Chapter 34 · Rut on the Open Channel

The kit airlock panel screams red before Dean even gets a hand on it.

"Someone's pinging my door from outside the cage," he says, jaw tight, eyes on the blinking light like it personally insulted him.

"That's not possible. We're sealed."

"It's not outside." My voice comes out wrong, too low, scraped.

"It's the relay. Bouncing off itself. The whole board's screaming right now, Dean, can't you hear it—" I can't finish. My hands are shaking on the console and it isn't fear, it's the other thing, the thing I dose for every morning at six a.m. before anyone's awake to see my hands like this.

Except the suppressant's four hours dead and the Faraday steel around us doesn't let anything in or out, including whatever chemical warning I usually get before this hits. Dean's head turns. Slow. Like a dog catching a scent on wind that shouldn't exist in a sealed room.

"Ward." His voice drops to something I haven't heard from him before — not command, not the precinct voice he uses to move a hundred cops with two words. Something rawer.

"What the hell are you."

"Don't."

"You're not Beta." He says it like a verdict. Steps closer. The air between us goes thick, hot, wrong.

"I've smelled Beta for fifteen years. This isn't that."

"Dean—