Page 18 of Heat Me

"What happened here?"

Damien glanced back at the guy. "He tried to stop me from opening the door. So I… zapped him."

I looked at Damien’s hands, half expecting to see a taser, but he shook his head slightly, smirking.

"I don’t need one."

He held up his hand, and tiny arcs of electricity danced across his fingertips.

My jaw dropped.

I’d heard that some rose omegas had ‘powers’ coming from the genetic legacy of our alien ancestors. Supposedly, the extraterrestrials used telepathy and could discharge electric currents like electric eels. But the rose omegas’ powers weren’t well-studied and varied wildly from one rose omega to the next—some weren’t that obvious, kind of like how purple alphas all had slightly different traits.

I smirked back at him, then turned to the young alpha.

"Now get lost. Damien doesn’t need you anymore."

"No, he doesn’t need you!" the guy spat, his voice shrill and childish.

"If I hear that from Damien, I’ll leave," I said, stepping closer.

The guy growled low in his throat—a guttural sound only alphas could make—a clear warning. But Damien shut him down with a sharp look.

"Garrett, just get out," he said, tossing the clothes over to the alpha. "It’s over."

Garrett growled again, still fuming. "There’s no way I’m letting this slide! I’ll tell your brother—"

Before he could finish, I grabbed him by the arm, yanked him up, and shoved him toward the door. He stumbled into the hallway, but I barely glanced back, ready to shut the door when he yelled:

"Damien! Why the hell did you even call me if you don’t want me? You begged me! I skipped my trip! And now this? Bringing in some other guy? What’s with these stupid games?"

Damien sighed, closing his eyes for a second.

"I'm sorry, Garrett. I didn’t know how to cancel on you after you’d gone to so much trouble. But now that the heat’s started, I realized I can’t do this with you. My body’s resisting it too much. I’m sorry—I didn’t mean for things to turn out like this."

I kicked Garrett’s clothes toward him. He muttered something under his breath, grabbed them, and turned around, but not before throwing me one last glare.

"You’re beyond words! I drove here at dawn, fought through traffic for this? Un-fucking-believable!"

Feeling partly responsible, I stepped in. "Look, this is on me, not Damien. He called you because I turned him down first. If anyone messed things up, it’s me."

Garrett muttered something I couldn’t make out, yanked on his T-shirt, and stormed down the hall. I shut the door and glanced toward Damien.

He was watching me, biting his lip. Then, without saying a word, he turned and walked toward the bedroom. I followed him.

There he sat on the bed, hunched over. His nest was partially trashed, like there’d been a fight—or sex. The sight twisted something deep in my chest, but I couldn’t say anything. I had no right to demand answers from him.

"So, you called, and here I am," I said, trying to keep my voice steady and mask the regret bubbling inside me.

The air was thick with his scent—his heat had definitely started. Even with my suppressants, I could still catch the sharp, sweet pheromones. Seprudin 750 only blocked the Allure, not the heat scent.

I closed my eyes briefly and said with sincerity, "I’m really sorry about all this. I know the mess I dragged you into—"

Damien snorted. "Doesn’t matter now. Garrett’s a hothead, but he’ll get over it. He went through a lot of trouble to be here, which complicated things for me—there was no easy way to tell him I was canceling."

I hesitated before asking, "Is he… your boyfriend?"

He let out a light laugh. "No way. If I had a boyfriend, I wouldn’t be calling your company. Garrett’s just my brother’s friend. I only contacted him because I was desperate after Mr. Ragu told me you wouldn’t take my commission. Garrett didn’t even want to come at first—he thought my brother would kill him if he found out. But I literally begged him, and he canceled a family trip to the mountains for me. This was before you showed up on campus. I felt like crap about it, and didn’t know how to fix things. Then, when the heat started, he showed up, and… I realized it was a bad idea."

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