Page 33 of Leave Me
“So?” Kono looked at me like I was stupid, a weird sensation since we’d both been at the top of our graduating class. “Did the wolves not tell you anything? You’re going into heat.”
What he was saying couldn’t possibly be true.
There was no way I was an omega. I’d never been able to shift, and neither could my mom. I was more than ten years past the expected date to present a secondary gender. Plus, I’d had scans of my internalorgans after I’d sustained an injury on one of my assignments. The doctors would have noticed if I had the extra omega parts a man didn’t normally have.
“You’re wrong,” I told him. Looking back toward the open gym doors, I spotted Fowler waving at me. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“Riley, wait!” Kono tried to stop me as I hurried to meet King by the balloons.
“Hey, Ri.” Fowler smiled at me, looking delicious in a tight white shirt stretched over his chest. He hugged me as well as he could while holding two cups full of something red. “I’m so glad you’re feeling better.”
We started walking inside, where I saw that Cara had a table with a few nametags left unclaimed. Before I could grab mine, Kono caught up. I felt more than I heard Fowler growling beside me.
“King, how could you let him come out right now?” Kono asked in a hushed tone, looking around to make sure no one heard him.
“What are you talking about?” Fowler ground out, putting himself between me and the man we were both close to as teens. “Is he bothering you, Ri?”
While I appreciated his protectiveness, I was still reeling from what Kono had said. Leaning forward to speak directly into Fowler’s ear, I whispered, “He thinks I’m presenting. As an omega.”
“He what?” Fowler rounded on me, his eyes wide as he set our glasses on a nearby table and moved us to the side near the wall. His hands gripped my upper arms as he looked me over, as if I would have ‘omega’ tattooed on my forehead.
“He thinks I’m going into heat for the first time,” I explained in a small voice. Saying the words out loud settled something in me, as if they were a missing piece in my identity I’d been looking for my whole life.
“But you can’t shift,” King stated, turning to Kono, who’d followed us over but was keeping a few feet of distance. “He can’t shift, and his mom never presented.”
“His dad was my cousin. From a different tribe, but still…” Kono added cryptically. His head was on a swivel, as if looking for danger among our mostly non-sifter classmates. “His tribe has wolf shifters, and I smelled it on him, though I only met him once as a child when we visited his tribe up north. Like a wet dog.”
“Thanks, glad to know how we smell to you.” Fowler rolled his eyes.
“You two don’t smell like that. Hell, Riley smells too good right now.” Kono tossed his arms up, looking exasperated that we hadn’t left yet and were still questioning him. “I thought you understood when I told you to take Riley home at the park yesterday.”
“What?” I repeated; the word being said so much in this conversation meant it was starting to lose meaning. I was struck more by the fact Kono knew where my dad lived, and that my sperm donor was a fucking shifter. My mom didn’t know.
“You couldn’t have told my pack about this?” Fowler growled, expressing the anger I felt at not knowing these things for my entire life.
“Riley’s dad ran off when his mom got pregnant and he found out she couldn’t shift.” Kono shrugged. “She was loosely in your pack, so I thought you would take care of your own. I was a kid, too. How could I know you thought shifters only presented before adulthood?”
“Explain,” Fowler commanded through gritted teeth. They were both alphas, but I heard the force behind his words.
Kono sighed and took a step closer. “The tribe has accounts of people not shifting or presenting until they’re middle-aged. Particularly when they’re around an alpha who is…important to them.”
We stared at him, taking in the implications of his words. I wasn’t a quarter shifter; I was more than half wolf. The voice in my head I’d always thought of as my conscious practically purred at the knowledge setting deep into my bones.
“Fuck. I’m an omega.”
“You are.” Kono nodded with raised brows. “And if I could scent you before I even made it to the parking lot, you aren’t safe out in the open. I’m barely containing my shift around the smell of you.” Turning to Fowler, he gestured to the door with urgency. “Will you get him out of here already?”
Fowler blinked once, frozen in place, then I felt him stiffen as the full implication came over him. Without a word, he ushered me out of the gym, pulling out his phone.
“Who are you texting?” I asked, following along, his hand an iron grip on my biceps.
“Rel,” was all I got until we made it to the row of bikes, and he let me go to finish the message. “I want the pack on high alert.”
“Because I’m going into heat?”
Fowler’s nostrils flared as he grabbed the helmet strapped to the seat. “Because you already are, and I need to get you someplace safe.”
“From other shifters?”
