Page 7 of Omega on the Rocks (Pubbin’ Mates #1)

The camera flash popped, and I didn’t flinch.

Didn’t smile either.

I stood exactly where they told me to—spine tall, chin angled, arms relaxed, like some flawless automaton in a suit that probably cost more than what my parents made in a year. The kind of suit people would kill for. Bleed for. And I wore it like a cage.

The lights hit my jaw, the director muttered "perfect," and I forced the curve of my mouth into that familiar half-smirk the tabloids fawned over. Malachi Grant: the heartthrob, the box office messiah.

They ate it up. The world always did. But none of it felt real.

Around me, the set buzzed—shouting assistants, powder brushes grazing foreheads, gaffers tweaking shadows—but I was still.

Cold. A mannequin dressed in someone else’s life.

Every layer of fabric strangled me tighter than the last. Starched, pressed lies sealed over my skin until I could barely remember what it felt like to breathe.

The world wanted this version of me: poised. Straight. Clean. Safe. God, what a joke.

I blinked through the lights, fighting to focus. My lines. My mark. My timing. The mask. But under all that polish, all that hollow gloss, I wasn’t anyone they knew. I was just a wolf with no pack. An omega without a tether.

A body going through the motions while something inside me howled to be touched. To be seen. To be known . To be his again. Kieran.

The name thundered through my chest like a wrecking ball, and I flinched—so small, so sharp no one saw it. But I felt it. Felt it everywhere. I shouldn’t have gone to that bar. I told myself that every night. I told myself it didn’t mean anything. Just a drink. Just noise. Just a way to disappear.

But I was lying. I always lied. Because the truth was—I needed that place. I craved the anonymity. The ache of it. The freedom of being nothing to no one. Just a nameless man with a whiskey glass and a heartbeat. For a few hours, I could pretend I wasn’t dying inside.

And then that night he had walked in. Kieran didn’t look at me like I was famous. Didn’t hunger for the fame. Didn’t even know who I was. He looked at me like I was real . Like I mattered. Like the broken boy beneath the movie star costume still had worth.

And that… that’s what shattered me.

Go back, my wolf growled, low and raw beneath my ribs. You were warm with him. You were whole.

My throat closed up. I clenched my jaw.

“I can’t,” I breathed, barely audible.

An assistant glanced over, curious. I waved them off.

They’d never understand. No one did. No one knew what it meant to have a voice inside you that never shut up. That reminded you of every sin. Every failure. Every loss.

I hadn’t heard anything but silence since the day my parents dragged me to the edge of the packlands. Not until Keiran. Not until that night.

All I had heard was my own inner voice. Told me I was unnatural. That no real alpha would ever want something like me . Unbonded. Uncontrollable. Omega male. My father called it a disease.

My mother didn’t even say goodbye. “You don’t belong here anymore.” That sentence became my shadow. So I shed the skin they couldn’t love.

I became Malachi Grant —perfect, polished, palatable. But never free. Never home .

The memory of his scent hit me out of nowhere—so sudden, so vivid it knocked the breath from my lungs. Smooth leather, cinnamon, cloves… Mine…

Kieran.

My stomach twisted. Fire bloomed behind my navel like a secret detonating.

Claimed , my wolf breathed. You let him in. Mate, we have to go back.

“No. Not fully.” My voice shook. I fumbled for my water bottle, but my fingers trembled too much to open it. “He didn’t… he didn’t finish.”

The bond knows. He touched it. He woke it up. You felt it.

I shook my head, but the heat kept growing.

Clawing up from my gut like something alive.

Something ancient. Something inevitable .

He can’t still be calling to me. Not from that far.

But the echo of his touch still lives in my skin.

His scent still lingering in my memory like sin I couldn’t confess.

And now it was waking up . I shifted on my feet, desperate for control. The smell of hairspray and perfume choked the air, but none of it dulled the instinct rising in me like a tide. My body knew. My wolf knew.

He marked you. With his hands. His mouth. His scent. And now the bond is hungry.

A tremor rolled through me. I braced a hand on the chair beside me, muscles locking tight as I fought the wave.

Someone yelled my name. But it sounded so far away.

My head swam. My vision blurred. And I realized—this wasn’t just nerves.

This wasn’t stage fright or exhaustion. This was need .

I was going into heat. Right here. Right now.

In front of the cameras, the crew, the world.

“No,” I whispered, chest caving in. “Not now. Please.” But it was happening. The ache spread through my limbs like fire through dry brush. My skin burned. My blood sang. My wolf whimpered inside me.

You were never meant to live a life this clean , he whispered, panting and keening now. You were made to be tied. To be taken. To belong.

“I’m not ready,” I begged, though I knew that didn’t matter anymore. It was too late. This was truth. This was fate. And there was no hiding from it now.

I couldn’t breathe.

The lights above the set scorched through me like midday sun on glass, amplifying every ache already curling deep in my gut.

My skin was damp—too damp. My shirt clung to me in places it shouldn’t, and the synthetic fabric burned against my over sensitized nipples.

Something inside me was shifting, tilting, threatening to split me in half.

Not here.

“Mal?” Jules stepped in front of me, blinking against the stage lights. Her headset was hanging off one ear, and her script fluttered in her hand like she hadn’t realized she’d stopped reading from it. “Hey, you’re sweating. You okay? You look—pale.”

I couldn’t answer.

The heat was rising, slow and cruel, clawing up from the base of my spine and spreading through my bloodstream like wildfire. I was dizzy. Shaky. Too aware of how the waistband of my pants felt too tight, too rough. And worst of all—I could smell it.

No. No, no, no—

The sickly-sweet scent curled around me, unmistakable to anyone of my kind, even if every human in this room stayed blissfully unaware. The dampness beneath my waistband slickened, grew heavier, and then—

A thick, hot line of slick slid down the inside of my thigh.

I staggered back, nearly tripping over the C-stand behind me.

This isn’t happening.

My wolf howled in the cage of my mind, furious and wild. You waited too long. You ignored the bond. You thought you could run from a mate?

Shut up. Shut up.

“I have to go.” My voice cracked like dry wood. I didn’t even try to hide it. I just turned and started walking.

“Mal!” Jules chased after me, catching my arm near the wardrobe racks. “You can’t just—what’s wrong? Is it a panic attack? Is it—” She stopped mid-sentence. Her nose wrinkled, just slightly. “Did something spill on you? Did a bottle break or—”

Her hand brushed my hip.

She felt it. The wet. My breath caught in my throat as shame erupted under my skin, burning hotter than the heat itself.

“Don’t,” I whispered, backing away. “Please, Jules. Don’t ask me.”

Confusion. Concern. She looked ready to call someone—maybe medical, maybe the producer—but I couldn’t let her. I wouldn’t let anyone see me like this.

“I just need air,” I choked out. “That’s all. I just need—”

Another pulse of heat ripped through me, sharper this time, as if something inside me was curling open. My knees buckled slightly, and I grabbed a rack of blazers to steady myself. My heart pounded so loudly it hurt my ears.

You didn’t let him knot you, my wolf snarled, pacing. You took him. You teased fate. And now you think you can hide from what you are?

My vision blurred. I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood.

I needed to leave. Now. Before the next wave hit.

Before the scent turned undeniable. Before I collapsed in the middle of a soundstage and exposed myself for what I truly was—an omega in heat with a bonded mate miles away and no one to hold me down through the fire.

I stumbled toward the exit, dragging my body forward like every limb was made of sand. The bond had awoken. And it wanted him. Not fame. Not lights. Not the weight of someone else’s script. Just him. And I was breaking apart under the need of it.

The doors slammed shut behind me, muting the chaos of the set. I barely made it to the alley behind the soundstage before I dropped to my knees.

The asphalt scraped my skin, but I didn't care.

I needed the pain. Needed something— anything —to ground me in my own body.

But even that was slipping away. The heat wasn't just rising now—it was consuming.

Every breath I took filled my lungs with the scent of myself, sickeningly sweet, cloying and humid like syrup poured over fire.

He’s not here, my wolf whispered. He’s not here, and you did this. You starved yourself of him. You let pride keep you from our mate—and now look.

I clutched my chest, sobbing through clenched teeth.

Another wave hit—this one hard enough to arch my back and knock the wind from my lungs. I choked on a scream. My thighs were slick with it now, drenched and useless, trembling against the cold ground.

I needed him. I needed Kerian.

I needed his hands, his scent, his voice. I needed him to hold me down and take the pain away—to fill the hollow, to silence the ache that was chewing through me like rot.

The door behind me slammed open.

“Malachi!” Jules’ voice cut through the fog. “What the hell is going on?!”

I curled into myself, shaking. “Go away.”

“No,” she snapped. “No, you don’t get to tell me that. You look like you’re dying. What’s happening to you? Mal—talk to me.”

“I can’t.” My voice broke. “You wouldn’t understand.”