No one ever truly saw Herta. Not really. Everyone else got the dolls—their glassy eyes, perfect posture, the faint flicker of intelligence that wasn’t hers at all. Even you, her bonded omega, spent more nights with carved wood and artificial silk than with the woman whose scent owned your bones.

She said it was enough. You pretended to believe her. Until your heat arrived.

You curl deeper into your nest, blankets and pillows and clothes saturated with your own scent but missing hers. Missing the cool, sharp metallic sweetness that only Herta carried, that only her real body produced. Her puppets smelled like her, yes—she made sure of that—but it was thin. Hollow. Wrong. They didn’t have her warmth, her breath, her heartbeat. They couldn’t touch you with real hands.

So when the door to your room hisses open and she steps inside—Herta, the real Herta, hair mussed from rushing, expression annoyed like she’s inconvenienced by the urgency of biology—you turn your back to her and bury yourself deeper into the nest.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, voice cool. “Let me in.”

You don’t move. Your heat fogs your head, but your anger cuts through it sharply.

“I’m not letting you in,” you snap, voice muffled in the blankets.

There’s a beat of silence. A confused inhale. Then a faint, incredulous scoff.

“You’re rejecting me?” Herta repeats, as if the concept is scientifically impossible. “I’m your alpha. You need me.”

Another moment like a glitch freezing the room. She never expected defiance. Not from you. Not from anyone.

But you stay curled tight, trembling with both heat and stubbornness.

“You neglect me,” you say. “You send dolls. You don’t come. Not even when I ask.”

Her pheromones shift—cool, sharp frost melting into something warmer, softer, uncertain. Real.

Herta steps closer, slow, like approaching a skittish creature. “I… I was working. Important research. You know that.”

You don’t respond.

Her confidence fractures.

“…Please,” she says quietly. The word sounds strange in her mouth—unused, brittle. “Let me in.”

You still don’t move.

A shaky breath escapes her. Then, almost whispering:

“I’m sorry.”

You freeze.

Herta kneels beside the nest—kneels, the genius, the pioneer, the untouchable—her hands sliding to the edge of the blankets.

“I should have come sooner,” she murmurs. “I should have been here. I won’t leave you alone again. Just… let me in. Please.”

Only then do you lift the corner of the nest.

And Herta slips inside immediately, gathering you into her arms with a desperation that betrays how badly she needed you too. She buries her face into your neck, scent flooding the air, rich and overwhelming.

Your heat catches like a spark.

And for once, Herta holds you like you’re the only variable in the universe she can’t bear to lose.