I’ve been on Suppressetine since I turned twenty, and I fully intend to stay on it until I die.
Heats? Who needs them? Not me, that’s who. The last thing I need in my life is to fall prey to my biology every ten months.
Losing my mind to my hormones for days at a time? No, thank you.
Going on sexual rampages that require an alpha to fuck me silly in order to survive? Not for me, thanks.
No, I like my life the way it is. I love my career—I’m kind of a big deal in marketing, if I haven’t mentioned it before—and I love that I’ve never had to take a single day off because of my designation.
I really, really love that, thanks to Suppressetine, I can’t even remember when my last heat was—they’re so mild I barely feel them. Sex? I can take it or leave it. If I do feel a twinge, I simply have sex with an omega or beta friend.
It’s wonderful.
There are no downsides whatsoever. I mean, sure, Suppressetine has to be taken daily, but that’s a small price to pay. It’s a very forgiving medication. I forget to take it now and again, and it makes no difference at all.
Hmm.Come to think of it, I might have forgotten to take it last night, thanks to the last-minute rush to pack.
No matter. I’ll just pick up where I left off tonight.
“Dinner’s ready,” says Branson, startling me into an upright position.
It’s a strange meal. A tasty butter chicken with rice and steamed veggies. The curry pairs incredibly well with the whiskey, and that’s something I didn’t know about butter chicken. Or whiskey. The taste isn’t the strange thing. The strange thing is that even though I eat fast, chewing and swallowing as quickly as I can, the meal drags on for hours.
Hours and hours.
Branson set the table, so when the food was ready, the implication was clear: I was to dine at the table. It’s not that I mind sitting at a table when I eat. Of course not. It’s just quite an awkward experience sitting at a massivetwelve-seater table when the overhead lighting is dim and there are only two of you in attendance.
It’s givingBeauty and the Beast, and not in a good way.
The problem is, I haven’t spent all that much time with Branson in the past. At least, not alone. And I definitely haven’t been this close to him for any length of time. Up close, he’s very…there. Very noticeable. When Paul met him for the first time, he didn’t realize he was Jensen’s brother, and he cupped his hand to my ear and said, “Holy shit. Look at that man. Damn if he isn’t straight out of an omega’s wet dream.”
It irritated me at the time, and I’m not sure why I’m thinking of it now.
Oh yes. Because Branson is so…here. So everywhere. So big and so covered in hair. It’s dark-blond, his hair. Tousled and wild. That’s the hair on his head and his face. Obviously, I can’t speak for any other hair he might have, nor would I want to.
“I totally don’t mind about the TV,” I hear myself say. Interesting because I wasn’t aware I was still thinking about it. “I’m actually glad you don’t have one. I’m going to completely unplug while I’m here. Decompress, you know. Justbe.”
“Mm,” he says mildly. “You’ll have to. We’ll lose power and signal tonight or tomorrow.”
What the hell?
“We’ll lose powerandsignal?” I cry, each word climbing an octave higher than the last.
“Yeah,” he says without the slightest hint that he understands the gravity of the situation. “I have a generator, so we’ll be able to limp along in terms of heating and lights, but when the signal goes down, there’s nothing we can do about it except wait for it to come back up.”
I chew the last mouthful of my curry at length, washing it down with a big glug of whiskey when I can’t seem to get it down any other way.
“How long does everything usually go down for?” I ask, though I have an awful feeling I know what Branson is going to say.
“Mm, ’bout a week.”
My laugh is high-pitched and tinny. A dreadful, disturbed thing that bounces off the table and ceiling. It sounds nothing like my normal laugh, and everything like the laugh of a man who has a panic attack careening straight for him.
I hate it, and I want to stop doing it right away.
Sadly, I don’t seem to be able to.
I laugh and laugh, unraveling more and more with every second that passes.
