Page 1 of Excess

Chapter 1

INIKA

“What are your plans for your heat?” Maia asked with discomfiting familiarity, lounging in the chair in front of my desk and taking notes at rapid-fire pace on her phone. “It’s coming up, no?”

“It is. It’s really not considered good form to ask about it, though.”

She shrugged, unapologetic. Maia’s no-nonsense approach to everything was why I’d hired her as my assistant in the first place, but it had its drawbacks. Then again, perhaps all betas would be as blasé about such a topic? The concept of heats was as foreign to them as the concept of casual dating was to me.

“I mean, I need to know how accessible you’re going to be,” she retorted, tossing her inky black hair over her shoulder and raising a pierced eyebrow at me. “I know you’ve put in notice to go on leave, but the office might still reach out. I need to know what to tell them.”

“How much experience do you have with omegas in heat?” I asked, amused. “I will be entirely inaccessible. Negative accessible. If you attempt to speak to me, I may claw your eyeballs out of your face, and I wouldn’t even realise I’d done it until after I’d emerged from my nest.”

Maia’s other eyebrow shot up. “That feral, huh? Sounds like a pain.”

“Something like that,” I agreed. “You’ll need to block off five days on the calendar from when my heat hits—at the very minimum. I’ve already given the team an approximate date, and it’s an annual event so they know what to expect from me, but if you could confirm with them that I’m no longer available when I retreat to my nest, that would be great. You’ll also need to contact Prendre and ask them to send the alpha over if I don’t manage to contact them before I lose my senses.”

Maia glanced up from her furious note-taking, her eyebrows shooting up. “The what?”

I’d never had to explain any of this to Tess, my previous assistant. But I supposed I couldn’t hold it against her that she wanted to go off and see the world rather than being cooped up in my house most of the day, stuck doing my bidding. The compensation was generous, but it probably wasn’t the glamorous role she’d envisioned as an heiress’s personal assistant.

Maia disliked people and rarely left the staff accommodation at the back of the property when she wasn’t working. We were a much better fit. She also only answered to me—unlike Tess, who’d been hired by my parents.

“The alpha,” I repeated with a wry smile. “Not my alpha. Prendre is an agency that connects alphas who… make themselves available, with single omegas for their heats.”

“Like a gigolo or something?”

“It’s not quite as involved as all that,” I laughed. Well, there probably were alphas who operated more as kept lovers, but I had no interest in one of those. “There’s an interview process beforehand which I’ll need to set in motion shortly. I select who I want, they appear for the heat, then they disappear again afterwards. There are nests-for-hire available on their premises, but I use the spare bedroom as a temporary nest. Obviously, I wouldn’t bring them back to my real one.”

“Obviously,” Maia repeated faintly. “Couldn’t they just bite you, though? When you’re not poisonous?”

It was a distasteful topic of conversation, but I didn’t shut it down. Not everyone was as non-judgemental about my use of alphas-for-hire as Maia appeared to be.

Actually, it was quite nice to be asked. Mostly, people decided they already knew everything about how omegas worked. Half the time, they were alpha-splaining it to me.

“The toxin in my blood is neutralised during my heat, so they could bite me without suffering any harm. Which is why there are… muzzles involved.” I did blush at that, imagining the visual that Maia would come up with. It was just as sordid as it sounded. “Mated alphas stand guard outside around the clock. The working alpha takes food and water breaks when the omega sleeps; the guards are mostly there to see to their needs.”

There was nothing more resilient than an omega in heat. I didn’t need food. I survived on electrolyte drinks sucked through a straw. What I needed was orgasms.

Maia blinked. “Wow. That all sounds… elaborate.”

“It is. It’s not a realistic option for most omegas.” We both knew I wasn’t most omegas when it came to finances.

“I have a lot more questions.”

I tried and failed to suppress a smile. “You can ask one. I probably need to start getting ready for tonight.”

By which I meant I would take off my make-up, put on a sheet mask, and lie in my nest to disassociate for as long as physically possible before actually getting ready.

Maia mulled it over, drumming the back of her phone case with her pointed nails. “I was going to ask if it wouldn’t just be easier to get a mate, but I guess I know the answer to that. That’s a very permanent decision that you have to live with outside the nest, too.”

“It is.” A very permanent decision for a very indecisive omega to make.

“Okay. Okay, here’s my question. Is it a taboo thing? I don’t mean that as an insult or anything, but if I hired someone to bang me for several days—with a muzzle on, no less—I think I’d, you know, get some looks. At the very least.”

“I’ve never considered that,” I laughed. Most of my staff and my colleagues were betas. It wasn’t like I didn’t spend time around them. But sometimes I forgot their needs were so different from mine. So easily managed and unobtrusive. “The agencies aren’t considered taboo, per se. They’re not only used for heats, and it’s a luxury experience, so there’s a sense of… exclusivity about it, I suppose.”

I hesitated, choosing my words carefully. “That they service omegas in heat is probably seen as taboo by some people. It’s not a particularly well-known practice outside of, well, those who can afford it, I suppose.”

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