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CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

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“If you don’t live and breathe racing, you might not be aware of everything that happens in and around the sport. Especially for the junior categories, or even lower, go-kart racing, where would-be Formula 1 drivers start building their skills. Since the start of the season, not only has there been a huge boom in kids joining go-kart racing programs, but a record number of girls now jumping into what was largely considered a male sport a year ago.”

HOLLY BUCHANAN, FORMULA 1 REPORTER

Heat was a living, breathing thing inside me. I might be burning from the inside out, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to do my job. Literally nothing was going to keep me from racing.

Annika had tried, though.

“Are you fucking serious?” She’d stared at me when I told her in the driver room earlier.

“No,” I said. “I’m pretending to go into heat just to fuck with your head. Of course I’m serious.”

She laughed and shook her head. “I’ll go make sure the reserve driver is ready.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Annika paused with her hand on the doorknob. “You can’t be thinking about driving this race?”

“I’m barely in heat. The race is only a couple of hours long. By the time it’s over we’ll be good to go for summer break and we won’t have to worry about anything.”

“Do they know?”

I shook my head. “It didn’t start until about fifteen minutes ago.” First with little pangs in my stomach, then the prickling flashes of heat that felt like you were stepping from shadows into sunlight and back.

“Are you going to tell them?”

“After the race.”

She groaned. “ Vanessa .”

“Do I look like I’m in pain to you?”

“They have a right to know.”

Swallowing, I reached for my water bottle and sipped. The coolness helped. “They do. But I don’t want Grayson pulling the plug when I’m fine. And I am fine. He can be pissed at me later.”

“He will be,” she muttered.

“I’m okay. I promise.”

And I had been okay. I was still okay . Not great, but okay. Though it was hotter in the suit and the car than I’d thought it would be. This wasn’t a great track to have any kind of distraction. Of all the tracks this season, this was the one where you could go the fastest.

I needed every ounce of that speed to keep Lars behind me. He’d beaten me last week, barely , and the loss of my first win to him? It stung. At least there hadn’t been a point where I’d led and he stole it back from me. I just didn’t manage to catch him. Especially since River had brake heating issues that had put him further behind.

One blink, and it felt like I’d been driving on autopilot. How many laps had it been?

“Vanessa.”

That was Gray’s voice. He didn’t speak during races unless he had to. “Yeah?”

“How’s the temperature?”

My stomach tightened. “Just fine.”

“You’ll tell me if that changes. Do you understand?”

Shit. That wasn’t my Team Principal. That was my Alpha. He knew. He knew, but he wasn’t going to call me out over the radio when every team was listening to each other.

“Understood.”

How’d he figure it out?

Maybe it was more obvious than I’d tried to make it. I need to lock in.

“Beck, what are my gaps?”

“Gap to Phillips in front is four seconds. Ortiz is seven seconds behind you. Lars five seconds behind that.”

I blew out a breath. That was good. Whatever force in the universe was looking down on me and granting me an easy race? I owed them a big, universe-sized bouquet of flowers. Or a box of chocolates. Or hot chocolate.

Fuck, hot chocolate would be good right now. Or chocolate on my Alphas. Which would make it melted chocolate. I bet River tasted like melted chocolate. Somehow I hadn’t been able to taste him yet because every time we came together we were too insatiable to go slowly.

Shaking my head, I dragged my focus back to the here and now. My heat was moving faster than it normally did. I thought it would be fine because here in the car I wouldn’t be scenting the Alphas I wanted to pin me down and knot me. I didn’t account for putting myself into a hot space when my body was collecting it like a damn sponge. And I’d never driven a race while in heat before.

Too late now.

I nearly overshot the pit stop, but I held on.

Time evaporated underneath me faster than the car moved. Like I was gliding through the world on fast forward. Beck’s voice was in my ear, but I barely heard it. The part of me that had been racing since I was a kid took over. Vanessa wasn’t here right now.

Vanessa was in a hotel suite in her mind where her four very naked pack members were about to keep a whole lot of promises and dig out all the naughty secrets they were convinced she hid.

I drove faster. Pushed harder. This was the track to do it, and they couldn’t catch me. But I couldn’t catch Ronan. Or River. And when I crossed the line in P-3 once more, I still smiled. I made it. Made it. Made it.

And I did it while in heat. Everyone who said I couldn’t drive could be on the wrong end of me flipping the bird after me proving myself like this.

A podium while in heat .

A whole new wave of it slipped over me, now painful. I needed a knot, and if I didn’t get one soon, it would turn into torture.

Fuck.

Annika was right. I probably shouldn’t have driven. And I didn’t doubt that Grayson was going to give me hell. But I also didn’t care. Cause I’d done it. Now we were free for the break and two blissful weeks of nothing but us . Plus, however many days of heat and fucking were about to happen.

I was backstage before I realized it, and that made my throat close. My mind was slipping into heat mode. Quickly. Like the gorgeous high feeling that sometimes happened with all four of them, but worse. I didn’t remember the walk to the podium at all. Fire built in my gut to the point of pain, and I buried my whimper.

“Nes?”

River stepped up from behind me where he waited, but I moved out of reach just as they called my name. Five more minutes. I wasn’t going to take his celebration from him. The champagne was going to feel sooooo good.

Being on the podium with him gave me the same joy it had the last time. And when he reached out to kiss me, I let him. I wanted so much more than a kiss.

His lips froze on mine. River pulled back with wide eyes. “No.”

“Don’t kill me,” I whispered.

“Vanessa, tell me you didn’t.”

I managed a smile, though my knees were weak and shaky. “Oops. In my defense it wasn’t like this at the start of the race. I thought I had time.”

River crushed me against his chest, voice raw. Was that fear I heard? “I don’t know whether to be impressed or furious.”

“If I can be both then so can you.” A small giggle left me, and I saw his mouth twitch into a smile in spite of everything. “Grayson knows. I’m not sure how.”

“Good.” He pulled me with him off the podium, not staying as long as we usually did. “If he knows then he’s already making arrangements.”

“He is already making arrangements,” Gray appeared in front of us. “Even though he and his Omega are going to talk about communication after her heat is over.”

“You would have made me sit the race out,” I said.

His eyes were gentle, but his face was stern. “Maybe. Or maybe I would have been able to help you another way. But that’s a conversation for later. We’re not doing media. Straight to the plane.”

Elias was there too. And Beck, lifting me off my feet even though we were in front of people, walking through the crowd… I didn’t care.

“The plane?” My head tilted backwards far enough that it felt like I would fall, but I needed to see Gray. “Where are we going?”

He shook his head and smiled. “We’re taking you home, little one.”

“To Britannia?”

“No,” Beck said softly. “We’re going to our actual home. We’re going to Monaque.”