I’ve never let myself get involved with another omega, or alpha, for that matter. Daily suppressors give my alpha the strength to resist omegas’ scents when they’re not in heat, but I’d rather not test my resistance. At best, I’m social friends with a few packs, but never meet their omegas without at least one bonded alpha around. My alpha and I have managed a few longer-term relationships with betas, and while we’re not always happy with the sex—orheisn’t—we’re content.
“No, Max would’ve known mate bonds wouldn’t protect him,” Johanna says. “His fathers knew how to block the mate bond so it didn’t keep them from doing whatever they wanted. You just confirmed his worst suspicions.”
No wonder my nightmares of that evening always include him pale, still, and sweaty.
We sit in silence for five breaths, ten. Her lungs heave before settling back into a slow, easy rhythm. Bit by bit, the foul edge to her smell recedes leaving only tartness behind, no sweetness.
Still better than before. More wonderful that, at length, she gazes at me through red-rimmed eyes and asks for the rest of the story: the context I’d offered at the start.
“Almost all of my family are betas.” There’s nowhere else to start, though my family isn’t to blame for what I became. That’s on me.
“Except your great-uncle, who was an alpha.”
A hiccupping laugh escapes me. “Grandmother’s second cousin actually.” I only mentioned it once or twice back then, or so I think, yet she remembered, or as close as made nodifference. “But he wasn’t around. So, I grew up in a beta family in a beta town. Whenever anyone presented as an alpha or omega, which wasn’t often, they left in pretty short order. The lectures in school about designations and what it meant to become an alpha or omega were decades old and awful. Worse than what passed for sex-ed, which is saying something.”
“So you knew nothing about being an alpha.” Is there a hint of sympathy in her voice? If so, it vanishes when she continues. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I told you as best I could, but I didn’t realize how little I knew, or how bad things could get. I was a numbers nerd all through grade school. A skinny geek in a school that loved sports above academics.” I still only watch games for the statistics, except if my children are playing. “Then, the summer before I went to college, I presented, bursting into muscles I didn’t have names for. My uncle put me to work in the lumber yard—laboring hard all day was good because it wore me out until I dropped every night—and by the time I got to college, I had a ripped alpha body and no idea what to do with it.”
“No wonder I had to ask you out after waiting to see if you’d leap first.” Still no sweetness in her scent, but her mouth curves in a half-smile that eases some of my alpha’s tension. “You were so sweet and surprised when you realized I wanted to date you rather than just extract answers for the econ test or get in your pants—though I did want that latter, too.”
Much as I wished she’d continue in that vein, I had to press on, and the next part wasn’t so fun. “You might remember that I fought a lot back then.”
“Given how often I helped patch you up after, yes.”
“I don’t know if it was because I didn’t know any better or if it would’ve gotten that bad anyway, but my alpha had only two modes: fight or fuck.” Dreams of those days plague my sleep whenever I’m stressed, and I’ll wake in a pool of cold sweat. I stillhave no idea how I managed to pass my classes, much less not get kicked out of college, given how often I got into tangles with other students. “I kept my alpha down as much as possible, but whenever he got out things went bad fast.”
She nods, air whistling between clenched teeth as she drew in a long breath. “That’s what you showed Max.”
“I managed when hanging around with you, but without you to calm my alpha?—”
“Calm?”
“You always had that effect on my alpha.” Still does. He’s unwound further as her perfume stays even and tart, with no hint of sour. “He liked being around you enough that he’d stop gnawing at me—for a while at least.”
“As though I was a drug?”
“Sort of the same effect, yeah, though that wasn’t the only reasonIliked you.” Still true, no matter that she’s getting the whole story out of me; I might as well forge on to the bitter end. My fingers flex around the armrests, releasing only to clench again. “When it was just Max and me, my alpha wasn’t sure whether to fight Max for you or fuck him. Max realizedsomething was off and pushed me to show him my alpha.”
I shudder at another flash of orange, rum, and vomit. One more staple of my nightmares.
“And that was that. I lost you, and he won,” I say.
“We all lost.” She shakes her head.
“It took another couple of months, but one of my professors figured out I was in trouble and pushed me to go to the student health center. I can give you the full multisyllabic name of the disorder I was diagnosed with if you want, but the main thing is, I got prescription rut suppressants to help keep my alpha mostly soothed.” My turn to take a whistling breath before admitting, “I’m still on them, though nowadays I wear a low-dose patch andsupplement with pills as needed. If I’d connected the dots and consulted a doctor earlier on, maybe things would be different.”
“If. If. If.” She rubs her red-rimmed eyes, and sighs. “If Max had consulted doctors as soon as he started feeling unwell, he might still be here.”
I’ve got no answer for that.
“I’m sorry, Johanna.” I meet her gaze, willing her to read my sincerity as shivers ripple through me. “I’ve wanted to say that for a long time, but I didn’t think an apology out of the blue would help you any. Might make me feel better, but that wasn’t enough of a reason to trouble you.”
“I’m sorry too.” She shrugs. “But here we are.”
Finally face to face, though so far apart that the desk separating us might as well be a canyon.
Chapter 18
