Page 77 of Claimed By My Exiled Alphas
Just the heating system. Just stress and long hours and probably not drinking enough water.
I pressed the back of my hand to my forehead. No fever, but my skin felt flushed, hypersensitive. And there was something else, something I’d been deliberately not paying attention to because acknowledging it meant facing exactly what I’d been dreading since the coffee shop conversation three weeks ago.
My scent had changed.
Not drastically, not yet, but enough that I could smell it on myself. Vanilla and honey, yes, but richer now. Deeper. The kind of scent shift that happened when an omega’s body started preparing for heat.
No. Not now. Not when everything was finally settling into place, not when the bistro was so close to being ready, not when I’d finally found some equilibrium with three alphas who deserved better than dealing with a panicked omega in the middle of a biological crisis.
And everything we’d talked about, every reassurance that had made me feel so safe before fled my mind. The old fears leached back in, the uncertainties and doubts. I could already feel myself folding back in myself after the months of learning how to be myself again.
I should handle this alone. Alone was better. Alone was safe. I’d handled heats before, plenty of them. Locked myself in my apartment with supplies and medication and sheer stubborn will, refusing to be vulnerable in front of anyone who might use that vulnerability against me. Vincent had taught me that lesson thoroughly.
The medication. I had suppressants at home, the kind that could delay a heat by a few days if I caught it early enough. If I left now, got home before the symptoms escalated, I could push this off until a more convenient time. Until I’d figured out what I actually wanted from Jace and Hollis and Cassian during the most vulnerable biological event an omega could experience.
I grabbed my phone and texted the contractor.Need to reschedule. Emergency came up. Sorry for short notice.
His response came immediately.No problem. Saturday morning instead?
Perfect. Thank you.
I gathered my things with movements that felt slightly uncoordinated, my hands not quite responding the way they should. The warmth had progressed to something more insistent, a low pulse of need that made me want to curl up somewhere dark and soft and safe.
Home. I needed to get home before anyone saw me like this, before my scent broadcast exactly what was happening and some well-meaning alpha tried to help.
The October afternoon air hit me like a slap when I stepped outside, cold enough that it should have been refreshing. Instead, it made my overheated skin prickle with uncomfortable awareness. I fumbled with my keys, finally getting the truck door open and climbing inside.
The drive home took less than five minutes, but each minute felt stretched and strange. My vision seemed simultaneously sharper and hazier, picking up details I normally wouldn’t notice while losing track of the broader picture. The truck’s leather seats felt too rough against my sensitized skin. Every bump in the road registered as more intense than it should be.
I parked in my driveway and sat there for a moment, trying to gather enough coordination to make it from the truck to the front door. This was fine. I was fine. Just a heat starting earlier than I’d calculated, nothing I hadn’t dealt with dozens of times before.
Except every other time, I’d been alone in a city where I knew exactly how to isolate myself. Here, I had three alphas who’d probably sense something was wrong within hours. Who’d probably show up at my door with concern and good intentions and exactly the kind of help I’d spent a year learning to refuse.
I made it inside, locked the door behind me, and immediately stripped off my jeans and tank top. My skin needed air, needed space, needed something I couldn’t quite articulate but felt with increasing urgency.
The suppressants were in my bathroom cabinet. I stumbled down the hallway, my body alternating between too hot and too cold, and dug through the organized shelves until I found the small prescription bottle.
Empty.
I stared at it stupidly, trying to remember when I’d last refilled it. Before I left Chicago, probably. Back when I’d been taking suppressants regularly to avoid the vulnerability of heat cycles in a city where I trusted no one.
My phone was in the living room. I should call the pharmacy, see if they could rush a refill. Except I wasn’t sure I could make it back to the living room without my legs giving out, and the thought of explaining my situation to a pharmacist while my body felt like it was coming apart made me want to cry.
I made it to my bedroom instead, to the nest I’d been unconsciously building over the past few weeks. Extra pillows arranged just so, a weighted blanket Hollis had somehow known I’d love, one of Jace’s flannels that he’d left after a cooking lesson, Cassian’s spare reading glasses that he’d forgotten after Sunday dinner.
Items that carried their scents, that made this space feel less like isolation and more like belonging.
I crawled into the nest and pulled everything close, breathing in cedar and pine and leather mixed with my own shifting scent. My body knew what it wanted, even if my mind was still trying to maintain control. The biological imperative was clear, insistent, impossible to ignore.
I needed my alphas.
No. I needed to handle this alone, the way I always had. Needing people was dangerous, made you vulnerable to disappointment and abandonment and all the ways trust could be weaponized against you.
Butmyalphas would never do that to me. I knew that. I knewthem.This was the heat talking. This was the past trying to push its way into my future. I needed to try and keep my head clear, at least for now. I needed to concentrate on the here and now and not the voices from my past that I’d surrendered to easily to before.
My phone buzzed from somewhere in the living room. Probably one of them checking in, the way they did throughout the day now. Random texts about interesting things they’d found or thoughts they wanted to share or just casual connection that had become routine.
I should answer. Should tell them I was fine, just tired, needed some alone time.
