The copy room is windowless and cramped and smells like toner, and I'm standing at the machine waiting for quarterly reports when his scent reaches me from behind, that suffocating cologne masking something underneath that makes every instinct I have scream at me to flatten myself against the floor and stop breathing. His hand lands on my shoulder before I can turn around.
"You smell different lately." His voice is almost pleasant, the tone he uses when he expects me to explain myself without directly asking a question. We haven’t shared a meal since my mother and I showed up, not that I’m complaining, but his presence is everywhere in the house.
Mom isn’t any better, her awful laughter bouncing off the walls as she brings in luxurious items and new wardrobes and jewelry that Richard barely bats an eyelash at. I’ve been outfitted with new clothes as well, but only because I was told to behave.
So, I stay curled up in my room, avoiding my stepbrothers as well, because that’s another nightmare I can’t entertain. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the way I melted for Dominic...twiceand Amos in his office when—
I shake my head out of those thoughts as Richard’s fingers curl over my shoulder and his thumb finds the back of my neck, pressing into the spot he's been working all week. "Something's changed. Sweeter, maybe? Less controlled."
My heart rate doubles. The two blockers I took this morning are clearly not enough to mask whatever he's detecting. "New brand of suppressants,” I push out. “My body is still regulating." Which is mostly the truth. I called my doctor after 48 hours under the Hale roof for a higher dose. He all but said I’d die if I didn’t wean myself off of them and then handed me a double dose. It’s not really working.
"Hmm." He steps closer until his chest nearly touches my back, his thumb circling against my neck. "It's not just the suppressants, though. You smell like my sons."
The air leaves my lungs.
"You've been spending time with them." He says it without inflection, a fact presented for my response while the calculation behind it sits barely concealed. "Their scents are on you underneath everything else."
Richard’s scent tinges with anger, but I can’t pinpoint the reason why. My body curls into itself, my instincts yelling at me to fix a problem I didn’t cause. "They've been helping me learn the office systems, sir." My voice comes out steady only because I've had years of practice lying to dangerous Alphas while my body screams at me to run. "It's a large building, and proximity is unavoidable."
"Proximity." He repeats the word like he's tasting it, then leans close enough that his breath warms the shell of my ear. "Be careful with proximity, Mattaniah. My sons are charming when they want something, but they lose interest quickly." His hand slides down to the small of my back, his fingers spreading wide. "I, on the other hand, am very patient."
The printer finishes and I grab the reports and step sideways, breaking the contact with as much grace as I can manage. "I'll have these on your desk in five minutes, sir."
He lets me go, which tells me that my departure is something he's permitting rather than something I'm choosing. I make it six steps down the hallway before my body detonates.
One moment, I'm walking with reports pressed to my chest, racing through strategies for avoiding Richard's hands for the rest of the day. The next, heat rips through my abdomen so violently that I stagger into the wall and nearly drop everything I'm carrying. This feels nothing like my heats, which arrive every three months with a day's warning and get managed by a rent-an-Alpha at a motel. This is a fire that starts in my core and radiates outward so fast my vision blurs.
"No no no no no," I whisper, as slick starts soaking through my underwear in a rush that makes me clamp my thighs together in the middle of the corridor. My scent punches through the blocker so hard that a passing Beta staffer turns to stare, and if Richard catches this on me ten seconds after his hand was on my back he'll read it as a response to him.
I count every one of the twelve steps to the bathroom with my thighs slipping against each other and my hands shaking so badly the reports crumple in my grip. When I get there, I shove through the door and lock myself in the farthest stall and press my back against the partition with my knees drawn to my chest.
"Stop it," I mutter through clenched teeth, pressing my forehead against my knees. "Stop, just stop."
My body doesn't stop. The heat keeps building in waves, each one cresting higher than the last, and the craving that comes with it terrifies me because it's reaching for two specific Alphas with a focus that overrides every rational thought.
The pain lasts twenty minutes, maybe thirty. I lose track in the haze of it, my body clenching and releasing in waves while slick pools beneath me on the tile. Each crest comes harder than the last, and between them the craving sharpens into something that feels like being pulled apart from the inside, my muscles locking and releasing in spasms I can't control.
I bite down on my forearm to keep from making sounds, pressing my teeth into the flesh until the pain gives me something to focus on besides the heat. By the time the spike finally ebbs, the relief is so sudden it makes me dizzy, the world tilting sideways as my body goes limp against the partition.
I sit there for a long time, breathing through the aftershocks, taking stock of the damage. My pants are soaked through from mid-thigh to the backs of my knees, the fabric dark and clingingto my skin. There is no version of walking through an office building in these clothes that doesn't announce to every Alpha on the floor exactly what just happened to me.
Tears well up in my eyes as I dig through my options, realizing I have an out.
My emergency bag.I keep a change of clothes in my desk drawer because my mother taught me to always have an exit strategy, and even though her version involved fleeing hotels at three in the morning, the principle translates. The problem is that my desk is on the other side of the floor, past Richard's office, and through a corridor where any passing Alpha could catch my scent.
I pull my phone out with shaking hands and text Tamsin. We’ve become cordial sitting next to each other and I’m praying she’s nice enough to help me out.
"I spilled coffee all over myself and I'm stuck in the 15th floor bathroom. I have a spare change of clothes in my bottom desk drawer in a black bag. Could you bring it to me?"
Her reply comes in under a minute."Give me two minutes."
I clean myself up as best I can while I wait, scrubbing my thighs with paper towels and cold water until the skin stings, and then splashing water on my face and the back of my neck. The scent is the bigger problem because no amount of scrubbing removes it entirely, and when Tamsin's knock comes I crack the door open just wide enough to take the bag from her hands.
"Thank you, I'm so sorry, I'm a disaster."
"You okay?" She asks it quietly, her nostrils flaring as she catches whatever is seeping through the crack in the door. Something shifts in her expression that tells me the coffee story just died on arrival.
"I'm fine, just clumsy." The lie comes out smooth because lying under pressure is one of the few skills my mother gave me that I'm actually grateful for.
