It was mid-August, and NeverMore University buzzed with the lazy, sticky calm of summer break’s final stretch. Most students were off-campus or lost in idle routines. But Enid Sinclair had stayed behind—citing a “personal situation” that no one really questioned. The truth? She was in heat.

She hadn’t gone through it last year—at least not fully. Her body hadn’t synced into the rhythm of an adult werewolf yet. But now, having turned twenty just weeks earlier, everything had changed. Her scent had changed. Her skin felt too hot under every layer of clothing. The craving for touch was a constant hum under her skin. Her heat came in waves—surges that burned low in her belly and made her restless, breathless, irritable, and achingly aware of every inch of her skin.

Ajax had been long gone. She ended it at the start of second year. Things had grown awkward—he couldn’t meet her intensity, and she hated how small it made her feel. It wasn’t a heartbreak. It was more like outgrowing a shirt you were never really sure you liked anyway.

Now she paced her dorm room barefoot, her nails dragging along the exposed skin of her thighs, biting back groans whenever the heat pulsed too sharply. The dorm windows were open. Her cropped tee clung damply to her body, her shorts hanging dangerously low on her hips, the waistband rolled to ease the unbearable pressure against her abdomen. Her blonde hair was messy, curled and pinned up in a lazy, half-unraveled way that screamed frustration. A light sheen coated her collarbone. She’d showered. Twice. It didn’t help.

Then she smelled you.

She froze.

You had come—just like that, unannounced. A boy who had always shown up without needing to be asked, without demanding anything in return. The dynamic between you was strange but steady: quiet glances, subtle tension, a kind of unspoken understanding neither of you had dared name. You were always calm, grounded—something Enid clung to in contrast to her chaos.