Ondine, Vol. 1 (Cash City Omegaverse #1)

Chapter 1 The Heat Clinic

The Heat Clinic

Ondine

Tears stream down my face as I stumble onto the street in front of the Omega Heat Clinic.

My clothes are askew, and I hope they aren’t inside out and backwards.

But I can’t stop and fix myself even if I wanted to.

Although my heat spike is over, it could come back at any time, so I need to get out of here.

My hands are shaking so hard, it causes my shoulders to shake too.

My jaw is tight, and my skin is fucking hot.

As I turn the corner, I can feel Arnold’s spent roll down both thighs.

He’d come in me only moments prior. I stifle a cry.

I can’t cry. Not yet. I have to get somewhere safe and quickly.

The closest Heat Clinic is on the other side of the city, at least a forty-minute walk. It’s another private clinic, and most likely, it could be full. They don’t take walk-ins without a significant cost, and I’ve already spent all my money for this heat at this clinic.

Omegas don’t always have to pay. There are free clinics, but they come with caveats.

I’d have to sign long contracts and agree to placement assessments and trials.

It is all in good faith. I remind myself that no one wants an unattached omega walking the streets of their city.

It’s like having a naked woman with a briefcase filled with cash running around batting her eyelashes.

Which was exactly what I was doing (minus the cash), and I was within a few hours from my next heat, and running down the streets of one of the largest ABO (Alpha/Beta/Omega) populated cities in the west.

Arnold’s beautiful face appears in my memory, his eyebrows pressed together, anguish written all over him, regret radiating between us.

Oh god, I’m a monster.

Arnold is perfect. And I knew it was a matter of time before he realized I was never worthy of his adoration. His tawny red hair was sweat soaked when his hands raked through it, as he said the most damning words.

“We shouldn’t have done that.”

I’d gone to the Clinic for my heat spike, but the spike happened too quickly. Too rough. I’d lost my ever-living mind. So when I saw Arnie there, prepping my room with nesting materials, I’d pounced. I’d wanted him for longer than I’m willing to admit.

A beta.

A beta whose job was to make sure I had what I needed in the Clinic I was paying for.

It was his job to make sure I had everything I needed for my heat.

To have the alpha males to satiate my sex crazed body.

To have the food and water I needed for the several days I’d be in that state.

It was his job to adjust my nesting materials rental order to my taste.

It was his job to check in on me. To answer questions. To assign alphas.

And yet my stupid omegabrain took it all wrong. He made me feel special. He made me feel like the only omega there. The only omega he wanted to care for. And when the heat spike rammed through my body like a live wire.

I wanted him inside me.

I turn another corner, passing a few unattached alpha males who turn all the way around to stare at me. My pheromones are potent. I look up in time to see the men sneer, smelling Arnie on me, most likely. I just hope they won’t follow me.

Omegas are uncommon. Unattached omegas running through the city covered in come fuck me pheromones and the spent of a male fresh on their skin—uncommon and dangerous as all hell.

Plus, there have been two missing omegas in the news this week.

It’s not like an alpha would want to hurt an omega, but their instinct to claim would overpower any sense. And if there was anything significant about my scent to them, they wouldn’t be able to stop themselves.

I doubt I’d be able to deter a 250 pound man made of pure muscle, being ruled by primal instincts.

Alphas are larger than everyone around them.

Usually well above 6 feet tall. They are always dealing with so much testosterone that they need to be physical, and they’ve got the muscles and power for it.

Also, most alphas have personality traits that make them aggressive, and let’s just say it—narcissists.

Uncaring assholes.

Omegas usually have handlers or hire protection to keep them safe. They don’t go running around the city practically in heat, all alone. Anything can happen.

Even I couldn’t say no to my instincts. Arnie is strictly forbidden from touching the omegas he cares for. All of the special treatment he’d given me—or at least a lot of it—could be explained as part of his duties, except for what we just did. What I made him do.

Arnie is a beta. What 80% of the population’s designation is. He’s a regular man. Omegas are only supposed to be with alphas. It’s pretty much a law. Well, it’s not actually a law, but there are enough laws adjacent to make it one.

A fully formed pack is outside of criticism and social norms. “Stay out of their nest” is the saying. They can do what they want in their pack. But even then, a female omega and a male beta—it’s as taboo as it comes.

We are only for alphas.

I reach the entrance for the underground train and decide that getting to the other clinic is more important than the chance of running into any unhinged alphas down here.

I dart down the cement steps and slide my card for entrance.

My satchel flips around my body to my back as I run to catch the train that just arrived.

I’d never even taken it off while Arnie rutted into me on the floor of my unmade nest, in my assigned room, with the door wide open.

Remembering what I have in my bag, I stop suddenly and whip the bag around to my front, reaching in for the scent-blocking spray.

The little bottle has some weight to it, as if it has plenty of juice left.

I tip my head back and look up to the sky, thanking whoever may be up there for this small mercy. Tears glaze over my eyes.

The train doors screech open, and before I can blink away the tears, I hop onto the train. There’s no missing it and having to wait for the next one. I don’t have the time.

Just as the doors close behind me, the train starts up. But it isn’t going west. The train slides across the tracks, headed east.

“Fuck!” I yell at myself, causing a few people around me to dart their eyes in my direction. I bow my head in apology and turn away.

Fuck. Fuck Fuck. Fuck.

Wrong train!

There’s this growing heat in my chest, and it’s spreading through my body. It’s an early sign of a heat spike. The next sign is my fucking pussy slicking.

I grab onto a bar to hold myself steady. My right hand is still in my bag, clutching the scent blocker.

Think, Ondine. Think! I command myself to be present.

To be human for just a little longer. If I go into heat on this train, someone will call Emergency Services, right?

And then they will take me to a state-owned Omega Clinic.

They will probably pump me full of suppressants and hormones to get this to stop.

But I am already full of hormones and suppressants that the Heat Clinic gives me.

What if it hurts me? What if it’s just the right chemical cocktail to turn me into a drooling vegetable?

And what if they are looking for me right now? If Arnie called the authorities on me for assaulting him, would I even go to a Clinic? Or would they just take me to jail to die in a holding cell?

Halfway in my head, and halfway actually present on this train, it’s surprising I notice him.

A tall blonde alpha male in a gray-blue suit turns his whole head in my direction.

He’s holding the bar above his head. His serene gray eyes look me up and down, and his head cocks to one side.

A silent question on his slightly parted lips.

I just caught the attention of an alpha.

He’s going to smell me.

And I am a beacon calling any available alpha to rut into me right on this dirty train floor.

I shove my hand back into my bag and clasp around the scent blocker.

I turn around in a few circles until I find an open seat and fall into it.

At the same time, I’m trying to think where this train is going.

It was red, right? The light had been red over the door.

The red line goes across town, only a few stops, making it the express.

Its last stop is the Clinic at Castell Square Garden, but going the other direction—my eyes close and my head drops in despair.

Oh, no.

This train goes out of the city, under the river.

To the suburbs on the peninsula. There’s no clinic there.

I could get off at the next stop, but I know as soon as I think this, the next stop is under the river and is 30 minutes away.

It’s going to take me at least 90 minutes to get to the Clinic.

Will I have another spike in 90 minutes?

I feel the air shift over me, so I open my eyes and peek up.

Staring at the alpha with the gray eyes, I realize my head has been bowed in deference.

Like I am submitting. His big grin confirms that’s exactly what I looked like.

I swallow my fear, pull out the scent blocker, pop off the cap, face the nozzle towards me, but before I can press down, his hand shoots out to stop me.

“One second. I need another second to enjoy your scent before you take it away,” he says with a voice that could melt an iceberg.

My eyes go wide, and I just know my pupils dilate. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this man used his alpha voice on me.

I pause and let him take me in.

What else can I do except let him?