Chapter 1: Heat and Canvas
The air in the studio was too thick to breathe. It tasted of linseed oil and something else, something sweet and cloying that clung to the back of Elias’s throat—wild strawberries, rotting in the sun. His skin felt two sizes too small, a feverish prison he was desperate to claw his way out of.
He’d taken the suppressants. He’d taken a double dose. They sat in his gut like poison, doing nothing but churning his stomach while the heat devoured him from the inside. He stumbled against his workbench, sending a jar of turpentine crashing to the floor. The sharp, chemical stink did nothing to mask his scent. It just made it worse.
His reflection in the cracked mirror above the sink was a stranger: hair plastered to a sweaty forehead, eyes too wide, too dark. He looked feral. He looked like prey.
A half-empty bottle of whiskey glinted amber in the light from the single skylight. He grabbed it, the glass cool against his burning palm. He took a swig, the burn a brief, beautiful distraction before the heat rushed back in, a tidal wave of pure, shameful need. He whimpered, the sound pathetic even to his own ears. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not anymore. He’d built these walls so high.
A sound splintered the humming silence of his torment. Not a knock. An impact. Wood groaning, then a crack that echoed like a gunshot in the small space.
The door exploded inward.
Nikolai Volkov filled the broken frame, backlit by the harsh hallway light. He wasn’t breathing hard. He just was. A presence so solid and undeniable it seemed to warp the room around him. His sharp, rain-and-ozone scent cut through the strawberry sweetness like a blade.
Elias froze, the bottle slipping from his fingers to shatter on the concrete floor. Whiskey pooled around his bare feet. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of paint-stained jeans, and he felt more exposed than if he were naked.
Nikolai’s eyes—a cold, arctic gray—scanned the chaos: the shattered glass, the overturned canvases, the desperate omega in the center of it all. His gaze pinned Elias. There was no surprise in it. Only a terrifying, predatory focus.
“You,” Elias rasped, his voice shredded. It was meant to be a demand, a challenge. It came out a plea.
Nikolai didn’t answer. He stepped over the splintered door, his movements fluid and lethally precise. The distance between them evaporated. Elias’s instincts screamed at him to run, to submit, to fight—all at once, leaving him paralyzed.
A large, warm hand clamped around the back of his neck. The contact was electric, a jolt that stole the last of his breath. Nikolai used his grip to spin Elias around and shove him forward, his chest meeting the rough, wet surface of a large, unfinished canvas propped against the wall.
“Wait—” Elias choked out.
Nikolai’s body pressed against his back, solid and unyielding. He leaned in, his lips a breath away from Elias’s ear. His voice was a low, rough vibration that went straight to Elias’s core.
“You reek of desperation. Of pain.” He inhaled deeply, a rumble building in his chest. “You think you can hide this? From me?”
“The suppressants…” Elias managed, his fingers scrabbling against the slick paint of the canvas.
“Failed.” The word was final. Nikolai’s other hand splayed across Elias’s bare stomach, pulling him back tighter against the hard line of his body. The claim in the gesture was absolute. “Your body knows what it needs. You’re just too stubborn to listen.”
Elias shuddered, a full-body convulsion. The fight bled out of him, replaced by a terrifying, welcoming relief. This was wrong. This was madness. This alpha had kicked his door down. But the alpha’s scent was wrapping around him, smothering the fever, building a wall between him and the abyss of his own need.
Nikolai’s teeth grazed the bonding gland at the juncture of Elias’s neck and shoulder. Not a bite. A promise.
“Mine.”
The word wasn’t a question. It was a fact, etched into the air between them. As Nikolai spoke it, his hand slid up from Elias’s stomach, smearing a broad, possessive streak of wet crimson paint from the palette across Elias’s pale skin. The mark was crude, urgent, a brand in the chaos.
Elias went limp, his forehead resting against the canvas. He was caught. He was claimed. A ragged sob escaped him, part anguish, part release.
Then, Nikolai went still. His nose pressed against Elias’s scent gland again, his inhale suddenly different—deeper, slower, analyzing. The aggressive tension in his frame shifted, morphing into something sharper, more charged with disbelief.
His hand, still covered in paint, spread wider over Elias’s lower abdomen, holding him there with a new, bewildering gentleness.
“Elias.” His voice had lost its snarl. It was quiet, almost reverent. “What is this?”
“What?” Elias mumbled, drowning in sensation and confusion.
“This scent… underneath.” Nikolai’s breath hitched. It was the first crack Elias had ever seen in the alpha’s granite composure. “It’s not just your heat.”
He turned Elias around, his grip firm but not harsh. He stared into his eyes, searching for a truth Elias himself didn’t know. His gray eyes were storm clouds, full of a strange, dawning lightning.
“You’re pregnant.”
The words didn’t make sense. They bounced around the hollows of Elias’s skull. The suppressants. The sickness. The strange, deep ache that was different from the heat.
Nikolai’s thumb brushed over Elias’s bottom lip, wiping away a tear he hadn’t realized had fallen. The alpha’s expression was unreadable, a war of shock, fury, and something fiercely protective.
“And it’s twins,” Nikolai said, the certainty in his voice leaving no room for doubt. His scent enveloped Elias completely now, ozone and rain wrapping around the strawberry and the new, profound secret beneath. “You carry our heirs.”
The world tilted. Elias’s knees buckled, but Nikolai was there, holding him up, the canvas the only thing keeping them both from falling. The heat, the fear, the shock—they all swirled together into a silent, screaming point.
He was pregnant. By them. The Volkovs.
Nikolai looked down at the red handprint on Elias’s stomach, a crude mimicry of the life growing beneath it. His jaw tightened. When he looked back at Elias’s face, the vulnerability was gone, sealed behind a wall of alpha resolve more impenetrable than before.
“You’re coming with me,” he stated, his voice leaving no space for argument. “This ends now. The hiding. The resisting.” He leaned in, his forehead touching Elias’s, a bizarre parody of tenderness. “You, and what’s mine, are never going to be unsafe again.”
Elias wanted to argue, to summon the fiery spirit that had kept him alone and free for so long. But the spirit was drowned under a flood of hormones, fear, and a terrifying, instinctive pull toward the safety the alpha offered.
He didn’t nod. He didn’t agree. He just stopped fighting, his body going pliant in Nikolai’s hold, his silence the only surrender he could give.
Nikolai took it. He scooped Elias into his arms as if he weighed nothing, stepping carefully over the broken glass and the pooling whiskey, leaving the shattered door and the smell of wild strawberries and desperation behind.
Outside, the city air was cold. Elias buried his face against Nikolai’s neck, breathing in the storm, and let the darkness take him.