A fresh pulse rolls through me, lower and deeper, and I cry out, pressing one hand to my stomach and the other flat against the dashboard.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck. Should I take you to them?” Clio asks.
“No.” The word rips out of me sharply. “I can’t, Clio. I can’t walk in there right now. I can’t, not tonight, please. God, I want them so badly, though, to stop the pain.”
“Okay, then I’m taking you to my local heat clinic?”
“Please. Now!”
“All right, it’s fifteen minutes away. Hold on. Seat belt. Breathe.”
Another wave crashes through me, and I moan into the door, fingers digging into the armrest, and my whole body is on fire and hollow at the same time, a doubled sick sensation I’ve never experienced before. But I’ve heard others speak of pain shot through with need. My body is screaming for contact, for a scent, for Alpha cocks.
“I’m gonna die,” I declare.
“No, you’re not.”
“It feels like dying.”
“Omegas don’t die from heats. They feel like dying. That’s different.”
“Thanks, that’s really comforting.”
“I’m doing my best.”
She takes a corner too fast, the car leans hard, and a driver in the next lane blares his horn. Clio leans across me andshouts out the passenger window, “OMEGA IN HEAT, BUDDY!MOVE!”
A laugh rushes out of me through my tears. “Oh my God. I’m never riding with you again.”
“You say that every time.”
“Remind me never to call you when I’m pregnant,” I say, actually smiling for a change.
Another wave slams through me, and the laughter dies in my throat. My hands find my belly and press. The contractions are coming closer together, tighter, each one ripping deeper into the base of my spine than the last. The slick between my thighs is still coming, and my pants are a disaster, but I don’t care anymore.
“Two blocks,” Clio’s saying, eyes on the road. “You’re doing so well, so brave. You’re handling this like an actual champion. I’m going to write you a commendation?—”
“Stop talking.”
She takes the turn too hard, and my shoulder slams into the door as she swears and straightens up. The car bumps over the edge of a side lot between a bookshop and a florist. She throws the car into park at an angle, leaves her door open, and sprints for the glass front door.
The front of the building is painted the softest possible shade of blush pink, with gold cursive lettering across a glowing sign:’Olu’Olu Wellness House. Omega Care.Underneath, in smaller letters:A sanctuary since 1994.
I sit in the passenger seat, bent forward over my own lap, panting through another contraction, and for a second, I cannot remember how to move my body at all. Then I try to push open my door.
Clio comes running back out thirty seconds later. “Oh my God. I forgot you. I’m such an idiot.”
I try to laugh but instead groan from the agony.
She yanks my door open and gets one of my arms around her shoulders and hauls me upright. I bite down on a cry because standing has made everything worse. I keep my steps small, hyperaware of the state of my pants, my face burning with fresh humiliation on top of everything else. “I’m a mess.”
“Nobody cares,” Clio murmurs. “Every single person in that building has seen worse. I promise.” She pushes the glass door open with her hip and walks me through.
The reception lobby is the softest room I’ve ever been inside in my life.
Pink marble veined with cream on the floor. The walls are a warm off-white, washed in gold from a gently domed ceiling above. A curved reception desk of pale wood. Behind it, a single receptionist in a white tunic over pink trousers, her dark hair in a low, neat knot. She’s small, mid-thirties, with a calm expression.
I inhale the jasmine and eucalyptus in the air, with something warm and sweet running underneath, vanilla maybe, or honey. Harp music plays from the speakers. Along one wall is a long, curved velvet bench in dusty rose. Along the other, framed photographs in soft focus. Alphas, all of them, beautiful, some shirtless, some just portraits of jaws and eyes. Marketing, comfort, or both.
