Never before had I wondered if he’d confide secrets that I might have wanted to know.
“Would he be okay with you telling me secrets now?” I lick dry lips, resisting the urge to pull away.
“When I was with him that last month, he gave me permission to share anything I thought you might want to know.” She squeezes my fingers. “He was lucid both times. Bebe was there the second time, and he said the same thing to her—if you want proof.”
I shake my head. The smells of coffee and toast have thinned, and wisps of Anamaria’s gentle lilac perfume twine around us, even though she’s surely using scent-blocking lotion or pills or neutralizer sprays or underwear, or some combination. Nothing can completely hide omega scents, especially when they’re experiencing strong feelings.
Whatever she wants to share matters to her. She’ll stop if I say the word, but I can’t bring myself to do so. I leave one hand in hers, using the other away to grab the smooth back of a dining room chair.
“It’s complicated, but the bottom line is that he was afraid of dominant alphas.”
I blink, holding tight to the chair. “That doesn’t?—”
“Specifically, he feared that his scent would send alphas into rut, leading them to assault him sexually.”
The narrower fear makes a little more sense, but also doesn’t. Alpha ruts are supposedly simple things compared to omega heats. Alphas’ innermost instincts emerge and take control, usually focused on fucking and bonding any available, good-smelling omega. Omegas in heat can send alphas into rut, unless the alphas don’t like the omega’s scent or are bonded—or a host of other factors that all went in one ear and out the other way back in high school, when I sat through the required designation sex-ed class. I paid little attention to the material on ruts secure in the knowledge that, as a beta, I would neither experience ruts, nor have an alpha in rut focus on me.
A sour taste fills my mouth and throat. Max’s fear sounds right in a way, reminding me of the few times we’d visited his fathers; they’d taken little to no notice of me, talking over and around me, and the same with him. He’d mentioned, now and then, how much he didn’t want to follow his omega mother, letting others bully him in the name of protecting him, but rarely shared details.
Still, I couldn’t quite reconcile Max worrying about the effect of his scent on alphas. First, since rut suppressors or blockers are readily available by prescription and over-the-counter, though Max had little to do with that. Second …
“He invited alphas to help with every heat. Why would he do that if he feared them?”
“That’s different.” A rueful giggle escapes her, though she claps a hand over her mouth to muzzle it. “When in heat, his omega was in control and wanted sex, and he let that happen because he had to—buthepicked the alphas to invite. His omega only cared that they smelled good. Even then, he was very careful to only ask alphas known for control. Especially in the first years, he preferred packs he knew weren’t interested in him long-term and, so, unlikely approach him afterward.”
The chair squeaks as I drag it away from the table and sit. I’d noticed that about Max’s heats over the years—that he’d asked larger packs at first before eventually shifting to smaller ones or the occasional lone alpha, that he always chose alphas he’d encountered in passing who never became more than distant acquaintances. How could I not see it, when I was there for them all? Whenever I asked why he chose one alpha or pack over another, he’d shrug and say they smelled right. I didn’t push.
I’d left him alone in his fear, not knowing.
A tear plops on my knee and trickles down my leg.
Anamaria squats before me, taking hold of both my hands again. “He didn’t want you to know partly because he worried that it would infect you in some way when you’d already made sacrifices to be with him, and for a dozen other reasons.” She twists at an odd, surely uncomfortable angle to catch my eye. “Was he right? Doesn’t matter. He can’t change what he did and didn’t do. You can’t change it, either. It’s over and done.”
“I wish?—”
“Wishes are like hot air, they rise and go, and make no difference.”
Harsh words, yet they settle something in me. Not much, just enough that I take a deep breath and sit back. She’s right. I can’t change anything, just understand more, though all that she’s shared raises more questions about what I missed, and why Max kept it from me.
“How did we even get to this in the first place?” The words slip out without my bidding, and I only realize it when Anamaria smiles.
“I’m getting to that.” She plops down to sit on the ground in front of me. “Max’s fear eased some as time passed and alphas didn’t attack him. As he got therapy and realized how much damage he took from his family of origin. And as he got more control over neutralizing his scent, especially in the weeks leading up to his heat.”
“No wonder he was particularly invested in scent experiments those first years.” I touch one of the mint-colored balls dangling from Anamaria’s ears, which I’m so used to seeing her wear that I rarely pay much attention. They’re one of many ways omegas—and to a lesser degree alphas—can reduce or shift their scents to be less noticeable. Ironically, one of the few innovations to which Max made no contribution.
“Also, as Max’s terror ebbed, he was able to better appreciate what his fear had cost you.”
“Me?”
“He didn’t want a pack like his parents, though he admired Dad’s family, my grandparents’ pack, so he knew about good models alongside bad. But while he was still pretty young and unsure of himself as an omega, someone or something convinced him that, no matter that he didn’t like sex, if he bonded an alpha his scent might throw the alpha into rut when he wasn’t in heat.”
She draws in a hissing breath, voice lowering as she glances at the kitchen where Corin waits on us. “I might not have believed him at first, but you know how much Caity struggled to control her alpha when she presented.”
Only a year past, the memories are still so fresh we both shudder. Caity had slammed at least one door a day, some so hard they cracked. We had to move most fragile things out of reach or tuck them away after too many accidents. By the end of the first month, everyone walked on tiptoes around her, careful to go slow and easy, because any little thing might set her off.
All that, without the complication of an unrelated omega’s scent in the mix.
I don’t know if it’s real, or new knowledge rewriting memories, but thinking back on it, Max had stayed especially far away from Caity until she got herself under control.
