I know I’m objectively attractive, and maybe a couple of years ago I would have indulged in someforbidden sex, but now thanks to my encroaching rabidity and overall determination to avoid physical contact, there’s not a single part of me that’s tempted.
I manage to get halfway through my lecture without incident when a scent drifts under the door that stops me in my tracks. My brain stutters, my body freezes, and I can feel every strand of my DNA rewriting itself to fit around this new scent. It feels like the whole room has gone underwater, time warping in to something unrecognizable as my brain screamsMINEover and over again.
“Professor Carter?” A distant voice asks. I can barely make out the words through the haze that’s taken over my mind, but after a few seconds I manage to turn my head and address the class. Cutting class early on day one of the semester isn’t a great look, but I’m hoping the students will be so relieved they won’t care one way or another.
With the way my alpha is trying to take over, it takes a concentrated effort to keep the snarl out of my voice. “Class is over for today, please read chapter one in your textbooks and answer the questions. I’ll collect the answers on Wednesday.”
And then I turn and run.
“Posey!”
I look up from my map to see Lainey jogging across the quad, frantically waving her arms like she’s trying to take flight. A giggle slips out before I can stop it, she looks indignant for half a second before she bends in half, panting with her hands on her knees. “I would be offended if I could breathe.”
It takes herculean effort to dam back my amusement, but I do it for my new friend. “I thought you were joking when you said you didn’t exercise.”
She scowls at me, and I finally break, my laughter ringing out around us and drawing way too many eyes. After helping me pick out things for my apartment last weekend, Lainey and I exchanged numbers and have quickly become inseparable. The perky omega is exactly my brand of weird, and as it turns out, she’s also a freshman at Harbor U, though she lives off campus with her mom instead of in the dorms.
“Clearly… I wasn’t… joking.” Lainey pants out. Her cheeks are bright pink and she looks a little sweaty, but her breathing finally begins to slow just as my alarm goes off.
I cringe, patting her back. “I hate to rush you, but that was my ‘oh shit, you’re going to be late’ alarm. We need to get to class.”
“I was coming to find you since we have thesame class! I was trying to beat you there so I could save us seats but then I got distracted by… well, it doesn’t matter. The point is, we’re going to be late. Hurry!”
Luckily our classroom is in the next building over, so we make it just in time to slip into the last two available seats before the professor starts class.
Because we’re both first years, I got lucky and seem to have a lot of the same classes as Lainey, which could either be really good, or really bad. I’m a notorious chatterbox with the people I love, and always have been. My teachers would send report cards home with high marks and then write in the margins, “Primrose is a wonderful student, but she could do better if she would stop talking so much in class.”
Needless to say, I can’t really afford to do that here. I don’t have a family counting on me to make something of myself or any young, impressionable omegas looking up to me to break the next glass ceiling. But you know what they say, the most intense kind of pressure is the kind you put on yourself.
Lainey gently nudges me with her elbow, mouthing “you okay?” Her brown eyes are filled with concern.
I nod, shaking myself off and tuning in to the professor as she launches into the syllabus and course expectations. It’s a basic entry-level English class, so most of the syllabus is just assigned books and the papers we’ll write on them. I’m halfway through reading a synopsis for one of the longer novels when a sudden cramp hits, twisting my lower abdomen into knots.
Lainey startles when I double over with a quiet groan. “Holy shit, Posey. Are you okay?’
Sweat gathers on my forehead, a single droplet rolling down my face. “No… I don’t know,” I whimper. “I thought I had at least another year or two before my first heat hit since my mom’s didn’t start until she was twenty-one. But this feels a lot like the way they describe heat symptoms.”
The moment the words leave my mouth, my perfumeexplodes around me, the air saturating with the syrupy sweet scent of apples and honey. My eyes widen as a frenetic energy takes over, clashing with the panic rushing through my body in a wave. Lainey sees the look on my face and darts her hand up, catching the attention of the professor.
“Yes, Miss…?”
“Lainey Ryan, Professor Caldwell. My friend here needs to go to the clinic immediately, can I take her?”
Professor Caldwell takes one look at my sweaty, flushed face and nods, her own eyes widening slightly. We stand up and several growls thunder through the room, likely catching my perfume. The professor growls right back, her tone edged with the start of an alpha bark. “Gentlemen,sit down.”
To my complete shock, the three guys who were getting up drop like stones into their seats. I’ve never met a female alpha before, and if it wasn’t so hard to think straight I might have fallen a tiny bit in love with her for protecting me and keeping those alphas in their seats.
We rush out of the classroom, the floor swimming in front of me and making me stumble. Lainey catches me, but just barely. “What do you want to do, Pose? The clinic will have alpha heat volunteers on standby and they’re all thoroughly vetted. Or there’s a dating app that also has a heat partner option? Or I can take you home and gather all the supplies you’ll need to ride it out alone. But… that will most likely be pretty painful. I can give you one of my sedatives, but you cannot leave your apartment once you take them because they lower your inhibitions as well as your pain.”
I try to think through the options, but my head feels foggy. “I just want my nest.” The sniffle I let out is borderline pathetic, but I couldn’t stop the tears if I tried.
Her eyes soften, and she wipes my tears with a gentle hand. “I know it’s scary, but I’m right here. Let’s get you settled in your nest so I can run out andgrab emergency supplies. You’re in the Lighthouse, right? Is there anyone I should call for you?”
My head bobs just as another cramp rips through my abdomen, and this one is accompanied by a flood of slick I pray doesn’t soak through my jeans. I briefly wonder if I should call Maisie to let her know or ask her for help, but the thought of smelling her alphas and seeing her bond marks makes my omega irrationally upset that we are doing this alone and Maisie has never had to. It’s only a few steps into the hallway when something shiny catches my eye, making me stop and distracting me from my internal dilemma. “A penny! Is it heads or tails?”
Lainey looks at me like I’m crazy, but graciously doesn’t call me out. “Umm, heads?”
I lunge forward, picking up the penny and admiring it for a moment while she watches with an amused slant to her mouth. The world starts to tilt around me making me list to the side and into my friend. “Alright, sweet cheeks. It’s time to get going.”
