Page 3 of Heat Clinic

Another cramping spasm makes me twitch in my seat as I resist the urge to rub against the chair in front of the doctor. The slick panties I changed into will keep me from embarrassing myself as my pussy grows damp at the thought of so many alphas close by. I don’t have any other choice at this point. Not really. I wasted too much time driving across town and packing. Walking out of here will end up with me latching onto the first decent-smelling alpha on the street as I try to hump their leg.

“No, I’ll… I’d like to continue.”

“All right.” She pulls yet another form from a cubby and clips it to a clipboard, then fishes a pen from a drawer. “Fill this out and sign it. I’ll send my assistant in to draw blood. We run a standard STD panel. I have your medication list from your pharmacy. Once the bloodwork comes back, we’ll take over administration of your birth control and assign you a room and a beta attendant.”

“Yeah, fine,” I murmur as I study the three-page front-and-back document while she leaves.

A lot of it is repetitive stuff I’ve already answered, but some of it is new. They have me filling out an enormous preference section that asks me everything from the kinds of scents I like and what age brackets I’d like to match to. What the hell is gourmand, and are there really eighty-year-old alphas coming to the free clinic? I hesitate for a moment, then darken the bubbles for the twenty-five to forty-five brackets. Under gender and dynamic, I select all of them. The part about group activities confuses me—isn’t a giant glory hole a group activity? I check the box to be safe.

The assistant comes and draws my blood, and then I wait. It feels like an eternity later when the nurse from the beginning returns and holds up a pair of white bands, then pulls some plastic charms from her pocket.

“Here’s your bands, hun,” she says as I hold my wrist out to her, and she snaps it into place with a bi pride flag-colored plastic triangle. The rest of the armband’s holes get tagged with other colored charms I don’t understand. She asks me to roll up my leggings and repeats the process with my ankle.

“Your tests came back fine. Here’s your medication.” She hands me a tiny paper cup with a round pink pill inside, then fills a paper cone with water from the cooler in the hallway.

I down it and drain the cup, then hand them both back to her.

She glances at her paperwork. “Your beta attendant is Sam, and your room number is twenty-eight.”

I hope she’s as nice as everyone else has been. So far, I feel like I’ve gotten pretty lucky. This is way better than suffering through the tedium of trying to talk to a Heat Buddy match who answers every single question with a one-word answer that makes me want to rip my hair out in frustration.

“The rooms are small, but they’re private. The door is keyed to your bracelet so only you and staff can enter. I wrote your room number on the inside of your band so if you forget it you can peek and check. Not that you’ll be alone. One of us will always be with you, but just in case. I know that heat can make omegas confused sometimes.”

That’s putting it mildly.

I follow her through the maze of the back area as she leads me to a hallway filled with doors that have a room number plaque and a black badge scanner. We stop outside of room twenty-eight.

“Go ahead and try it to make sure your armband works,” the nurse says.

I hold my armband up to the scanner, and a tiny LED light turns green as an electronic buzzing sound alerts that the door is unlocked. She wasn’t kidding. The room is compact. It’s about half the size of a standard hotel room, and the full-size mattress takes up almost the entire room. There’s a narrow closet and a utilitarian bathroom.

“Your attendant will be in charge of your needs, so if there’s something you want, all you have to do is ask. The attendants also bring you to and from your treatment sessions. Most sessions last about four hours and then you’ll have a break to rest. As your heat reaches its peak, we’ll reassess your needs and vital signs. You’ll have bloodwork done every day to make sure you’re not getting malnourished or dehydrated.”

That surprises me. There are so many stories, so many rumors, that it’s hard to tell what’s exaggeration and what’s real.

“Oh, here’s Sam now,” she says as she glances down the hallway.

A tan man with sandy hair and warm brown eyes waves as he steps into the doorway. He’s wearing green scrubs and bright blue sneakers, and his wide, friendly smile makes his eyes crinkle at the corners. A smattering of freckles cover his nose and cheeks.

Oh, shit.

Sam is a man.

And he’s hot.

ChapterTwo

EMILY

Sam offersto take my bag from me as I stare at him in mute embarrassment. I suppose it’s silly to still feel shy. Dozens, potentially hundreds of alphas are about to see me. All of me. Naked. What’s one hot beta to add to the list?

“Emily?” the nurse asks, her head cocked. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I croak, and let him slide the strap off my shoulder. “Just nervous. I think it’s finally hitting me that this is really happening.”

She nods. “Well, you can leave whenever you’d like. But only the emergency contact you listed on the forms can take custody of you while you’re experiencing heat delirium.”

I’m regretting listing my mother right now. But who else would I have put down? Ever since moving to Boston for college, it feels like I’ve lost touch with all of my old friends. And if I put Lindsay down she might try to talk me into going to that rut bar, and when I’m high on heat hormones I might go along with it.

---