes wet as he leaned toward me.

"Little witch," he said more gently, his large hand cupping my cheek. "Talk to me. How bad is it?"

The simple touch of his palm against my face broke something inside me. Tears welled in my eyes, spilling over to mix with the shower water still dripping from my hair. I launched myself forward into his arms, nearly knocking him off balance with the force of my movement.

"Hold me," I sobbed against his neck, clinging to him like he was the only solid thing in a world turned to quicksand. "Just hold me, please. Before it takes over completely. Before I can't... before I'm not me anymore."

His powerful arms wrapped around me immediately, one hand cupping the back of my head while the other spread across my lower back. He didn't seem to care that I was soaking wet, mynaked body drenching his clothes as he pulled me closer against his solid chest.

"I've got you," he murmured, his voice rumbling through me like distant thunder. "I've always got you."

I burrowed deeper into his embrace, inhaling his scent with desperate hunger. Even as the heat continued to build inside me, threatening to consume everything that made meme, there was comfort in Rowen's arms. A steadiness I could anchor myself to amid the storm.

"I'm scared," I whispered against his skin, the admission costing me more than I could express. "What if I lose myself completely? What if I change and you don't?—"

"Stop," he interrupted, his hand tightening slightly in my wet hair. "You're not going to lose yourself. And we're not going anywhere. Not ever."

His certainty should have been comforting, but the fear remained, tangled with desire and uncertainty. I clung tighter to him, my nails digging into his back through his now-soaked shirt.

"Just hold me," I repeated, my voice small and broken. "Just for a few more minutes. Before the heat drives me crazy."

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