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She woke hot, her dream of standing in a late summer storm crashing in her ears and fading as she sat up. Her bed looked torn apart, blankets bunched and extra pillows out of place. Half-awake, not thinking, she went to her closet to get more blankets and pillows. There was a stash tucked away in the back, hiding under several out-of-fashion dresses in bland colors that her mother had chosen.
Dragging the extra bedding out, she remade her sleeping area, tore it apart, and then put it all together again. The fresh blankets smelled better, but it wasn’t right. And she didn’t know how to make it right.
Too tired to deal with it, Phee crawled to the center, mounded everything over the top of herself, and drifted off again. But it wasn’t a proper sleep. Her skin was hot and tight, her insides were cramping, and her body felt ungainly.
It felt like her heat cycle, but it couldn’t be. Phee had done everything anyone could think of to stimulate her estrus, and nothing had worked. Doctors took cups of blood out of her body, searching for why her cycle stopped. Legs shoved over her head, poked, prodded and plunged, her doctor had investigated every inch of her anatomy for flaws. She endured every pill, tonic, and exercise they could throw at her. For two days, she’d kept her head under a towel and her face over a bowl, breathing in a stinking concoction of steaming, heated herbs meant to clear her sinuses. Afterward, she had sneezed, snorted, and vomited mucus for another two days. She was purified, cleansed, and stimulated inside and out.
Nothing worked. Therefore, this could not be her estrus cycle. Even if it felt exactly the same.
Having fallen asleep wearing her clothing, Phee tore everything off, growling at the tie of her dress when it didn’t easily give way. She stripped down to her foundation wear, removing it too because it felt rough and uncomfortable against her skin.
Phee hated being naked. With her trim, spare body, she had learned to use clothing as armor. Her breasts were smaller than the average omega’s, her waist long and her hips boyish. Mother pointed out often that Phee had the body of a beta.
Bracing herself for what she would see, Phee turned up her lights and went to her looking glass, checking for other signs. Her little breasts were bigger, and her normally light pink areolas had darkened to an obscene plum. Palming her own breast caused an unpleasant ache. Determined to test everything, Phee pinched the long tip of her nipple anyway, forcing herself to do it until she couldn’t take it anymore.
Usually this caused a muted, but uncomfortable feeling—it had annoyed her so much when Swift insisted on messing with her nipples. This time, sensation shot directly to her center.
Phee moaned. She had forgotten how good that was. So fresh and new was the feeling, she wondered if it had ever been this good. That first time, a lifetime ago, her first heat—maybe. Maybe it had felt like this. She remembered the uncurling of a reckless, demanding hunger so strong it had frightened her.
Closing her eyes, Phee did it again, need sinking past all sense of proper behavior, shoving its claws deep. Overpowering her. She’d never before touched herself or lowered herself to disgusting self-pleasure.
She’d tried to be above it all, and that had left her with nothing. Dream or nightmare, this was a second chance. Phee had been too afraid before, but now, with nothing left to lose, she brought both hands up and let herself touch her skin.
Just to be sure.
Standing naked in front of the mirror, hands cupping her breasts, Phee imagined the male’s heated gaze turned on her, his lip curled, ready to dominate her with his alpha growl.
Chapter Nine
They built houses here so that the inside was bigger than the outside appeared. Alreck wasn’t an architect. He didn’t know how they accomplished it. He had done his first walkthrough, finding all the stairways—and where the omega Phee slept—as soon as he’d entered the house.
There were not enough escape routes, drones slept on the same floors as breed, and the hallways were a bottleneck. He didn’t like it. Although built to breed scale with higher ceilings, there was a closed-in feeling to the place that compelled him to duck through the doorways. He felt like he’d smack his head on something otherwise.
The omega matron of the home wanted to put him and the other guards on her husband-mate’s floor. It was a fine space for single males. The family rooms were above, the living space below. But since Darre would not be there, Alreck would not be there either.
Alreck wanted a guard on the family floor in the hall, which insulted Naya’s mother to the point of tears. Her husband-mate gave him an irritated look, but said nothing to either of them. Alreck had insisted. He had to have guards in both stairways. And that was just the house levels. There were four entrances into the house, plus two easily accessible upper balconies. There were people coming and going at all hours, including extra servants.
And the smell of omega was everywhere. Embedded in the walls. Marking the fabric of furniture.Hersmell. After talking to her at the base of the stairs, he knew Phee was the cause of the summer-scented pheromones lighting up his senses. Every breath the female took was a yank at his dick.
He tasted blood in his mouth after. And trying to clean up the mess his hard cock left behind in his pants in the too-small toilet room was not fun either.
Years of living filled this house with female scents that went right to the carnal part of his brain. The living space and office area claimed by Naya’s father offered a break from the scent, as the women rarely if ever went to that floor. Alreck decided each member of the team would take at least a two-hour breather on that floor.
When his turn arrived and Blane appeared at the front of the house to take his place, Alreck couldn’t make himself go. He had a responsibility to Naya and Darre. The memory of a backstabbing assassination attempt against the couple in the tunnel after a day of pit fights still felt like his failure to protect them. No one expected that ambush. But signs of the set up stood out now as starkly as a naked omega walking down the street and Alreck had missed them all. That wasn’t going to happen a second time.
He’d come to this upside down, glamourous sector planning to be vigilant. With a slow, pregnant omega, there weren’t going to be any fucking mistakes again. The differences of this place put him on edge. Naya’s sister’s presence didn’t help. That omega messed with all his senses.
He smelled her in every room. Felt her. He knew where and when she occupied each space, where she liked to sit, what corner she would lurk in, hoping to be ignored. He found the hall where she lingered, muscles jumping with the urge to seek her out and bury his face against her neck for his next breath of air.
She’d fit nicely under his chin, and his hands would find that perfect space in the curve of her hips. When his rounds took him to her floor, he found himself outside her door, again and again. Hunting her perfume, listening for her movements, anything, from the other side of the wood. He’d never felt like this before.
“Go take a breather,” Alreck told Jordan.
“I need one. Shit. This kitchen – the mother is in and out, drones eye-fucking me and that younger omega walked past me hours ago. I swear I can still smell her. I thought my eyes would roll back in my head as my pecker turned to stone and I fell to my knees. I’ve never wanted a taste of a female so bad.”
“You aren’t getting a taste of anything.” Alreck fisted his hands to keep them off his swagger stick.
