AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Tori frowned. “Worst case, you could always say you have explosive diarrhea. That’d work if anyone creepy gets handsy in the club, too.”
“No, no, in the club, all she has to do is fake choke,” Nessa argued. “Val, you can be ‘allergic’ to something in the drink, or the bar mix, and start choking like you’re anaphylactic. They put Brazil nuts in sometimes?—”
“Or you could overshare!” Tori broke in. “Tell them about your first kiss, or your first boyfr—” She stopped. They knew as well as I did, there was nothing to share. “New plan: make something up!”
I itched my nose with my middle finger, and they both burst into laughter. I joined them, grateful for their over-the-top banter. They knew exactly how to calm me down. “Thanks, both of you. I’ve got this.” I did. From past experience, I knew all I had to do if things got weird was be my awkward self. That always sent the guys running.
But my sisters had never agreed, and they didn’t now. “You do have this, Val. You absolutely do. You’re gorgeous, ready, and safe. We’ll do recon inside for you. There’ll be at least one sweet, cute young guy here who’ll thank his lucky stars for the chance to have a cheeseburger with you.” Tori mimed eating a cheeseburger and thrusting at the same time.
She was always comparing sex with the men and women she dated to different foods. I’d asked her why, but she’d just told me I’d understand once I finally “tried a T-bone. Or a taco.”
I wished I was attracted to tacos. Going home with a girl would feel a lot less intimidating.
Nessa groaned. “Tori, I’m telling you, if you think good sex is on par with eating a cheeseburger, you’re not having it with the right people. Good sex is like chocolate fondue. Great sex is like the pastries at Chez Palette in Georgetown.”
While they bickered, I breathed deeply, trying to get used to the smells that kept wafting past me. I didn’t feel safe, but I knew I was. It was just really hard to remember, when the stench of what really could be alphas surrounded me. Alpha pheromones smelled every bit as awful as the combination of odors I was picking up now.
As an omega, I was more sensitive to scents, which was supposed to help me find a compatible mate. But I’d never felt safe around any alphas, except for a select few: my brothers and my bodyguards. And the guards weren’t mate material. Like, they would lose their jobs and probably go to jail if they so much as kissed one of the “Paxson Princesses,” as the press liked to call us.
Anyway, no alpha wanted an omega who was scared of her own shadow. Who couldn’t even look him in the eye, much less hold a conversation. Which was one of the reasons I was doing this now. I had to stop being so afraid of everything.
I took a deep breath, held it, and let it out. I had this. I totally had this.
Then a burly alpha passed us by, smelling like moldy bread and lawn trimmings. He gave me and my sisters an assessing glance before he entered the club.
And suddenly, I was trembling again.
I had nothing.
I half-dragged my sisters a few feet away from the doors, closer to the curb. “I need to go back home. I’ll t-try again next weekend.” I’d be alone, but that was fine. I spent most of my time alone. I could bake. Maybe post the rhubarb fool recipe I’d been tinkering with. Finish the quilt I was making for my sister-in-law.
“No, no, no,” Nessa wailed. “I’ll be back at Denver U next weekend, and Tori will be at work.” They’d taken time off to celebrate the New Year with our family, which had been more eventful than usual, with our eldest brother Nicky getting engaged. But the month was coming to an end, and my sisters both had lives to get back to.
Unlike me.
“And you’ll be at home, Val.” Tori’s quiet words stopped Nessa’s complaints. “You can go if you want. It’s okay. But remember…”
I took another deep breath. I knew exactly why I had to stay. Just a few weeks before, my doctor had ordered me to stop taking the medicine I’d been on for my whole adult life. The heat suppressants, the oral-dose scent blockers, all of it.
After I’d revealed early as an omega, at sixteen, everything had gone wrong. I’d had twelve panic attacks the first year alone, and the doctors had decided it was safer for me to stay on suppressants year-round, and wait to have heats when I was older.
I’d known it couldn’t go on forever. I’d been ducking my omega biology and hiding from the alphas of the world for almost five years now, even though my doctors had warned me the medication wasn’t a permanent solution.
At the end of December, I’d started getting some of the side effects that were dangerous if they went on too long. Shortness of breath, rapid heart rate, vertigo… So my doctor had started tapering me off the mega-doses I’d been on for years. Now, I just took a pill once a day. It had been a slow process, since stopping all at once could throw me into a sudden heat.
Even thinking the word had my throat closing up. I would lose my self-control, lose my ability to say no, and—if I didn’t find a one-night stand beta soon—lose my virginity. Possibly to a hulking, barking alpha.
That idea terrified me so much, I started shaking. Of course, my sisters noticed. Nessa kissed the side of my hair, promising she’d stay by my side.
True to form, Tori stopped my panic attack with a lewd joke. “Come on, Val. This is my birthday present. You promised to give me your virginity.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know. B-b-buy me a drink first, won’t ya?”
A beta walking past right then stumbled and fell off the curb and lurched toward me, trying to grab onto something for balance as he slid in the ice-coated snow. I let out a small scream—not because I was scared, just startled, and I always reacted that way.
Like an idiot.
But before the beta could touch me, another man had inserted himself between us. The falling beta hit my protector and crumpled, as if he’d hit a mountain.
