Page 10 of Run Wild Omega

Sunlight cuts through the gaps in the blinds, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. My pulse pounds in my throat, a frantic, uneven cadence that makes my chest ache. I’m soaked in sweat, the sheets tangled around my legs.

I try to move, to kick off the covers, but my thighs are clamped tight around something. I look down.

A pillow.

Sometime in the night, in the depths of my subconscious, I grabbed one of the throw pillows from the armchair and shoved it between my legs. I’m humping it like a teenager in heat, my body desperate for friction that isn’t there, chasing a phantom orgasm from a dream about a man who ruined me.

“Fuck.”

I launch the pillow across the room. It hits the wall with a soft thud and slides down to the floor, deflated and innocent.

I sit up, running a hand through my hair. It’s a mess of tangles. I can still feel the ghost of his touch, the sticky heat of the dream clinging to my skin.

My body betrayed me. Again. My brain knows Marcus was a liar, a manipulator who used me to stroke his ego, but my biology hasn’t gotten the memo yet. It still remembers the chemicals. It still remembers the fake bond.

I need to scrub this off. I need to scrub him off.

I throw the covers back and stomp into the bathroom. The tile is cold under my bare feet. That helps ground me. I crank the shower handle as far to the left as it will go. The pipes groan, then sputter before blasting out scalding water. I don’t wait. I step in, letting the heat sear my skin until it turns pink.

I grab the loofah and the harsh, unscented soap I use specifically for mornings like this. I scrub my neck where he bit me in the dream, then down over my collarbone, across my stomach, between my thighs. I wash away the sweat, the lingering phantom sensation of his hands, the shame.

It takes a long time. I stand under the spray until the hot water begins to run tepid, my skin pruned and raw.

When I finally step out, the small bathroom is filled with steam. I wipe a hand across the mirror and stare at my reflection. Red-rimmed eyes, flushed cheeks. I look angry.

Good.

I wrap a towel around myself and go back into the main room. It’s not much—five hundred square feet of converted space above the old hardware store—but it’s mine.

The walls are painted a soft, sage green that I picked out myself. The furniture is a mismatched collection of thrift store finds and hand-me-downs, but every piece was chosen by me. There’s a worn leather armchair in the corner, a small bookshelf overflowing with guidebooks and novels, and a kitchenette with a two-burner stove that barely works.

Last year, Daniel found this place. He’d just helped Mara settle into her life with the pack, and he saw me spiraling in the guest room at my parents’ house. He put the deposit down, signed a six-month lease, and handed me the key.

“It’s not a handout, Tess,” he’d said, holding up a hand to stop my protest. “It’s a loan until you finish school. You need your own space.”

I’ve paid every penny of rent since. I love this apartment. I love the creaky floorboards and the view of the alleyway and the silence that belongs only to me.

I walk over to the small dinette table where my daily arsenal is laid out. Three small white pills. One blue capsule.

The white ones are heat suppressants. I shouldn’t technically need them since I’m not bonded, but my biology has always been… reactive. Without them, the Academy conditioning kicks in, making me antsy and wet every time an Alpha walks by. I refuse to be a slave to my hormones.

The blue one is a scent blocker.

I pick it up, turning it over in my fingers. Taking it is like putting on a suit of armor. Inside, I’m an Omega, soft and smelling of alpine meadows and apples. But this pill? This pill turns me into a blank slate.

I become nothing. I become invisible to the primal part of other people’s brains. It allows me to walk down the street without being scent-tracked, without having every Alpha in a ten-mile radius turning their heads to sniff the air.

I swallow all four pills. They stick in my throat for a second, bitter and chalky, before I wash them down with a glass of tap water.

I get dressed in my uniform: charcoal cargo pants, reinforced hiking boots, and a thick thermal top with the Sweet Creek Adventures logo embroidered on the chest. I pull my damp hair back into a tight braid, securing it with an elastic tie.

I grab my keys and my backpack, check the window to make sure the snow has held off, and head out.

My car is parked in the lot behind the building. It’s an ancient Jeep Wrangler that’s seen better days. The paint is peeling, the suspension makes a horrible clunking noise every time I hit a pothole, and the heater only works if I bang on the dashboard just right. I bought it with my own money, fixing it up piece by piece in the garage on weekends.

It’s ugly, loud, and perfect.

I climb in, turning the key. The engine roars to life, shaking the whole frame. I back out, easing onto the main road. Even though the café is technically a stone’s throw away, the steep incline to the Lodge is brutal in winter, and I have heavy gear to haul. I keep the Jeep in low gear, the tires crunching on the packed snow.