"I c-couldn't stop it." My voice wavers. "I couldn't think. My body just went and I had no control."
"I know." His thumb keeps its rhythm against my scalp. "That's not something you need to be afraid of."
"It's the most frightening thing that's ever happened to me."
He holds my gaze for a long moment before reaching for my phone. I let him take it. He types, scrolls, types again, then hands it back. "Mine and Dominic's. When this happens again, you call us instead of handling it alone in a bathroom."
"How did you know about the bathroom?"
His mouth thins. "I didn't, until you just told me." He lets that sit for a second before his expression softens. "But I could smell my father on you when I got close enough, which is a conversation we're going to have. Just not tonight."
He stands and pulls me up with him, keeping a hand on my waist as I find my balance. His thumb presses against my hip bone through the fabric, lingering while I steady myself.
"Food, water, sleep, in that order." He commands but they don’t feel overbearing. It feels nice not to have to think. "Let's get you inside."
My body is still humming from whatever happened when he scented my hair. I walk beside him toward the house without arguing, his hand remaining on my waist the entire way with his thumb making small circles against my hip.
After a quick sandwich and a glass of water, I scurry to my room and close the door, before curling up in the corner of my bed. The makeshift nest is a poor imitation of the one I used to have but it’s better than nothing, my body curving against the cushions as I allow myself to relax for the first time all night.
My thoughts run rampant before falling on Amos’ words. He seemed so... sincere but all Alphas do, when they want something, don’t they? Except... his version would be better than Richard’s.
Right?
Dominic
Amoswalksintomyoffice carrying interdepartmental reports and the expression he wears when he's been holding something in all morning and has finally hit his limit.
I don't let him get to the desk. I'm across the room before he can set the files down, my hand catching the back of his neck and pulling him into a kiss that's half greeting and half grievance. He makes a startled sound against my mouth and then softens intoit, his free hand finding my hip while the reports crinkle between our chests.
"You're going to wrinkle the quarterly summaries," he murmurs.
"I don't care about the quarterly summaries." I keep him close with my forehead against his, breathing him in until my chest loosens. "I didn't get to see you last night. Father hijacked dinner, you vanished afterward, and Mattaniah has been flinching every time I walk past his desk all morning."
Amos pulls back enough to meet my eyes. The warmth in his expression fades, replaced by the focus he brings to problems he's been turning over in his head. "I know, that's why I'm here." He sets the reports on my desk and perches on the edge, settling into the spot that used to annoy me and now just looks like where he belongs. "I didn't want to have this conversation on the phone, and I haven't had a free minute until now."
"You've been sitting on something since last night?"
"Since yesterday evening." He pushes his glasses up.
A flicker of irritation moves through me. "You're keeping secrets from me."
"No, but I think there's a whole picture we're missing and I wanted the pieces assembled before I brought it to you." He watches my face, trying to pick apart something while I continue. "Mattaniah had a heat spike yesterday at the office."
I go still.
"It wasn't a full heat, it was a spike that came on suddenly with no warning and completely outside his normal cycle." He folds his arms across his chest as he leans back a little. "He let slip that he ended up in the bathroom on the fifteenth floor, and based on the scent I picked up in that corridor, it was bad."
I picture Mattaniah alone in an office bathroom with his body turning on him in a building full of people who work for ourfather. A snarl sits at the back of my throat but I swallow it back far enough to get Amos to continue. "Then what happened?"
"Then nothing." Amos lets that word sit between us. "He apparently cleaned himself up, changed into spare clothes because I noticed he wasn’t wearing what he was yesterday morning and went back to work and finished his day. He didn't tell anyone and he didn't ask for help because he didn't have anyone's number to call. His phone contacts are his mother, two old coworkers, and a rent-an-Alpha service."
I absorb the fact that Mattaniah probably has a clinical stranger dispatched to handle his biology every three months, and the contrast between that arrangement and what happened between us pisses me off.
"You gave him our numbers, right?"
My mate nods, letting out a small sigh. "Last night, after I found him in the garden behind the east wing. He’d been having a full breakdown, like he’s been holding everything together by the skin of his teeth."
I turn to the window because I need a moment with my own face unobserved. The picture I've been carrying of Mattaniah has a flaw in it. I've been calculating him as responsive, an Omega whose walls come down at the first application of real pressure. His walls do come down. I've watched it happen twice.
