An omega.
I press my palm flat against my chest. Feel my heart still hammering beneath my ribs. My skin is hot under my hand, even now, even after the cold shower and the desperate release. The heat never really leaves. It just...waits.
I drag my hand down slowly. Over the plane of my stomach. The jut of my hipbone. I stop before I reach anything else. I'm not hard anymore—finally—but I can still feel the echo of it. The ghost of need that's become my constant companion.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I ask my reflection.
He doesn't answer. Just stares back at me with those dark-circled eyes, that flushed skin, that body that refuses to behave.
I think about Linda. What she used to say when she caught me looking at myself.Disgusting. Filthy. Do you have any idea what you are?
I know what I am.
I press my hand harder against my chest, nails digging in slightly, leaving little crescents in my skin. It hurts. Good. I want it to hurt. I want something—anything—to anchor me to reality, to remind me that I'm more than just this hungry, needy body that keeps betraying me.
"Fucking stop," I hiss at myself. My voice is raw. Wrecked. "Just—stop."
But my body doesn't listen. It never listens.
I can't control this. That's the whole point. That's what makes omegas what we are—slaves to a biology we never chose, prisoners of hormones and heats and the desperate, aching need for an alpha's touch.
I drop my hand. Step back from the mirror.
The boy looking back at me is a stranger. Hollow-eyed and heat-flushed and falling apart at the seams.
I hate him.
I hate every fragile, needy inch of him.
Chapter 24
Iwake up Friday morning with last night’s dinner still burned into my brain.
The way all three of their heads snapped toward me. The hunger in their eyes. The way I fled the table like a coward while Margot's chocolate lava cakes sat untouched.
I can't face any of them today.
I don’t want to face any of them ever.
I leave for campus before anyone's awake, grab coffee from the student center instead of the kitchen, spend the day hiding in the library between classes. My phone buzzes twice—once from Margot:Feeling better today, sweetheart?and once from an unknown number that turns out to be a group project reminder.
I text Margot back:Yeah, just needed sleep. Busy with studying today. Love you.
Two lies. Not my worst.
Around six, another text:Richard ordered Thai for dinner. Want me to save you a plate?
The thought of sitting at that table again—of facing them—makes my stomach clench.
Grabbed food on campus. Don't wait up!
Three lies now. The count keeps climbing.
I stay at the library until it closes at ten, then sit in my car in the parking lot for another hour, dreading going home. When I finally creep through the front door at eleven-thirty, the house is dark and quiet. Everyone's in their rooms.
Safe.
I made it through another day.
