My Alphas' Dark Desires
Chapter 192: Heat or No Heat

Chapter 192: Heat or No Heat

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Chapter 192

~Valerie’s POV~

The world stopped for a moment as my brain tried to process the information.

"What?" I breathed a few seconds later.

"There’s no heat," she repeated, blinking fast. "Valerie, you..."

I thought I had absorbed the news, but still, the world tilted—not like a spin or a sway, but like the ground beneath me shifted just enough to make me question if it was ever solid.

"What?" I breathed, though my lungs barely worked. "What did you just say?"

Solstice didn’t flinch. Her voice came gentler now, but no less serious. "There’s no heat."

I stared at her, the words sinking in slowly, like syrup down a drain. Too thick to make sense at first.

"No heat?" I repeated, blinking fast. "What does that even mean?"

Solstice bit her lip. "I mean... you know how most heirs—especially females—start to emit a kind of... signature warmth? A signal that their elemental magic is reaching maturation? You don’t have that. I thought it was the necklace suppressing your heat, like how it blocks your scent. But it’s not. Valerie, there was never any heat to begin with."

I opened my mouth. Closed it again. My eyes dropped to the necklace at my collarbone.

The pendant glinted faintly under the sunlight filtering through the courtyard windows. The silver chain nestled into my skin like a promise—or a prison.

"You’re sure?" I asked, voice low.

Solstice hesitated. "Yes. I didn’t want to say anything before... but after what I just saw—how it reacted—it’s not your heat it’s hiding. It’s something else. Something bigger."

My chest hollowed like someone had scooped it out. The scroll. The necklace. The weird reactions. And now... this.

My hand reached up, fingers brushing the cool metal. "Is that why it pulsed when I saw the scroll?" My voice cracked. "Has it all been a lie?"

Without waiting for an answer, I turned on my heel and walked off. Solstice called my name, footsteps slapping the tile behind me, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Not with my mind spinning like this.

Everything felt fake.

Everything felt rigged.

I slammed open the front doors of our dorm lodge, startling Emerald, who was lounging by the counter with a smoothie cup in hand.

"Whoa," she blinked. "Did someone die?"

I didn’t answer. I marched straight past her to my room door. Isla and Astraea both peered out from their rooms down the hallway.

"What’s going on?" Isla asked.

"Everything okay?" Astraea followed up, eyes narrowing with suspicion.

Solstice, ever the charming diplomat, tossed them a smile. "All good! Just girl stuff."

Before either of them could dig deeper, we slipped inside my room, and I shut the door behind us with a firm click.

I didn’t speak. I just crossed to the drawer beside my bed, yanked it open, and pulled out the scroll—the same one Ash and I had uncovered from the library archives.

It was still as I left it and looking dormant. I placed it carefully on the table. Solstice hovered near the wall, arms crossed tightly.

"You sure you want to do this now?" she asked.

"I don’t know," I said honestly. "But I have to."

I pulled the necklace from beneath my shirt. The moment it came free and hung in the air above the scroll, the stone at its center began to glow—a soft blue, dim at first, then pulsing brighter.

Nothing happened right away.

Solstice squinted at it. "Huh. Should anything be happening?"

"Give it a second," I muttered.

"I mean, you’ve been holding that thing up like a priestess for five minutes and the scroll’s still in naptime."

"Silver—get back."

"But I just—"

Before she could finish, the necklace flared.

A rush of heat slammed through my body—sharp, sudden, real. It was like being dropped into hot water without warning. My breath hitched.

The scroll beneath us began to shift. The runes rearranged themselves again, sliding and twisting like snakes across the page.

Solstice gasped audibly beside me. "Holy goddess..."

Right there, in front of us, the symbol emerged.

The Nightshade crest. A thorny sigil surrounded by a pale white rose—delicate, deadly, beautiful.

The sigil glowed softly on the parchment, etched into it like living ink. My body had gone still, frozen in time.

Solstice waved a hand in front of my face. "Val?"

No response.

"Valerie!"

She reached for the necklace, gripped it and tried to yank it away from my chest. The moment her fingers touched it—

Boom.

A blast of energy knocked her backward, sending her crashing into the wall with a gasp.

The glow vanished.

I blinked, disoriented, the warmth still echoing in my chest. "Silver?"

I scrambled to her side as she groaned and sat up, rubbing her back. "Okay. That... sucked."

The knock came almost immediately.

"Everything okay in there?" Isla called out.

"Sounded like someone body-slammed a bookshelf," Emerald added.

I stood and wiped my palms on my thighs. "We’re good!"

"That was Silver," I said as I opened the door slightly, keeping them from seeing too far in. "She tripped trying to do a ballet dance to cheer me up."

There was a pause, and then Emerald chuckled. "Of course she did."

"You need to be more careful, Silver," Isla added, amused.

"Tell me about it," Solstice called from behind me, groaning exaggeratedly.

Once their footsteps faded down the hallway, I shut the door again.

Solstice sat up straighter now, face serious. "Valerie... you need to take that necklace off. It’s dangerous. You could’ve passed out. You could’ve hurt someone."

"Off or on," I said softly, "I have to keep it."

Her brows furrowed. "Why?"

"Because the heirs fought to return it to me. If I suddenly stop wearing it, they’ll know something’s wrong. Suspicion will spread. I’m not ready to explain this yet—not until I understand what it means."

"You want to cover this up?"

"For now," I said. "Until I find out what this power really is. Until I know who I am."

Solstice’s mouth opened as if to argue, but she stopped. She looked at me—really looked at me—and nodded.

"Okay," she said, quietly. "But you’re not doing it alone."

I squeezed her hand. "I know."

She tried to lighten the mood with a smirk. "Still no heat, though."

"Not helpful."

She laughed anyway. I looked back at the scroll, at the sigil still glowing faintly.

"Heat or no heat," I whispered, "this necklace stays."