Page 30 of Omega’s Fold

I pull on pants and a sweater and I go down. Outside the air is very cold and very still. The sunrise is starting to show, just a glimmer of light over the ridge. The stars are still out.

There’s no sign of him in the yard. I walk around the barn. The dog comes out from under the porch and looks at me with one ear up and decides I am not interesting and goes back under.

I finally find him in the west pasture. I’m not sure what I want to say to him.

I’m sorry. For what? I didn’t do anything wrong.

Kiss me again. And then what? He freaks out and runs off again. Great matching, Omega Match Bureau. I have supposedly been given my soul mate, the omega who is meant to be the love of my life.

If I can find him. Or catch him. I imagine spending my life running after an omega who is running away from me. No, thank you.

But I do know that we need to talk. If for no other reason than to explain that I have no intention to push him into anything. The plan is still to leave as soon as the two weeks are up.

He is a hundred yards off, walking the fence line with his back to me.

The grass is wet. I walk out toward him, not fast, making sure he can hear me coming. He does not turn. He does not stop. He keeps walking the fence. I close the distance to maybe thirty yards and I stop.

The wind shifts.

It comes off him toward me and it hits me in the chest and I understand, all at once what is happening.

He is going into heat.

I stand in the wet grass and I feel it settle in, clean and cold, the full shape of what happened in the kitchen last night.

He had not kissed me because he wanted to. He had kissed me because of a chemically-driven compulsion.

He had fought it off. That was what the push had been.

I feel, distantly, something in the region of my sternum that I will think about later. He did not want to kiss me.

I stand in the grass a moment longer. Thirty yards off, he keeps walking the fence, not turning.

I can’t stay. Not while he’s in heat. He will make choices he will regret because they aren’t choices at all.

I go back to the house, back to his mother’s bedroom, and start packing. I’ve mostly kept everything in the suitcase anyway so there’s not a lot to do. I just need to grab my toiletries, my laptop. My jacket, which I left hanging on the back of the door. It takes under five minutes.

There’s a motel in town. I remember it from when I was here years ago. It’s not the most exciting place, but it’ll do until Wyatt’s heat is over and I am safe to come back.

The kitchen phone rings. I let it ring off, ignoring it as I take my suitcase down the stairs but it starts up again.

It might be work. I might have got the Wi-Fi working but I still don’t have a phone signal.

I leave the suitcase next to the porch door, go into the kitchen and pick up.

“Hello.”

“Mr. Duffield. It’s David Sun.” My heart sinks. “Just checking in. How are we settling?”

“Hello David.”

“How are we settling?” he says again.

“It’s been okay,” I say. “Wyatt isn’t keen on having me here, but I’m here.” I don’t say that I’m about to leave.

There’s a pause.

“Is he in heat?”