Page 43 of The Mating Game
“So far, it’s only happened one time, but it lasted at least a few hours. I don’t know. She was gone when I woke up.”
“Yousleptwith her? Someone experiencing heat for the first time?”
“No,” I huff. “I’m not a fucking monster. I just gave her my scent and…talked her through it.”
“Talked her through it.”
“She needed something! She was suffering.”
“I suppose itwouldtake considerable willpower to resist a shifter in full-blown heat. That was good of you.”
“Not just any shifter,” I say. “She’s a fucking omega.”
He’s silent again, and I hear the creak of his desk chair as he no doubt leans back into it. “That is a pickle.”
“I’d say it’s a whole damned jar of them.”
“And she’s…staying there?”
“That was part of the agreement when she took the job. I can’t kick her out. It would take her, minimum, thirty minutes to get here in the mornings from town. It’s not safe for her to be driving on those roads like that in her tiny little car.”
“Oh boy.”
“What?”
“You like her.”
I blanch. “What? No. I barely know her.”
“And yet you’re sitting here worried about her well-being to the point that you’re calling me for advice.”
“I just don’t know what to do if she has another episode.”
“Did you talk to her about it?”
“I…may have been a bit of a dick to her about it afterward.”
Noah makes a sound that accurately mirrors my own discomfort. “I guess that’s to be expected after Chloe.”
I wince at her name. I’ve done my best to think of her as little as possible in the years since I last saw her, but this week with Tess has definitely made it harder to brush the thought of her aside.
“I don’t know what came over me,” I admit. “I was just so angry that she could be so careless. Then she told me everything that was going on, and I couldn’t help but feel…”
“Feel what?”
“Responsible? Somehow? Like I needed to help her.”
“Alpha instincts,” Noah says with a hum. “They’ll only get worse the longer you stay in close proximity to her,” he warns. “Trust me.”
I run a hand through my hair, mussing it. It’s no secret what Mackenzie and Noah went through last year when they started seeing more of each other only to have her accidentally go into an early heat, and while that worked out forthem, I’m certainly not interested in playing their little mating game.
“Can’t you prescribe me some suppressants?”
“I can,” he says. “Although, if she’s experiencing heat symptoms, even they won’t be enough to ensure you won’t be affected by it.”
“So, what? I just ride it out? Hope that I don’t maul her next time?”
“If she doesn’t want your…help, then I suppose that, yes, that’s all you can do.”
