Page 17 of Alpha's Second Chance

“They’d never stop.”

“The sooner the better then!”

I caught her around the waist as we headed outside to hunt for wild game. “Let’s go.”

After we shifted, she caught a squirrel, and I caught a rabbit. While we shared our meals as bears, I noticed Eve’s honeyed scent, mixed with spruce was growing stronger.

Abruptly, she shifted back to human and I followed suit. She clutched at her stomach. “I feel really weird.”

Her cheeks, which were already rosy, turned a deep red. “How so?” I asked.

“Everything’s bright. Loud.”

I sniffed the air. “You smell different too.”

“Well I did just run around as a bear and eat raw meat.”

“Again, not a turn off for me. But no, you smell like you. Like honey and fresh spruce trees, but more so.”

Even through the flush her face paled. She blinked a few times. “I am a moron. I don’t know why I didn’t realize.”

“Realize what?” I asked. I had no clue what she meant.

Eve rubbed her hand over her mouth. “I’m going into heat.”

Eve

Clearly my body had fully rid itself of the suppressants. Now I was in heat. Supposedly, within twenty-four hours, I’d become mindless with lust. And I was out here in this cabin, surrounded by Owen’s military team, being hunted by a pack of criminals.

I’d never been in heat. Usually they happened sometime after an omega turned eighteen or nineteen. I’d been in Denver by then, drugging myself with as high a dose of suppressants as I could afford at the time. An omega my age usually would have suffered through twenty of them.

I bent forward and rested my head against a tree trunk. Yesterday, I’d yelled at Owen that I didn’t trust him. Now, I was going to have to depend on him to protect me from other shifters during this hellscape, or else I needed to get the fuck away from him and lock myself in a concrete room.

“Eve?”

I lifted my head from the tree trunk and rubbed at the skin. I probably had a nice impression of tree bark etched into my face. “Yes?”

“I think we should get back inside.”

“Yes. Let’s do that.”

“Before this gets more intense, tell me what you want. I can restrain myself. I have handcuffs. I can lock myself up. Or we can lock you in the bedroom, and I can guard you. I have a taser you can use on me.”

It meant a lot to me that he was offering so many options, but none of them would be necessary, besides the most traditional. “I want to share my heat with you. If you’re interested.”

“I was not expecting you to say that,” he said. His voice was rough.

“Owen, listen. I know my leaving wasn’t easy for you. I think it must have sucked royally. I’ve only thought about it from my perspective. But when we were running, I had time to think. You were eighteen, you were doing what you were taught. And to take it further than that, I think the clan probably thought they were doing the right thing.”

“They wanted to protect you.”

“Yes. They saw me and all the other omegas as something precious, that needed to be protected. It wasn’t right, in fact it was very fucking wrong, but it wasn’t cruel, and it wasn’t evil.”

“You’re right. It could have been better, but everyone wanted what they thought was best for omegas.”

How many times was I going to have to explain this to him? If I had a magic spell, the first thing I’d do was make Owen an omega for a month. Then we’d see how he liked being bossed around. “Adult omegas need to make their own choices.”

“I know that now. And I know we haven’t seen eye to eye on the clan, but I’m trying. I have made some changes to the way things work.”

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