Being ignored was familiar.
I kept my eyes on the table, letting the voices blur into a low hum. The doctor’s tone was calm and clinical. The kind used for charts and symptoms.
“He shut down earlier. I didn’t realize what was happening until after, but also,” there was a pause before the sound of pills rattling in a bottle echoed around their room. My gut sank.
I didn’t want any more of those. Ever.
“Alpha Lockswell insisted I take these with me with mypurchase.”
Alpha Moore stood from the chair, and that tiny bit of space let me take a deep breath. But that only lasted for half a second before everything crashed down on me like a tidal wave.
I wasn’t here to be looked at. I was here to serve. To serve whoever wanted my body. My mind was already gone, taken by others already. There was no hope there.
But Icouldserve these two Alphas. I would, even though I wanted anything else.
The buzzing of need began to boil under my skin. The need to submit. The need to please. Just…need.It was stronger than forcing air into my lungs.
“Drive Hold. Supposed to help Omegas kind of stimulate how a heat would be, if Omegas had them. But the side effects are anything but good. Sure, it works to boost the sex drive of the one taking these, but they can last up to seven hours, longer in some cases. Side effects are dissociation, difficulty focusing, shakiness, lack of appetite or even nausea, tiredness, heightened obedience, just to name a few.”
The next words never reached me. Everything around me thinned out, sound fading until it was nothing but a distant hum. My mind slipped blank again, the way it always did when the pressure built too fast for me to hold it back.
I tried to fight it, tried to stay here, in this room, at this moment, but the pull was too strong. It always was. The harder I clung to the present, the quicker it dissolved between my fingers.
That familiar burn rose in my chest. A tight, overwhelming rush that swallowed thought and sense alike. I hated it. Hated how automatic it felt.
But like every time before, resisting was useless.
All I could do was surrender to the wave and hope I resurfaced on the other side.
Slipping free of the chair, I dropped to my knees without a sound. The movement was automatic, practiced, something my body remembered even when my mind didn’t. In the next breath, my hands moved on their own, tugging up the shirt over my head and letting it fall beside me as I settled into the posture I’d been shaped into.
It started with the sound of the bottle.
A sharp rattle that made every muscle in my body lock up. I didn’t know what it meant then, not really, but the other Omegas did. Their eyes went flat; their shoulders curled inward. One of them whispered “not again”before a handler snapped at him to be quiet.
I didn’t understand why everyone suddenly looked afraid. More than normal.
When the pill was pressed into my hand, I hesitated. Just a second. Just long enough for the handler’s fingers to tighten around my wrists.
“Swallow.” The word was cold and final.
I obeyed.
The taste was bitter, chalky, sticking to the back of my tongue even after I forced it down. For a moment, nothing happened. I thought maybe it was just another supplement, another vitamin, another thing to keep usregulated.
It didn’t take long to take effect. Maybe ten minutes, if that.
The heat hit.
It started low in my chest, a slow burn that spread outward like someone had lit a fuse beneath my skin. My breath caught, vision blurred at the edges, and my heart kicked hard against my ribs.
I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know why my body felt like it wasn’t mine anymore.
The handlers watched and studied. They took notes.
I remember reaching for something. Maybe it was air, balance, anything, but my hands couldn’t stop shaking. My thoughts scattered, slipping through my fingers faster than I could grab them. Every sound felt too loud. Every breath was too shallow. My skin was too tight, and everything was too hot.
I tried to speak. I tried to ask what was wrong with me. But no sound came out.
