Natasha’s POV

The door slammed shut with a sound like a coffin sealing.

She’d seen me. Seen everything. My naked body, my fingers inside myself, the desperate animal I’d become. And now she was gone, probably running to fetch the guards, to report her discovery.

Any moment now, they’d come bursting through that door and drag me to—

The door flew open again.

I scrambled back against the wall, trying to cover myself with my hands, but it was only the girl. Lucy, I’d heard someone call her. She had two buckets now—one sloshing with clean water, the other with what looked like ice.

Ice? Where had she gotten ice in this hellish place?

“Lie back,” she ordered, her voice sharp with urgency. “We don’t have much time.”

“Why are you helping me?” My voice came out as a croak. “You should be—”

“Shut up.” She knelt beside the pallet, tore a strip off her own apron, and dunked it in the ice water. “Just… shut up and let me work.”

The cold cloth touched my forehead, and I nearly sobbed. The relief was immediate but painfully inadequate. The fire inside me barely noticed the cold.

Lucy worked quickly, wiping down my face, my neck. When she pressed the freezing cloth against my chest, I gasped—half from shock, half from the way my nipples hardened even further, becoming almost painfully sensitive.

“You’re burning alive,” she muttered, wringing out the cloth and soaking it again. “I’ve never felt anyone this hot before.”

She wiped down my arms, my ribs, my belly. Each touch of the cold cloth brought temporary relief that faded within seconds. The heat just kept building, a furnace in my blood that no amount of ice water could extinguish.

When Lucy’s cloth moved lower—over my hips, the tops of my thighs—I couldn’t suppress the whimper that escaped my throat. My legs fell open involuntarily, shameless, desperate.

“What’s happening to me?”

“You’re one of the rare ones,” she muttered, more to herself than me. “Feral Heat. Most human girls can’t get it. But those who can…” She paused, wringing out the cloth. “You need to understand something. What you’re feeling right now—that hunger, that need—it’s not going to go away on its own. Not completely.”

“What do you mean?” I gasped as she pressed ice against my throat.

“It means your body is responding to them. The Lycans. Their scent, their presence. Your blood recognizes them as…” She struggled for words. “As compatible mates.”

The horror of it must have shown on my face because she made a sound that might have been a bitter laugh.

Lucy met my eyes. “You’re what they call an Endurer.”

The word hung in the air between us, heavy with implications I didn’t want to understand.

“The Wolf King,” Lucy continued, her voice barely above a whisper, “he goes through girls like firewood. Breaks them. Tears them apart. They don’t survive the night—most don’t survive an hour. But endurer can…” She swallowed hard. “Can take it. Can survive being mounted by a beast that size.”

I felt bile rise in my throat.

“That’s what you are,” she said. “That’s why your body is reacting this way. You’re compatible. And if they find out—if any of the Wolf Lords realize what you are—they’ll drag you to the King immediately. Because you’re valuable. Rare. Precious.”

“I’m not,” I choked out. “I’m just—I’m nobody. I’m a fisher’s daughter from—”

“It doesn’t matter where you’re from.” Lucy stood abruptly, wringing out the cloth one more time. “What matters is keeping this secret. Both of them. The fact that you’re a girl, and the fact that you’re an Endurer.”

Lucy froze. “I… I need to cool you down properly. It’s worst there, isn’t it? Between your legs?”

I could only nod, tears streaming down my face.

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