Page 9 of Secret Heart
Or maybe my suppressors are working better than it feels like they are at the moment.
Either way, the small reaction is enough to have him turning back to the bartender. Not even a minute later, a woman about my age sidles up to us both. I turn away from her, drinking most of what’s left of my own dark beer. The neon sign on the wall just behind the bar glows bright enough my eyes ache, but it’s my lifeline to knowing I only have five more minutes.
I survive eight seconds on the back of a nearly two thousand pound animal every weekend. I can survive five minutes at this bar in the heart of Oakland.
“Well, hey darlin’,” Sean says, letting his Tennessee roots out. He’s nearly as loud as before, leaning back so his elbow is propped on the bar top, his beer held in a casual grip that has me halfway concerned he’ll drop it. The woman blushes and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, her gaze flashing to me for a heartbeat. “That’s a gorgeous dress. You wear it just for me?”
The woman giggles, her flush spreading down her neck. Sean’s brandy scent overpowers the various smells of the bar, curling around me as much as the woman. She doesn’t respond to the pheromones lacing his scent that give away his interest in hooking up and have my own breath trying to catch in my throat despite never once being interested in fucking Sean. She’s definitely a Beta.
Good for him. Maybe with him very clearly interested in her, none of the other buckle bunnies circling the bar like vultures will have the nerve to approach us.
I let my shoulders relax and finish the beer, grimacing through the bitterness that’s worse than usual. God, my head is pounding. The woman giggles as Sean confidently palms her waist, pulling her between his spread knees. His brandy scent grows even thicker, and a shiver runs down my spine in ominous warning. Damn it all, that double dose of suppressor apparently wasn’t enough to push back my heat at least a couple days.
I need out of here. Now.
I stand without any kind of tact, pulling cash from my back pocket and dropping more than is really necessary on the bar top. Sean frowns, glancing away from the woman practically climbing into his lap. His hand palms the back of her neck, keeping her pressed against him even while his attention isn’t directly on her. Another shiver has me swallowing down an inelegant noise and shoving my hands into my pockets to hide just how much they’re shaking.
“Triston? You good, kid?” His voice is full of worry, an underlying growl to it that has another shiver racing down my spine.
Someone behind me shuffles closer, bumping into me. I swallow a whine. Sean says something, but I can’t hear the words over the buzzing in my ears. No, not buzzing. It’s a growl from behind me. Before I can turn to figure out who’s upset and why, Sean’s on his feet, the woman tucked between his back and the bar top. I swallow another embarrassing whine as he steps into me, his hold on my elbow polite and yet somehow proprietary.
“Back off,” he says, nothing but a burly growl. “He’s not interested.”
The growl behind me only gets louder, and a large body presses into my back, a heavy hand grabbing my shoulder. A second scent blends with Sean’s brandy, the edge of it burning with his irritation. My entire body trembles even as my muscles lock and keep me frozen to the spot, trying to keep from attracting any more attention as chatter around the bar dies down. Despite the noise of the music, it feels like that half-second before chaos and violence ensue and people get hurt. The heavy bass of the remix pulses through my head. God, I want to vomit.
The person behind me shifts again, the new scent wrapping around me, familiar though I can’t quite place it given how strong Sean’s is swirling around me. It’s… almost watermelon?
All I truly know is it’s not the vanilla I crave in my bones and have for years.
And then, all at once, though it’s never happened before in my eight years of being an Omega, my scent blockers fail. There’s one horrid minute where my clove scent, sour with fear and edged with my suppressed heat breaking through, surrounds me in a tidal wave.
Then all hell breaks loose.
Sean’s entire countenance changes, his cheeks sharpening as he clenches his jaw, his growl so loud it vibrates through me even more than the Alpha behind me. His eyes are bright with rage and the first edges of a rut. The Alpha behind me pulls me against a hard chest, watermelon surrounding me in one swift wave. With a vicious curse, Sean throws a punch toward whoever is behind me. The buzzing in my ears gets louder, more than just the Alphas growling over my heat somehow managing to break through the double suppressant I took hours ago. I shrug out from between them, ripping away from both of their holds. I don’t recognize the other man at all. His eyes are bright with rage, his chest heaving with each labored, violence-laced breath he takes. Sean hits him again.
Screaming comes from behind the bar, someone trying to get a handle on whatever my scent managed to set off. My hands shake, and another horrible wave of electricity rockets under my skin, all the way to my feet, burning. My stomach clenches, and the room spins around me. People rush in my peripheral, multiple people pulling Sean away from the guy I don’t know. Before I can get a handle on exactly who is where, my vision fades out, and the bar disappears. I drop to the floor as my body gives out entirely. A strong set of arms surround me, brandy filling my nose even as my eyes no longer see. There’s more shouting, instructions and someone screaming for the music to turn off.
“Mr. Harding?” a woman asks.
I try to answer, but my entire body burns with pain. It consumes me, pulling me under before I can utter a sound.
Chapter Six
TRISTON
The room is dark and quiet. Still.
A heavy blanket covers most of me, large, plush pillows cocooning me. The weight and shape of them are familiar enough to know I’m in a Haven. Lance must have gotten me to a local one when my heat broke through the double suppressants. I should probably sit up and get cleaned up and reconnect with him to figure out what’s on the schedule now that I’ve won the championship. Pride rushes through me at the thought, no longer buried under the need to find a quiet corner and claw my skin off.
I won. I did it. I made bull riding and rodeo history. Satisfaction settles in my chest, a weight to it I’ve only ever felt when with a partner before. Instead of getting up, though, I snuggle deeper into the pillows that surround me, an ache to my bones that’s common after I’ve been through a heat. This time it feels especially bad. Breathing in the fresh, clean scent of the fabric beneath me, I try to remember anything from this heat cycle, but no matter how hard I try, all that I can pick out is the fist fight my sudden breakthrough caused at that bar. There’sa vague voice that flits on the edges of the darkness, someone trying to figure out who I was. As I try and focus on the voice, the memory of hands lifting me and supporting me filter through the haze, too.
But no memory of knotting, of a hard body beneath me or behind me, of a scent wrapping around me and offering me just as much comfort as the physical satiation of the heat. With a groan, I push myself up and out of the pillows, finally opening my eyes to take in this particular Haven’s nest arrangements.
There’s a small light plugged into the wall—a nightlight, like I’m a toddler. The blankets and pillows are all a middle gray, pressed and washed, but only my scent clings to them. Someone’s put me in sweatpants with wide legs and a low waist but no shirt. The room is warm without being stifling. It’s also smaller than the others I’ve used. Maybe there hadn’t been any of the larger ones available?
I carefully rub the sleep from my eyes and swing my feet over the side of the bed, grimacing as more muscles protest me moving at all. Before I convince myself I can actually stand, there’s two soft knocks on the door.
“Mr. Harding?” a muffled voice asks, one I don’t recognize, though that’s not surprising. It’s not like I was lucid by the time I arrived here.
