"Heat was a storm, but Marcus was the only force in the world strong enough to hold me through it."
JUNO'S POV
The agony was a physical weight, a crushing, molten pressure centered deep in my core. It was not just pain; it was a desperate, primal scream for connection that was threatening to tear the fabric of my control. My mind, usually a fortress of sharp logic and dry wit, had dissolved into a useless slurry of instinct and frantic need. This was my heat, a period of utter biological and spiritual vulnerability, and three weeks post-birth of Zenith and Dean, its return was a violent, suffocating wave.
