I just shrug. “I’m sure I can work something out with the school. Principal Lowder is always understanding about these things, being an Omega herself.”
As the three of us stand in the hallway, preparing for how we’re going to take care of Lia if she demands it, I can’t help but smile to myself.
Their certainty in things makes a calm settle throughout my body. The buzz of fear that always rattles the marrow of my bones is gone, replaced with a realization that we’re in the process of building something amazing.
Pack.
The word itself feels so new, but also… right. It doesn’t give me anxiety. It doesn’t give me fear. It doesn’t give me questions. Back in the day, that’s how I knew I was stepping in the right direction with Gloria. Everything with her felt right.
Like how everything feels right with Lia and them now.
But from the other side of the door, a sound emerges. A whine, sharp and high-pitched. Seconds later, her scent slams into all of us.
Walker’s back stiffens. Knox’s fists bunch up at his sides. The hairs on the nape of my neck stand on end. The sharp sweetness of cinnamon rolls and buttery icing barrels through me like a wall of wind, knocking the breath out of me.
And then the door opens.
“Daddy?” Amber asks. “Lia’s really hot. I think something’s wrong.”
Lia
Too soon.
The thought slams into me the moment Amber leaves my side.
It’s too soon.
My heat isn’t supposed to start yet. I should still have a few more days before it hits full force.
The one good thing that comes with my Alpha Rejection Syndrome is that the build is low and slow. It gives me time to prepare and work my schedule around things.
Ever since my ARS diagnosis, my cycle has always given me what I call “workaround time.” Heats don’t slam into me like other Omegas now, they slowly build until I’m so pissed off that I’m ready to get it over with.
This feels like being thrown into the deep end of a lake.
Voices murmur outside the bedroom door, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. My body is too loud. Time blurs together as my instincts claw at me, threatening to drag me under.
I hate feeling so out of control.
The first cramp hits low in my belly, and I whine into the pillow before I can stop myself. The ache twists through me,deep and pulsing, like something inside me is winding tighter and tighter.
I need a knot.
Heat floods my skin. My thighs press together instinctively, but it doesn’t help. Slick already drips between them, warm and viscous and humiliating as it soaks into Eli’s bed sheets beneath me.
Worst. Timing. Ever.
I want my nest. Ineedmy nest. I ache to burrow into my blankets and toss them over my head. But when I think about heading back to that stupid apartment with that stupid air mattress, it only makes me angrier.
I don’t even have a nest. I haven’t settled shit with my renter’s insurance to even think about getting a bed for a nest.
How did I end up in this situation?
How did I allow myself to become so vulnerable so quickly?
Not good, not good, not?—
I feel another cramp churning in my pelvis. My back bows as I roll onto my hands and knees, presenting myself to an empty room. My nostrils flare and their scents rocket up my nose.
