"We were giving you space to process."
I snort through the tears because that is such obvious bullshit, but I don't have the energy to push it. He sits beside me on the bench, close enough that his scent mingles with whatever'sleft of mine underneath the extra cream I slathered on after the bathroom.
"Why do you even care?" I push out, trying to steady my voice. "You don't know me, and I've been here less than a week."
"Right now, I want you to stop white-knuckling it alone and let someone sit with you."
"That's n-not an answer."
"It's the only one I've got tonight."
The boxwood blocks most of the wind, but the evening air is cool enough that I can feel it on the damp patches where I scrubbed the tears away. We sit in silence for a moment, my defenses crumbling one brick at a time. He’s waiting for an answer but unlike Richard, I don’t feel like I’ll be losing something when I tell Amos.
Maybe it’s dangerous but there’s no one else to talk to.
"Something happened to me today at the office." My voice comes out barely above a whisper. "My body did something it's never done before. I think... something is broken."
Amos is quiet for a beat, then his voice shifts into the register I recognize from his office. "When was your last heat?"
I don’t know what that has to do with anything but I answer him anyway. "Six weeks ago, right on schedule. Every three months since I was fourteen."
"And your blockers have been failing since you moved here."
I nod.
"Has anything like this ever happened before, around other Alphas?"
The question makes me actually think, cycling through every Alpha I’ve ever known. "No. Never."
"You're living in a house with three unmated Alphas, Niah." He says it gently but the weight beneath it keeps it from sounding like reassurance. "You've been on heavy suppressants for a while, right?” He waits for me to nod before continuing.“Your system artificially locked down. Has it occurred to you that your body isn't breaking, that it might be responding to pheromones it's never encountered at this concentration?"
I stare at him while the implications hit faster than I can process them. "It's going to keep happening, isn't it?" I whisper.
"Probably." He doesn't soften it. "But you don't have to go through it alone."
His arm comes around my shoulders. My muscles lock and my hands clench in my lap because letting Amos hold me while I'm crying and vulnerable is the stupidest thing I've done all week.
"You don't have to trust me," he says. "You just have to let me sit here." He’s going to want more than sitting. All Alphas do. Dominic did. Richard seems to. And every Alpha Mom ever brought into the house wanted more. And yet... I don’t move.
I stay stiff inside the circle of his arm, braced against the pull of his warmth. Then he tilts his head and presses his nose into my hair.
His arm tightens, his grip locking me against his side with a possessiveness that has nothing gentle about it. A startled "oh" escapes my mouth, and then I'm gone.
My weight drops into his chest and my face presses into the curve of his neck. My hands find his shirt and twist into the fabric. My breathing dissolves into something much slower and deeper, a sound starting in my chest that I've never heard myself make, a low vibration that hums through my ribs and into his body.
I'm purring against him and I can't stop.
His hand cradles the back of my skull with his fingers threading into my curls. His other arm wraps tighter around me, the grip communicating something very different from comfort. My body shut down every defense I had without asking, and instead of fighting, I'm burrowing deeper into his neck and breathing his scent in greedy pulls.
"There you go." His voice has a roughness that the gentle version of him never shows. "There you go, Niah. I've got you."
The purring tapers off slowly. My thoughts resurface, foggy at first, then sharper as I register where I am and what I'm doing. I'm curled against Amos' chest on a garden bench with my face in his neck and my fingers tangled in his shirt, and his arm around my waist shows no sign of loosening.
"What just happened to me?" My voice comes out hoarse against his collar.
"Your body recognized something it needed and stopped waiting for your permission to get it."
I pull back enough to look at him, though his arm keeps me close. My face must look wrecked, but the expression on his tells me he's not seeing the mess. He's seeing something else entirely, and the satisfaction underneath it isn't even slightly hidden.
