Page 24 of The Omega’s Nest

Right, I need to get that under control. It’s okay for me to completely lose my shit when I’m not here, but I can’t let Addie smell it. It’s not his fault, nor his problem. He’s been in the trenches of this place for years; he does not need my bullshit on top of it.

I look down when Addie looks up, his head pillowed on my chest.

“Sorry,” I murmur and push his sweaty hair off his forehead, then lean down to brush my lips over the divot between his eyes. “I’m just thinking about how you have to be … well, here.”

Addie drops his head back down and his scent blooms with shame.

“Not like that,” I say and tighten my hold on him.

He nods, but his scent doesn’t change. I frown at the cracked ceiling of this tiny closet and try to figure out how to make that stop. At least it smells like nothing but us in here—I’d left my hoodie from last night, and tonight I brought the contents of my laundry, the clothes I’d worn before I started coming here.

I was worried Addie would think it was filthy, but he grabbed it all with greedy hands and spent half an hour decking out the nest with my jeans, socks, boxers, hoodies, and undershirts. It made my heart soar and my stomach turn over.

But I need to ask him something inappropriate, and I’m not sure how to word it. If we were courting, the timing of his heat wouldn’t be something I’d bring up—he’d go into heat when he went into heat, and I’d wait if it was three months or a year away. Omegas varied, but most had quarterly heats, while others could go six months, and some annually. It really depended on the omega.

In our other life, I’d have waited that year and courted him with nothing but joy that he was even giving me that. Except now I don’t have that kind of time. I have thirty-four days. Maximum.

“Addie, umm …” I run my hand up and down the bumps of his spine and just try to say it.

Addie makes a curious noise. His scent is still awash with shame, but it remains sated, rich with the pristine air of contentment. It gives me some courage.

“When do you think … Well, I just wondered … Ah, heat?”

Eloquent, Leonard. Real fucking eloquent.

“Oh,” Addie says and his scent does something complicated—spikes with lust and anxiety. “Umm, it’s scheduled. So, it’s probably … umm …”

Scheduled?

“What do you mean, scheduled?” My hand pauses on the dip of his lower back.

“I’m on suppressants, we all are. And umm, we get scheduled because …”

I’m stuck on suppressants.

“Suppressants?” I ask, voice rising. “Aren’t those really fucking dangerous?”

I feel him cringe away from me. Right, dial down the anger. It’s not like he chose to be on suppressants.

“Yes, but it’s better than—”

He cuts himself off.

“It’s better than what?” I run my hand up to his nape and cuff him gently. Massaging the muscles, I lightly stroke my thumb up and down his mating gland. It works—he relaxes.

“Than going into heat more than once a year,” he mumbles.

I swallow very deliberately and choose my next words very carefully. He’s been here for three years. That’s at least three heats. And something about those heats is so bad that he’s glad to be on suppressants.

Suppressants that are known to fuck with an omega’s endocrine system—I’m no biologist or dynamics specialist, but we’ve all heard the scandalised whispers about omegas who use them. Barren. Erratic heats when they come off them. Heats so bad they could die an excruciating death without an alpha helping them through it.

Well, omegas can die without someone helping them through it anyway, and that’s something else I’ve tried not to think about over the years. Addie never smelled like anything after his heats, so presumably he used a beta service. But smell or not, those days when he came back to school with black bags under his eyes, skin pallid, leaning against me with his full weight at lunch and recess, I had my first experiences with the red haze.

“What happens,” I begin slowly, thumb pressing on his mating gland to calm us both. “With your heats?”

Addie buries his face against my throat, and I feel the word as much as I hear it. “Auction.”

“Auction?” I ask faintly. Is he saying omegas in heat are auctioned off? Addie has been auctioned off in that state? Sold and left to be used by some alpha for days when he was out of his fucking mind with need?