“The best thing you can do is get a good night’s sleep. Come in tomorrow, like Justin said, and we’ll talk it through when we’re not all exhausted and hyped up on adrenaline.”
Driving away was worse than walking away from Wyatt. My skin itched like millipedes crawled under it, and the feeling grew stronger the further I was from him.
By the time I got home, I was sweating. I practically stumbled into my house. The lock, a simple twist of the bolt, suddenly seemed incomprehensible. I did my best to secure it before falling toward my bedroom.
The insects-under-skin feeling was unbearable. Boots, shirt, pants—they all came off in a fevered tumble.
Wyatt. The only human image I had of him filled my mind: standing outside, apprehensively watching the rain, etched into my brain in high definition. He turned toward me, not with fear, but with delight. A smile blossomed on his face. He reached for me.
I fumbled for my cock and nearly seized from nothing but the soft brush of my fingers. I had never been this hard in my life, and my sensitive skin burned like a hot pan.
Fuck. This wasn’t because I had put too much distance between me and Wyatt. It wasn’t exhaustion. It wasn’t psychological.
I was in rut.
9
Wyatt
I was cold, and my body hurt.
With closed eyes, I reached for my blankets, but when I tugged at them, they seemed tangled under and around me in a way my sleepy brain couldn’t process.
Wait. I’d grabbed them. With human hands.
I shot straight up, hands patting my body. Bruises gone. Wrist healed. I collapsed back into bed.
Every time I got stuck in wolf form, part of me worried I wouldn’t be able to shift back. But somehow, once I went unconscious, something unlocked in my brain, and so far, I’d always woken up in my human form. I hated not being able to control my shift. Others seemed to do it so easily. When they wanted to be human, they were human. When they wanted to be their animal, they were. And if they went to sleep in one form, they generally woke up in the same form.
Had... had I dreamed Craig curling up on my bed to comfort me? The little fox was definitely gone now. I could ask him later... or I could pretend it had never happened.
Probably the second.
My stomach rumbled and clenched. I was starving, which was ridiculous after all the pizza I’d eaten last night, but I guessed mad flights of terror would burn through fuel pretty quickly.
My nose twitched. Did I smell... bacon?
I pulled myself from bed and groaned. If my body was healed from shifting, why was I still in so much pain? Even my toes complained.
I nearly walked out the door completely naked, I was so frazzled. I grabbed the loosest pants and t-shirt I could find and struggled into them before slumping my way downstairs.
Bast sat in his high chair next to Hunter, banging a brightly colored plastic worm or caterpillar on his tray. Craig pulled bacon out of a pan onto a plate, and Hunter was sniffing a bite of food on his fork. Once... twice...
When he saw me, he froze. “Uh... you shifted.”
Craig turned around and scanned me. “Bacon?”
“Please.” My voice was raspy. It felt like I’d been throat-punched. My neck was swollen... all of me was.
Hunter went back to sniffing his food, finally taking a bite of it just as Craig set a plate in front of me.
The bacon smelled delicious, but the moment I put it in my mouth, it was as if it had turned into rubber. I pulled it back out and examined it. It wasn’t burnt. It was crisp on the meaty side and exactly the right amount of chewy on the fatty side. It looked like a normal piece of bacon. I tried taking a bite again, but not only did it feel like rubber, it tasted like diesel fuel.
Fighting tears, I pushed the plate away.
Hunter’s eyes went wide, darting to and from my face. “Are... you okay, Wyatt?”
“No.” The tears burst forth. “I hurt. I’m hungry, but I can’t eat. I’m embarrassed about last night. And now I can’t even... ugh. Why am I crying?”
Craig put his wrist on my forehead. “You’re burning up, too.” He bent down to smell me. “Dammit, I’ve got bacon grease in my nose. One second.”
He disappeared and blew his nose in the bathroom, the sound louder than Bast’s happy baby squeals.
“Okay.” He bent down again and promptly sneezed. “Dammit. Sorry, Wyatt. It’s just—damn, that’s strong. I don’t know why I didn’t smell it before, but you’re in heat. Do you smell him, Hunter?”
Hunter shrugged. “I have a terrible sense of smell.”
Panic clawed in my chest, climbing my neck. “I can’t be in heat.”
I’d never gone into heat before, and I dreaded it. Omegas in heat hadn’t fared well at the brothel. Lots of men, alphas and humans, would pay a ton of money for thirty minutes of heat sex. Even more to knot them.
“Don’t worry.” Craig turned off the stove and pulled out his phone. “We just need a few things. An inflatable knot and lots of liquid meals.”
“An inflatable—” I blushed. “I don’t need any... any of that stuff.”
Craig didn’t even glance at me. “You know that squirmy, needy feeling you’re getting right now? How everything feels swollen and sensitive? That’s heat, and it’s going to drive you to crave cock and cum and knot like air.”
“Not in front of Bast, please,” Hunter hissed.
“I know what heat is. But I don’t want sex.” Well... maybe with Jordan.
Like a wolf with a bone, my mind latched onto the idea. I already knew what the big alpha looked like naked. What would he look like naked over me? I squirmed at the thought, and my butt cheeks squished. Oh shit... was that... slick? I’d never experienced that before.
“No one said anything about sex. I’m talking about a knot. It’s not the same as having an alpha satisfy your heat, but hey, it doesn’t require an alpha! So, bonus.”
“I have to take Bast to daycare.” Hunter glared at Craig and then gave me a sympathetic look. “I’ll check in when I get back?”
I nodded miserably. I’d come here so I wouldn’t be a burden to the Novaks, and instead I’d made myself a burden to a bunch of strangers. Great job, Wyatt.
“Okay, Chance will be here with the necessaries shortly.”
“You told Chance?” I was mortified.
“He’s our counselor. He’s supposed to help us out in our times of need. You definitely qualify.”
“Oh god.” I buried my face in my hands.
Blocking out my actual world only gave my internal world free rein. I imagined Jordan picking me up from this table, naked, of course, and carrying me to my bedroom. Of him laying me down in my bed and stroking his long, thick—
What was happening to me? I’d never thought positively about sex before. Why was my brain so fixated on it now?
“I don’t want to be in heat,” I whispered to the table.
“Sorry. We don’t get much choice. Perks of being an omega, huh?”
“Isn’t there something I can take to stop it? Some kind of medicine?”
“Short answer, no. Long answer, don’t even get me started on the lack of research into omega-focused health issues.” Craig pulled a chair out beside me. “I know this sucks. I know you feel miserable. But you’ll survive. We’ve all lived through worse.”