In a different galaxy.
It’s remote here. Removed. Far, far away from everything I know.
After a while, Branson comes in, shucking off his boots before he enters and hanging his coat up at the door.
“Power’s out,” he says, without looking at me.
Neither of us says anything else for a very long time. He’s shivering from being out in the cold for so long, nose pink, lips slightly blue, and is trying his best to hide it. He gets a saucepan out and starts shakily making hot chocolate on the stove top. I watch silently as he brings the milk to near boiling before dropping a generous helping of chocolate into it. He uses a wooden spoon to stir it, pausing now and again to rub his hands together to warm them.
When the hot chocolate is ready, he pours it into two mugs and offers me one.
He waits until I’ve had a couple of sips before speaking. “I called everyone I could think of, Lucy. I did everything I could. I tried but…I can’t get anyone up here to help you.”
My cheeks flush, burning with heat that I’m pretty sure really is embarrassment this time.
“Y-you know?” I squawk.
His eyes flash and his head spins as he turns to face me. “Of course I know. I can sense an omega in heat a mile away. You’re under my roof.” He enunciates the last few words clearly and with a slight growl. I take a very small step back. “How could I not know?” He takes a breath and slows, voice softening. “I scented the change at four o’clock this morning. It woke me from a dead sleep.”
His words land and settle uncomfortably between us. There are many things about them I’d like to address, but none outweigh the childish sense of dismay and embarrassment I feel about the fact that Branson knows what’s happening to me.
I’ve been in such a state that I haven’t had time to process things. Obviously, I know that alphas can sense heats. I don’t need anyone telling me that. Everyone knows it. It’s just that I’m clinging to denial as hard as I possibly can, and I haven’t come close to accepting what’s happened. I’d have liked some time to work through it on my own before having to discuss it with a near stranger.
An alpha stranger at that.
“I…er, I just don’t know why it’s happening so fast,” I mumble.
I should have paid more attention in biology class. I know that, but at the time, I was convinced this kind ofinformation didn’t pertain to me. I had no intention of ever going off my suppressant and experiencing a heat.
I could swear we were taught that symptoms of impending heat wouldn’t appear for at least five days after the last dose of suppressant was taken. Sometimes more.
I remember learning that.
I’m fucking sure I remember it. Mrs. Bradshaw, my sex ed teacher, was all, “Now, when you want to start a family, be sure to go off your suppressant in plenty of time. It’ll take at least five to seven days to go into heat, and you can’t conceive for one full cycle after you stop taking the drug.”
She said that. She definitely said that.
“Could be a number of things,” Branson says, a lot calmer than I think the situation calls for. “Where are you in your cycle?”
“I don’t track my cycle,” I say very quietly.
He doesn’t reply directly, but I notice him blinking a little harder than normal. “Do you skip doses of your suppressant routinely?”
“No,” I say.
He raises both eyebrows and tilts his head at me.
He’s annoyingly stern and up his own ass. He has that whole broad-shouldered, in-charge thing going, and that’s irritating too.
Unfortunately, it’s also unnerving as hell.
“Yes,” I amend, “but it makesnodifference. I do it all the time, andnothinglike this has ever happened.”
He opens his mouth to speak, but then seems to reconsider his position and decide against it. It’s the right choice. My temperature is rising by the minute, and the heat in my face is starting to feel remarkably similar to anger.
Evening melts slowly into night, and dinner is a strained affair. Branson spends most of the meal trying to breathe through his mouth and pretending he’s not doing it, and I’m too busy shoveling food into my mouth to make conversation.
In some ways, it’s a mercy.
