Chapter 10
Russell
I don’t know what it was that made me go after him. Was it the unusual intensity of his pheromones, lingering even after he left? The tinge of panic in his eyes before he turned away from me? Or maybe it was worry; that instinct deep within telling me that something was amiss.
The sight of him sitting in the corner, legs spread out, all sweaty and panting with his cock in his hand, sends a jolt of pain through my heart. It makes me glad I did follow him.
The scent of licorice in the air is intense. It’s the unmistakable scent of an alpha in a rut.
Wren blinks sharply, clearly waking up from the shock of seeing me after being completely frozen for a few seconds.
He immediately starts tucking himself away, his usually pale face flushing red.
Even from a distance, I see the glistening trail of whitish liquid running down his hand, so I clench my teeth and go get some tissues from behind the counter.
When I return, he’s still down there, his knees pulled tightly against his chest. He looks almost as if he is trying to sink between his shoulders.
I bend down with the tissue. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
Wren accepts it and cleans himself, but he won’t look at me. I guess it is a little embarrassing…or it would be, had we not already slept together. We’ve seen that side of each other, so why does he seem so unsettled?
A droplet of sweat runs down his temple. It passes perfectly between the other strands of his blond hair sticking to his face.
“It-it wasn’t supposed to come this soon. I was supposed to…be home by now,” he whispers, the words coming out with a clear struggle between his unsteady breaths.
I frown. His scent is so strong it makes my skin feel weird and tingly. His rut must have just started.
I slowly kneel in front of him, my chest tightening over the desperation in his glazed-over eyes as he finally looks up at me.
“Do you…do you have any suppressants?” Wren asks.
I press my lips together with an apologetic headshake.
“People around here don’t really believe in that stuff.
Suppressin’ what’s natural and all that.
I don’t sell any, and don’t have any for myself, either.
” After using them in the army for so long, I haven’t felt the need or wanted to use them.
I probably messed up my body with them enough.
It’s always been easier to just let nature happen, no matter how uncomfortable that can get.
Wren makes something between a disgusted snort and a hopeless groan. “Of course,” he mutters, hanging his head in defeat.
I watch his hand grip his knee until the skin behind his nails turns almost completely white.
How do I help him with this? I’m already feeling the effects of his pheromones—they turn my mind all light and fuzzy, and my cock is, against my better judgment, eager to come out to play too, if I give it the attention.
Swallowing, I lean closer to him, but Wren quickly shakes his head, recoiling as his shoulders begin to tremble in a way that makes me pull back.
What is this really about?
“Are you just uncomfortable because you’re pent up from the rut, or is there somethin’ else?
” I ask. His breaths become more unsteady and uncontrolled.
Wren opens his mouth to say something, but doesn’t.
“Use your phone. Please,” I urge gently.
“Tell me what’s wrong. How to help you. I need to know to be able to help. ”
Wren’s eyes meet mine briefly, a striking sense of vulnerability pulsing within, before he digs his phone out of his pocket and starts typing; hands shaking, knees pressed tight against his heaving chest.
I want to reach out. To pull him into my embrace to soothe him, but I think it might be too much. So instead, I patiently wait for him as he types and deletes and types again, tears slowly welling up in his eyes.
[I fucking hate being in a rut. I almost always take suppressants.
These fucking urges are the last thing I want to feel when I’m like this.
And now that I’m so close to the place where the one person who should’ve protected me ruined it for me, I wanted the drugs to help me deal with it. I can’t take it. THIS. I cant]
It might not be right for me to peek over to read the text upside down before he is ready to show it to me, but I do. He’s getting upset. And I need to know why.
[I don’t know how to fucking deal with my nature. The nature my mother used to]
As he stares at the blinking cursor, lips parted for the ragged breaths to come in and out, I notice a tear roll down his cheek, and everything inside me coils and pulls.
Wren rubs his face roughly, almost violently, his hand trembling still. He digs his fingers into his hair, looking like he is facing unimaginable terror whenever he glances back at that screen, and that’s when it finally clicks for me.
My knee-jerk reaction is denial. A frigid wave of disgust passes through me, chilling the very blood in my veins. This can’t be what I think it is. There’s no room for any other thoughts than that: this can’t be what I think it is.
Bile shoots up my throat.
It could. It is.
“She…she didn’t… Did she?”
Wren jerks up, widening his red eyes at me.
For a moment, he just stares, breathless and motionless and in shock, like he’s processing the fact that I know.
Does anyone else? Then his face twists into the most heartbreaking expression I have ever seen as he fights his emotions from completely overtaking him and hangs his head down again.
I must be wrong. I must have misunderstood. Surely. It can’t…that can’t be true.
I don’t want it to be.
He sobs. Quietly at first, before his shoulders start shaking and the stifled cries rattle through him like an earthquake, getting louder and more uncontrolled.
I don’t know what to do. Touching him or coming closer feels like it would only make things worse.
I’ve felt big and awkward often in my life, but never like this.
Never like he could shatter under my touch if I dared to act…
So I wait and watch, breathless, hoping there is maybe some relief in those emotions.
The solace of another human being knowing, if anything.
Wren’s cries calm a little after a while. With a raspy inhale, he tightens his phone in his hands and starts typing again, having hit the button for a new line without even deleting the incomplete message from before.
[She told me it was my duty as an alpha to help her through her heat.
There was no one else and she was “suffering”.
My dad was gone so it fell on me. I was the alpha of the house.
The gods made alphas and omegas this way and there was no fighting it, she said.
No fighting it. It was the only way. I had to. If I loved her, I had to.]
Horrible anger flares up inside me. It pushes all the air out of my lungs.
How could she do that? How could she ever—
“Wren, I’m… Oh, I’m so sorry, sugar,” I whisper.
He keeps typing, even though it barely makes sense, and the words only come out somewhat comprehensible thanks to the autocorrect.
[And I did. Helped her. I hated it but my body, her pheromones, it just]
I grab his hands, making Wren jolt with a little gasp.
“That’s okay,” I say, carefully rubbing my thumbs over his cold, bony hands.
I can’t let him completely slip into this hell.
Whatever hell he clearly knows all too well.
The one I could never truly understand. “I’m so sorry she did something so…
horribly twisted. She…she was wrong, Wren.
The gods didn’t create us to do somethin’ like that.
Your mother failed you, and you didn’t deserve that, you hear me? ”
It all makes sense now.
Why he wanted those pills. Why he would be an addict in the first place. Why he tried so hard to get off the mountain.
I know nothing about Wren at large, but he has the aura of someone who’s struggled for a long, long time. And it was all caused by her. How couldn’t it be? How could something like that not completely wreck someone’s soul?
His own mother. His mama…
Wren lets go of the phone. He lets it fall into his lap, shuddering and sobbing as he rests his forehead on his knees. I feel him press into my touch like he’s seeking the heat and comfort, desperate and fragile and raw.
A kind of anger I’m not even sure how to deal with rises in my chest the more I think about what that monster did to him, but the scent of his pheromones brings me back down. He needs help. And there’s only one way for me to help him.
“You probably don’t want to hear it right now, I am sorry, but you know that I can make the symptoms of your rut more manageable. I’m an omega. My pheromones… I-I can let you use my body to get relief, is what I’m saying.”
His head jerks up, already shaking vehemently by the time he raises his chin fully.
Before I can say anything, Wren snatches back his phone.
[DONT WANT TO USE YOU. WONT DO IT AGAIN. It was disgusting what I did, it was wrong I know that, I HATE myself for it]
“No, Wren. It’s okay, I—” Even as I try to calm him, he keeps shaking his head and pushing my hands away, terrified determination burning in his eyes.
“Listen to me,” I say sharply, and he finally pauses long enough for me to talk.
“That ain’t what I meant. I chose the wrong words.
It’s not using me if I offer it, right? If-if I want it too. ”
Doubt flashes across his features. Handsome, strong features. Oh, his pheromones are definitely starting to affect me. But what I’m saying is all me. It has nothing to do with that.
“Want it?” he mouths, brows furrowing with a tense little twitch.