AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I grab a washcloth and coat it with scent-blocking body wash, much more than the directions recommend, but who actually pays attention to those anyway? I need to smell like something else,someoneelse, if I’m going to be able to leave the apartment.
The body wash smells like vanilla and cinnamon, almost like a holiday cookie, but it works wonders and is worth the hefty price tag. Some people might buy their toiletries based on quality and the ability to make them look beautiful, but I just shop based on safety. And this body wash keeps me safe.
After I’ve scrubbed my skin until it is pink and raw, and allowed the scent-blocker to remain on my skin, burning slightly for a few minutes before rinsing it off, I’m satisfied my Omega scent is covered for now. I turn off the shower and step out onto the rug, shivering in the cool air before I wrap myself in a gray-striped towel.
The scent-blocker should normally last about twelve hours, but given the heat trying to build at my core, I’d give it maybe six before I’ll need another wash. Long enough for me to meet up with Kennedy and get what I need.
I go into the bedroom and dress in another plain T-shirt and jeans, tying my wet hair up into a messy bun. I won’t put on makeup or dress nice for a meeting with Kennedy. I don’t want anything to stand out about me, anything that would cause any Alpha—hell, anyperson—to look at me twice. I grab my cell phone from my dresser and scroll through my contacts until I find the one I need.
Kennedy picks up after three rings, his naturally sleepy voice coming clear through the speaker. “Hey, sexy lady.”
“Hey,” I say back, glancing around my room as if someone could possibly be eavesdropping. Some paranoia never really leaves you. “I need more suppressants, Ken. I messed up my schedule, and now I’m completely out.”
He whistles, long and low. “That’s not good, Rile. How long has it been?”
“Two, maybe three days?”
He is quiet for a moment, probably calculating dosages in his head. “I can get you back on track, I think. It will have to be a higher dosage than you’re used to. Can you meet at the usual place in an hour?”
“Any chance you’d make a house call? Just this once?”
“You know it doesn’t work like that, babe.”
I sigh.
“Right. All good. I’ll see you in an hour then.”
He hangs up without a goodbye, and I clutch the phone to my chest, my hands shaking.
What a mess. At least Kennedy is a decent guy, not one of those skeezy drug dealers you see in the movies or on the news. He sells suppressants to help Omegas stay under the radar anddesigner drugs for Alphas with cash to spend, like rut-blockers or focus enhancers, or just plain old party drugs for having a good time. But while technically almost everything Kennedy sells is helpful in some way, it’s still illegal. Omegas aren’t allowed heat suppressants without the permission of the family whose care they’re in or their packs. Since I have neither, it’s pills of the illegal sort for me.
I open up my top drawer to find the pair of red woolen socks I have balled up in the back and turn them inside out. A roll of cash falls out, and I count out the money I’ll need for today’s exchange. Once I have it, there’s only about a fourth of the cash left to tuck back into my hiding place.
I’ll have to take on several more contracts to make up for the loss, but it’s worth the extra hours of work. I pull on my boots, tuck the money into my nondescript purse, and steel myself before heading out the door for my meeting with Kennedy.
* * *
The ‘usual place’is a café called Charlie’s, which serves decent coffee drinks and pastries near the university. Anyone outside this sort of life might think that these unsavory exchanges happen in darkened alleys or abandoned apartments, but it simply isn’t true. Drugs can be passed around just as easily in a family restaurant, sometimes more easily because it doesn’t look suspicious. No one expects a drug deal to go down in the same place where they just celebrated Grandma’s birthday.
Kennedy prefersCharlie’sbecause he blends in, looking like one of the college students that frequent the place between classes. In another universe, it would be easy to picture him kicking around a soccer ball or hacky sack on the lawn in front of the student union.
There are no Alphas in here, and no one has glanced my way yet other than the teenage server behind the counter, and that’s probably just to see if I’m done with my iced coffee yet so she can wipe down the lop-sided table.
My heat symptoms are getting worse, exacerbated by my own anxiety. If I don’t get control of it, something far worse than my heat will rear its ugly head.
Right on cue, a tick makes my head jerk and I force myself to breathe slow and easy to soothe my rapidly beating heart. My hands won’t stop trembling, and dizzy spells come over me in short bursts every few minutes. The iced coffee is helping to keep my temperature low, and I wrap my hands firmly around the cup, sloughing the condensation off with my fingers.
I feel like I’m swaying in my seat, but again, no one has noticed, or they are too polite to say something. Or maybe they have noticed and just think I’m drunk. That would be the perfect cover, and I’d get in a lot less trouble for daytime inebriation than for illegally suppressing my heats.
The dull bell over the door rings, and Kennedy comes through, a wide cocky grin on his face and a messy stack of mail in the crook of his arm. The guy is a total beach boy, heart and soul, from his long blond curls to the woven flip-flops on his feet, even though it’s nearly November and there’s a constant chill in the air. Even his little yellow coupe has a surfboard strapped to the top, like he’s going to find the perfect wave driving down the streets of downtown Rogers City.
“Hey, sexy,” he says, angling his lanky body over me and giving me a tight squeeze. “I’ve missed you.” He plants a cheeky kiss on my forehead before sitting in the wobbly chair across from me. He plops his pile of mail on top of the table–and on top of the envelope of cash I’ve had sitting there since I arrived. Then he stretches out his arms and sprawls his legs into the aisleway, looking as casual and relaxed as can be.
“Missed you too,” I say, giving him a shy grin. To any outsider, we look like close friends, maybe even college kids in the throes of their first real relationship. Sometimes I wish we were in a relationship. Everything would be so much easier. But while I enjoy Kennedy’s company, and I know he’d take care of me and treat me right, it isn’t meant to be. He’s a Beta, and neither of us is attracted to each other in any way other than friends. “How’s life treating you?”
“Same as always,” he says, stealing my iced coffee and taking a big gulp. I swat at his hand playfully, and he grins at me, showing off dimples that would rival Shirley Temple’s. “How’s your mom doing?”
“Recovering well,” I say with a shrug. “The orthopedic doctor says she can start walking without the crutches now.” It’s all a lie, a made-up conversation to keep the façade going. My mom is long gone, dead when I was three from cervus, a wasting disease that targets Omega genes, making us rare and decreasing our population as a whole. I have very little memory of my mother, other than the legacy she left me–the cervus now running through my own veins, slowly killing me.
