This couldn’t be happening. Not to me. Not right now in a stadium with who knew how many unbonded alphas.
Breakthrough heats happened, but not like this. This already hurt more than when I’d had my full-blown one.
I turned off the water and waddled to the paper towel dispenser. Slick was already seeping through my panties. Luckily, I’d worn dark jeans. My scent was thick in the air, and I knew this was going to be a disaster.
The door opened and Blair walked in. “What in the fuck?” She shut the door quickly and flipped the lock before running across the bathroom to lock the other one. “Why the hell did you come if you were about to start your heat?”
I dried my face and gave her a helpless look as I waddled to the largest stall, locking myself in. “I wasn’t. Thank you for locking the doors.”
“What’s your plan here? Is there protocol for something like this? Jesus, girl. You’re releasing perfume like you are trying to summon every alpha in a ten-mile radius.” She went into the stall next to me. “Please tell me you aren’t about to finger yourself in there.”
I choked on a laugh and a sob as I wiped the slick from between my legs and from on my panties. “No. I’m cleaning myself up. I think… seeing them set me off.”
Blair flushed the toilet and exited her stall. “Seeing who?”
I folded up toilet paper and placed it in my underwear before pulling them up. “Uh… a pack I met.”
She watched me in the mirror as I came out of the stall and joined her at the sinks. “Well, if they cause that big a reaction… match with them, girl.”
I wished I could tell her all about N’Pact, but that would have put our plan to match in the spring in danger. “I need help getting out of here. Can you help me?”
My mind was already starting to think of nothing but being knotted by the four men currently singing and dancing their hearts out on stage. I didn’t care that I was a homing beacon for alphas. I needed them. My body needed them.
“What do you mean? Like escape? That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Do you want to send all the alphas here into a rut?” She dried her hands and then handed me dry paper towels. “Let me get Dean Monroe.”
“No! Just… there can’t be that many unbonded alphas here. It’s a boyband concert. I’ll go out the emergency exit by the elevator we came up.” We’d come in up a service elevator down the hall and there was a stairwell right next to it that led down to the ground level. “The buses are right outside.”
She sighed. “And if the bus drivers aren’t there?”
“They will be. Our buses can’t be left unattended. Now, are you going to help me or not?” I gave her a pleading look. “I’m helping you by keeping my mouth shut about what you told me.”
I wasn’t proud of the low blow, but I was really starting to hurt, and if I didn’t get out of there right away, I was going to need to be carried.
She put her hands on her hips. “You’re really going to stand there starting your heat and blackmail me?”
“Not blackmail,” I gritted out, doubling over as a cramp took hold. “Omega helping an omega.”
“This is so stupid. You need security to-”
I lunged for her as she turned to go to the door, grabbing her arm. “Please, Blair. I don’t want anyone to know.”
Ella wasn’t stupid. She knew N’Pact lived down the street from my sister, and although I hadn’t said a word about it, she would connect the dots that they were who brought on my sudden heat. I couldn’t have her questioning why.
“Your scent is so strong.” She crinkled her nose. “I can probably create a big enough distraction that you can be out the door before they notice the room suddenly smells like burnt chocolate.”
I didn’t think I smelled like that, but I was a bad judge of my own scent at that moment. My vision was starting to swim, and my legs were shaking so badly that I hoped I didn’t collapse in the hallway.
“Let’s do it.”
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
Kara
As I held onto the railing in the stairwell with white-knuckle force, I started to question my sanity. This was even stupider than when I decided to go for a thousand-mile joyride, or when I darted through N’Pact’s open gate. Those were risky decisions, but this? This was a pure lack of common sense.
My brain didn’t care, though, now that my base instincts had set it. My goal was to get away from the people, the scents, thenoise. The noise of the concert was so grating on my nerves that I wanted to curl up in a corner of the stairwell and cry.
Almost there.