It was just...us.
Keeping the dark at bay.
Not being totally alone in the night.
“Leo,” Kam said, still in a tone so quiet that not even alpha hearing would be able to hear it through the muffling blanket and the hotel room wall. “I am absolutely terrified for you. You shouldn’t even be here. Not so close to...”
He trailed off, unwilling to say the word aloud in a building filled with betas, even though none of them would be able to hear. And wasn’t that the perfect metaphor for what omega life had become? Here we were, huddled together in a nest that would be more than sufficient cause to have us both hauled off for physical examination and genetic testing if we were caught, yet Kam couldn’t bring himself to say ‘so close to your heat.’
“I’ve got my meds with me,” I reminded him, not for the first time. The bottle of aspirin in my suitcase contained five pills that were visually indistinguishable from all of the others—but an omega’s nose could sniff them out easily enough. Four were pheromone suppressors that, taken weekly, would keep me from perfuming for up to a month. This, despite the fact that we were only slated to be here for six days before returning to Montreal. The fifth pill was my heat blocker, which I would take three days from now to head off the estrus that would otherwise be on me within the week.
Kam’s arms tightened around me. “They’re not meds, Leo. They’repoison.”
A lump grew in my throat, but I swallowed it down. “They’re tools, Kam. Tools with side effects, yes. But what else am I supposed to do? Drown myself inChanel No. 5? Take a week’s vacation every three months like clockwork? How long do you thinkthatwould fly before someone noticed?”
Kam made a miserable noise against my hair, and shimmied down until he was the one burying his face in the crook of my neck. “Iknow,” he said, disconsolate. “But I’m still allowed to hate it, all right?”
“Yes—all right,” I soothed, rubbing my fingers through the fine hair at the nape of his neck. I’d always loved his hair—so thick and black, but fine as silk beneath my touch. “I concede that you’re allowed to hate it. Could we just... not talk about it right now, though?”
I didn’t need Kam to remind me that the toxic cocktail of drugs I required to hide condemned me to some form of cancer in my future—it was a fear that hung over my head in my waking present, and each time I popped one of the pills that were both my salvation and my ultimate demise. And when that day arrived, any attempt to get medical treatment for that cancer would instantly out me as an omega.
I could either live now and die later, or suffer through a half-life of slavery and die anyway, eventually. I’d gone into this with my eyes wide open.
Besides, I’d ridden out one heat cycle on my own—my first one. And Ineverwanted to do that again. Suffering through that days-long, desperately painful craving for sex and closeness when those cravings could never be fulfilled? It was a form of torture—both physical and mental.
Once upon a time, omegas had looked forward to their heats as a time for unparalleled sensual pleasure, the potential for pups, and possible bonding with one or more mates. But that was not my life.
“I’m sorry,” Kam said, still holding me tight. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I know you’ve got it under control. You’re the strongest person I know.”
Then you must not have looked in a mirror lately, I wanted to say. The words stuck in my throat. I couldn’t get them out, and he wouldn’t have wanted to hear them anyway. I took blockers to short-circuit my heats. Kam, on the other hand, would never have heats at all. And I knew with utter certainty that if he hadn’t been mutilated as an adolescent, he would have cheerfully risked exposure and arrest to experience that part of an omega’s life as it was meant to be experienced. He would have sought out alphas, no matter the danger... or in the absence of that option, at least a trustworthy beta male. He would have made beautiful pups one day, and whelped them in secret. He would have been the best, most loving and devoted carrier any pup could ever ask for.
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” I said. “Being here with you like this—it should be perfect, and I’m ruining it.”
Kam let out a dissenting noise, and burrowed into me a little further. “You’re not ruining it,odama,” he said, using the ancient word for a co-omega in a mated pack. A pause, and then he added in a teasing tone, “Though it would be even nicer with some alphas to help warm the nest. Three of them, I think. That sounds about right, doesn’t it?”
Dangerous, warned the little voice in my head that kept me safe.Don’t go there, even in fantasy.
Would it really kill me not to be a repressive bitch one hundred percent of the time, though? I might be too scared to go there, but Kam wasn’t. Kam still believed in a world where happy endings were possible. Did I seriously want to shoot him down when it came to his harmless daydreams, as well?
I swallowed my misgivings and reached for something, anything that wasn’t fatalistic pessimism.
“I’m pretty sure we’d need a bigger nest,” I managed, and was rewarded with the pleased curve of his lips against the skin of my throat.
“Oh, yes,” he agreed. “We’d need ahugenest.” A happy sigh. “Just think—all of those lovely muscles. And that female—Alex? Did youseethe way she moved?”
I couldn’t help it—an answering smile tugged at my lips. “Kam. I love you, but you’re a terrible clit-slut. You do know that, right?”
He scoffed. “Excuse you. I am an equal opportunity slut, at least inside my fantasy world. But yes, that is one clit I’ddefinitelylike to tease out of its sheath with my tongue, and ride all night long...”
I settled into the snug nest of pillows and blankets andfriend, letting Kam narrate all of his increasingly filthy imaginings regarding the trio of alphas assigned to keep us safe in this faraway land. And if some of those fantasies made me squirm against his body a tiny bit, I put it down to my approaching heat.
Nothing more.
* * *
By four a.m., we hadthe nest dismantled and everything returned to its rightful place in the room. Thanks to the happy endorphins still sloshing around in my system, I even managed to get another ninety minutes of sleep before my alarm went off.
By seven, we were settling into the black limo that would take us from Bucharest to the much smaller city of Târgoviste, nestled at the base of the Southern Carpathian Mountains. The summit would take place at an ancient monastery in the foothills. It was, in my opinion, a somewhat odd choice of venue. As far as I’d been able to determine, the place’s main claim to fame was that Vlad the Impaler’s father was buried in the narthex of the monastery’s church. Which was... historically interesting, I supposed?
