Chapter 1
SOMETHING’S AMISS
Elias
Something was happening to me. Something bad. Massaging my aching pecs, I stared at my reflection in the mirror.
Were they more swollen today than yesterday? I couldn’t tell. They hurt, though. And tingled, almost. It was strange.
It had been almost a week since I started feeling this way. Since I noticed the pebbling in my nipples, since I noticed the deep ache that spread from near my armpits inward.
I’d been avoiding my phone since three days ago. That was what I got for trying to find out if my symptoms were normal. It wasn’t rare for people to get breast cancer. Though it was far more prevalent in omegas than alphas.
It couldn’t be ruled out, though, and a chance was still a chance.
Sighing, I refocused on what I was doing. Massaging helped, but not for long. It basically only seemed to help when I was actively doing it. I’d even caught myself doing it at work. After a strange look from Link, my roommate and best friend, I had stopped. Or I’d at least tried to be more covert.
But fuck, ithurt.And if the only relief I got was this, then so be it.
The tingling started back up when I pinched my peaked nipples between my finger and thumb. It was relief mixed with sweet agony, and I didn’t quite know what to make of that.
A knock on the door startled me, making me yelp. “Bro, come on. You’re gonna make us late for work. What are you even doing in there?”
“Uh…” I dropped my hands, double-checking in the mirror to make sure that everything looked normal before opening the door.
Link stood on the other side, his hand raised like he was about to knock again.
His eyes fell to my exposed chest, and he quirked an eyebrow at me. “Have you been working out?”
“What?”
His gaze stayed on my chest. “Your pecs look bigger. Have you finally been taking advantage of the equipment?”
I shook my head. Unlike Link, who was a personal trainer at the gym we worked at, I didn’t feel the need to spend my days working out. “You know I haven’t.”
I tried to push past him into the hallway, but he stopped me. He was intense. Intense in a way I wasn’tused to. Not from another alpha, anyway. Over the years, I’d just chalked it up to Link being Link.
He crossed his arms over his chest, making the large tattoo stretched around his bicep bulge. “You sure?”
“Why would I lie about working out?” My heart pounded against my rib cage. If my swollen pecs were noticeable to him too, what did that mean? Maybe I needed to go to the doctor. “C’mon. You’re worried about being late, so let’s go.”
I brushed past him into the hallway so I could go to my room and put a shirt on. His
eyes followed me the whole way.
Link
Elias seemed… off. Everything about him was off. He looked different, he was taking longer and longer in the bathroom, and he was a lot more fidgety about me being in his personal space and hugging him. And then there was his scent.
Fuck, his scent. We’d been friends for long enough that I could pick his scent out of a crowd immediately, but lately? It’d taken on an almost sweet undertone. Like an omega’s. An omega’s scent was one no alpha could ever get confused about. Though each person smelled different, it was always lighter. An almost vanilla or almond undertone. They made perfumes to try to replicate it in the big stores, selling them for thousands of dollars per bottle.
Elias’s new scent could sell for hundreds of thousands.
He walked down the hallway and into his bedroom, closing the door behind him. He’d hurried away from me, like he was trying to hide something. I didn’t want him to hide. I wanted him to stay right there in front of me so I could inhale the scent straight from the source. Something in me desperately wanted to shove my nose into the crook of his neck andsniff.
What the fuck was happening?
Shaking my head, I walked to the front door, nodding at Elias as he came out of his room. His uniform was tight around his chest, accentuating the shape of his pecs. It was the proof I’d needed to make sure I wasn’t going completely crazy. They’d gotten bigger.
