Page 15 of Fighting the Alpha

I pace my apartment instead, stripping down to my underwear when I break out in a sweat, unable to watch any of my usual comfort shows for more than five minutes.

When the horniness hits, it’s usually a relief. All the other symptoms stick around, but at least I’ve got jerking off to focus on, and I’ve never had a problem riding it out solo.

But this rut feels different.

I can’t put my finger on it right away, I just know that my fist around my cock is doing nothing—nothingat all—to alleviate the painful arousal lighting up every nerve ending in my body. Every strained orgasm ends in the same unsatisfying frustration, like all I achieved was to build up more tension instead of the release I’m supposed to be feeling. It’s… horrible. Weird. Kind of alarming, actually.

It’s even more worrying when I start to feel that cold, empty ache that’s started to become familiar over the past few months. Only, it’s ten times more potent than it ever has been, becauseeverythingis dialed up to eleven when I’m in rut. So that ache becomes a whimpering desperationfast, and before I know it, all I can think about is being pinned down and filled.

And not just by anyone. By another alpha.

By Levi.

Shit.

It takes hours before I admit this isn’t going away. This isn’t just desire anymore; it’s a need. God knows why—maybe I’ve broken something in my biology just by submitting to another alpha so completely. But I can worry about thewhysandhowslater.

I scroll down to Levi’s contact in my phone, still there from our school days. I don’t even know if he still has the same one—it’s been years, and he’s moved countries more than once since he used this number to send me trash talk texts before our wrestling matches. I don’t know why I never deleted it.

My hand trembles as it hovers over the call button.I look at his name on the screen. I try to mentally run through what I’m going to say, but everything sounds ridiculous.

What the fuck am I doing? I imagine Levi picking up the phone, bewildered, making some wisecrack when I—when I what? Tell him I’m in rut and that I want to—that I wanthimto—

I can barely bring myself to think it, let alone say it out loud. To Levi fucking Bastien, of all people. But he’s also the only person in the world I could possibly ask to do this for me.

God, what a mess.

I groan as another vicious jolt of arousal rips through me, my cock straining painfully against my boxers and my hole clenching around nothing, like a fucking omega in heat.

Fuck it.

Levi picks up the phone within two rings.

“Dylan? Are you calling me with your butt?”

It takes me too long to realize what he means. And that he has my number still saved. “Do you mean did I butt-dial you? No. I called you, uh, intentionally.”

“Ah. Okay. Salut.”

“Sal—hi.”

There’s a pause, before Levi laughs, his sardonic cackle crackling through the phone.

“Did you call me to breathe down the phone?”

Maybe I should have written myself a script. “No. Sorry. I, um, I’m calling because I need your help.”

“Is there an old lady threatening you and you need me to beat her up because you are too weak?”

“What? No, Levi, can you shut up for two seconds?” I drag a hand over my face. “I’m—I’m in rut.”

This time the silence stretches on long enough that I wonder if that call’s dropped. Then I hear Levi breathe.

“You need me to find you an omega?”His voice is tight.“Have you spent so long in the gym you have forgotten how to find a rut partner?”

I take a shaky breath. “I don’t want an omega, Levi. That’s the problem.”

This time there’s no mistaking the sharp intake of breath. Then there’s a muffled sound, like Levi has had to shift his grip on the phone.“Then what do you want, Dylan?”