The fall before the heat, p.1
The Fall Before the Heat, page 1
The Fall Before the Heat
New Hemlock Wolf Pack Saga Book 13
Maggie Hemlock
For the editor and the beta reader who keep me from losing my mind on rewrites.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2024 by Maggie Hemlock. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.
Stock photos for the cover brought to you by 123RF.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This is not the beginning of a series, nor is it meant to be read on its own as a standalone. The complete reading order for this series and the entirety of the Hemlock Mpreg Universe books can be found at the end of this book.
Contents
The Fall Before the Heat
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Yes, you’re in the correct series. While it may not be obvious why a book in the New Hemlock Wolf Pack Saga would be set on the campus of Hemlock Academy, I promise it’ll all come together by the end. <3
CONTENT WARNING: One off-page & in the past unnatural death of a pet.
Chapter One
Sometime during London’s war with Mundanes Before Magic
Delius
“See. It’s not much different than Moonscale Academy,” my wolf said hopefully for the millionth time that day.
Except he was wrong. Everything was different than back home. Hemlock Academy was no Moonscale Academy.
The buildings covering most of Mage Street were short and squat little boggers compared to draconic architecture that once stood proud on the Moonscale Academy Campus. The only difference was this campus wasn’t currently under threat of attack from a crazy dragoness and her even more batshit hate group.
“It’s one more semester. One more. Then you’re done with school. Then you will be school,” my wolf said, wagging his tail as I walked into the dorm building dragging two over-sized suitcases behind me.
“I will not be school. I’ll be licensed to work at schools and teach,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ll be a teacher at a school. Not school itself. I’m not magically going to turn into a building, you know.”
“Yeah! We’ll be school!” My wolf nodded as if it were the same thing.
I squeezed the handles on my wheelie suitcases harder to hide how bad my fingers trembled. I completed almost four years of classes surrounded by dragon shifters who towered over me. I could do this. I could manage this. Sure, I hadn’t lived on the Moonscale Academy campus. Sure, this was the first time I left my family’s den – I mean home. I was almost twenty-five. I could handle being away from home for a few months.
My wolf fell silent because he knew the thought that came next. He’d known it since the day I packed to leave. My family home might not stand on the corner of Perch and Birch Street when everything was said and done. London was on fire. London was a crumbling city. London was at war. That was the only reason I was here.
I was supposed to meet a tour guide on the academy’s main front lawn, but I arrived to a grassy field covered in people and I wasn’t about to stand around waiting to be found. The wheels on my old suitcases stuck in clumps of grass and dirt. So, dragging them around wasn’t much of an option anyway.
It didn’t matter. While waiting for the shuttle from the airport to campus, I took a virtual tour on my phone. It wasn’t the first time I watched the tour, but I paid closer attention than ever before. Hemlock Academy was real now. It wasn’t just some far away university anymore. It was real, solid, and my reality for my final semester.
My apartment was on the first floor, halfway down the hall. I knew from my information pack my roommate was an Alpha wolf named Rex. Strange that he was named after a lion, but whatever. I’d grown up around dragons named after rocks, clouds, and star systems. Why couldn’t a wolf name their kid after a lion?
Just like Moonscale Academy, Hemlock Academy didn’t ordinarily room Alphas and omegas together, but these weren’t ordinary times. I was accepted last minute, after my guidance counselor, working out of her kitchen, begged Hemlock Academy’s educational program to let me finish my last semester here. It was so last minute, because I struggled to rake together the money. Eventually, with the help of my parents, I managed, but it cost so much more than going to the local Moonscale campus. They’d given in, but warned I’d be shoved into whatever dorm apartment had room for me. I almost backed out, but my parents were desperate to shove me onto the first plane out of London and as far away from the war as they could manage.
“And no heat yet,” my wolf whispered.
He didn’t wag his tail about that as we walked down the corridor that seemed one-hundred times longer than it did in the virtual video tour. For a long time, I assumed I was a beta. A lot of people assumed I was a beta. It wasn’t until my pre-university health exam that I found out otherwise. The squinty-eyed doctor accused me of lying to be housed with betas and Alphas instead of omegas when the test results came back. Only, I hadn’t lied, and I turned that accusation right back around on him.
The old doctor who squinted instead of wearing his glasses was right. I was an omega. I had all the parts that made me an omega. Only I and everyone around me had no clue, because I’d never had my first heat or showed any signs of it. There wasn’t an explicit medical reason I hadn’t gone into heat yet. I just hadn’t. The stubborn old doctor called me a late bloomer. I spent my first semester faking sympathy and knowing whenever someone brought up how good, bad, or embarrassing their first heat had been. I took Omega Studies like everyone else. I knew the symptoms. I heard enough firsthand accounts to cobble together a fake, but believable story of my own.
Salty sweat dripped from my forehead to my nose as I stopped in front of apartment six. Gone were the old-style dorms where it was merely a room. While London fought hate groups, Hemlock Academy had updated their student housing to feel like housing. It wasn’t only folks with kids in the tiny college apartments now. Everyone who lived on campus got one now.
“Hang on!” A deep voice called from inside.
“I have my key card!” I called back.
The voice that greeted me through the red door framed in mahogany didn’t carry the stateside accent that was everywhere since the plane landed.
“Do you?” The door opened while I still fumbled in my pocket.
“I do. It’s just buried,” I grunted, not bothering to look up at the giant wolf who stepped out of the way so I could get inside.
He reached for my suitcases, and I snarled at him. I lugged everything inside the suitcases across the Atlantic Ocean. They were the only belongings I had safe and sound in the universe. I wasn’t entrusting them to anyone else. I hadn’t even liked letting them be stored under the plane. Thankfully, the airports hadn’t lost my baggage. My wolf grumbled to himself, but I swallowed down the sounds he made.
“Okay, then. I’ll leave you to it,” he said, holding his hands up like I was about to arrest him.
It was an asshat move, but bloody hell, I wasn’t setting up any expectation of Alpha/omega roles. Not because I thought the lion-named wolf would try to get into my pants. No one ever tried that. It was as if they all knew I hadn’t had my first heat and couldn’t make pups. You’d think that would be a pro, but apparently not to shifter chemistry.
I didn’t let him carry my suitcases the rest of the way in, because I didn’t want him to expect me to wash dishes for the rest of my life. If I let him play cave-Alpha, he’d expect me to play cave-omega and that wasn’t happening. I was here to keep my head down, get my degree, and go home and teach in London. That was if there was a London left to teach in when everything was said and done.
I paused at the little archway between the living room and kitchen. Was I headed in the right direction?
“Your room is the first one off the kitchen,” Rex called from behind me. “The one with the green door. The bathroom has the yellow door. It’s like whoever designed the place had kiddies in mind.”
“Thanks,” I called back begrudgingly and started forward.
One of the wheels on the suitcase I gripped in my left hand snagged on the change over between carpet and hardwood. I yanked it free and tumbled forward as its weight found my calf.
“Shite!” I swore as the hardwood floor raced toward my face.
Something blurred behind me, casting shadows where light had been seconds before. Then I crashed into a black button-down shirt covering a set of brick abs. Softer than the floor? I wasn’t so sure about that.
“Hey, you okay?” Rex asked, his hands on my shoulders, righting me.
Was I okay? A bead of sweat dripped onto my nose, and I wiped it away before it dripped onto his nice shirt.
“I think so. L eg’s gonna bruise,” I said, trying to right the suitcase before they crashed into me again.
“May I?” Rex asked, letting go of my shoulders.
“Why not?” I sighed but didn’t let go of the handles until his giant hands took over.
He lifted one and then the other and headed through the kitchen before I got a good look at him. I followed, wincing. It felt like a draconic football player had kicked me with their cleats on, but I wasn’t about to complain. My parents drew out a huge amount of their retirement accounts for me to be here. I had no right to complain about anything for the rest of my life.
Rex nudged open the green door with a socked big toe and sat my luggage down against the wall. The room itself wasn’t much to look at. It had a twin bed pressed up in one corner and a desk in the other. There were two doors. One led to a tiny closet and the other to a tiny bathroom, with no tub, just a shower.
“Scholarship, housing, huh?” Rex laughed.
“I didn’t come on a scholarship,” I shook my head while staring into the empty closet thankful I hadn’t brought much with me.
“Oh, my bad,” Rex said.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with scholarships. I was just too average of a student in high school to get one,” I shrugged again.
“I’ll leave you to it. Let me know if you want me to look at that leg.”
“Huh?” I glanced over my shoulder, finally getting a good look at his face.
He had big amber eyes like you’d expect to see on a large feline shifter. His dark hair was messy in that casual way that was popular with Alphas back in London these days. The man had jawlines that went on for two days and lips that looked like they could suck in my tongue and never let it go.
“Huh?” I asked, realizing those kissable lips were saying words that I hadn’t heard.
“Not a perv thing. I’m a medical student. I’ll start hospital study after this semester if everything works out,” he said.
“If it works out? Are you bad at it or something?” I laughed.
“London Hospital is no more,” he shrugged one of his broad shoulders. “They sponsored my scholarship with the expectation that I’d go back and do my internship there. They’d employ me after that.”
“Shite!” I swore under my breath again.
“Bloody war,” Rex shrugged.
“I’m Delius, but call me Del,” I said, turning to shake his hand.
“Rex,” he smiled as we shook hands.
The smile was cocky, but in that natural way that meant it never occurred to him that it made him look cocky. Up this close and personal, he smelled more like a wolf than ever. He was a wolf like me, but those eyes – those amber eyes, pulled me and made me wonder what line of mysterious events led---
“My sire’s a lion,” he said as if he read my thoughts.
“Huh?” I asked again.
“That’s your favorite word. Shit! Are you hard of hearing? If you are, I take back the joke,” Rex said, our hands still together in the shake.
“No, I’m not. Just tired I guess.”
“My sire’s a lion,” Rex said again, running his free hand through his already messy hair. “The eyes. You were about to ask about them. Everyone does.”
“Are you a lion too?” I asked.
“No,” he shook his head. “I could explain to you the complicated ways in which genetics mix between shifter species or I can put the kettle on. You look like you could use a cuppa.”
“Please,” I sighed.
“Then I’ll need my hand back. The suitcases are up against the wall just inside the door. Don’t worry. They won’t attack you again,” he smiled.
“Oh, sorry,” I said, and dropped his hand like a hot potato.
“No worries,” he winked. “Welcome to Hemlock Academy.”
“Thanks,” I said, my hand still hanging mid-air as he turned to put the kettle on.
Chapter Two
Rex
“Are you back yet?” Lost’s voice sounded off in my earpiece. “I don’t know whether you tried to murder your new roommate or saved him from being murdered before making tea. You’re stateside now. Drink coffee like the rest of them.”
I didn’t answer until I was safely in the kitchen and Del had shut the door behind me. He was adorable in that tired, frustrated, and clumsy sorta way. He was headstrong and fleeing the war that I’d missed all of. Well, mostly. I hadn’t lied about being at Hemlock Academy on a scholarship or being promised a spot at the Moonscale Hospital in London. My parents were gardeners for the ruling family. Clarence and Medwin didn’t like it when I called them that, but that’s what they were. Cade liked it even less. Though, he was banished now. So maybe he’d finally shrugged off the title.
I’d grown up in the literal shadow of Moonscale Manor in a small, but adequate staff house. A house that wasn’t there anymore. A house that burnt up taking our family dog with it when Moonscale Manor fell to the hate group. I still missed Apricot, but at least, my parents were out shopping, and Lost was at school. So, we only lost one family member. Lost and my parents were currently at one of the Moonscale houses in Spain. Lost was sure my parents were never going to leave that house and that Medwin probably wouldn’t have the heart to ask them to either. We’d lost everything except each other in the war already. What more could they ask of the men who kept the gardens and fruit trees blossoming all these years?
“Rex?” Lost whined into my ear.
“I’m going to record you whining and play it at your mating feast one day,” I teased him, as I turned on the faucet to fill the kettle.
“What’s going on? We’re on the phone and you started ignoring me out of nowhere!” He said, pulling in his voice.
“My new roommate arrived,” I said and filled him in on the details.
“And his luggage attacked him?” Lost chuckled.
“Of course, that’s how you’d say it,” I shook my head.
“Is he good looking?” Lost asked, ignoring my half-hearted insult.
“We’re not discussing that.”
“That’s a yes,” Lost laughed.
“No, that’s a we are not discussing someone the RNG assigned me to live with like that. That’s not how you get off on the right foot,” I said.
“He’s not not hot,” my wolf chimed into the conversation over the family link, and I rolled my eyes.
“I knew it!” Lost said. “Your voice goes all low and deep when you like someone.”
They both were right. Del wasn’t unattractive. Hell, most of the men on campus weren’t unattractive, but I wasn’t about to toss away my one chance at having a life beyond living in someone else’s garden because someone was attractive.
“Why are you so excited about that information? You’re not even on this side of the Atlantic,” I said. “I’m not going to set you up on a virtual blind date. Besides, he’s too old for you.”
“Because you need to have some fun. Last night, Tate and I snuck into Sniff and ---” Lost started.
“Stop right there. If our parents ask me if my seventeen-year-old brother snuck into a club with that reputation, I want plausible deniability and you better be careful. I’m not attending your funeral if you escape the war only to die by doing something stupid.”
“We’re just dancing and stuff,” Lost huffed at me.
“I hope so, baby brother. Look, don’t do anything stupid before we talk again, okay? I gotta go.”
“What are you going to do?” Lost asked me.
“I miss you too. We’ll talk tomorrow,” I said.
“Okay. Be safe.”
“Love you,” I said.
“You too.”
Chapter Three
Delius
“You have a very intimate relationship with your teakettle,” I said, walking into the kitchen just as the kettle whistled to Rex saying he loved it. “Should I give you guys some privacy?”
“Huh?” It was finally his turn to sound like a bit of an idiot.
“You told your tea kettle you loved it,” I said to his very tall back.
“I was on the phone with my kid brother,” Rex said.
“Oh, sorry,” I blushed.
I knew he probably wasn’t telling the tea kettle he loved it, but I wouldn’t have made the joke if I knew he was talking to someone from back home. I’d only been away from home a day and knew that wasn’t a joke.
