Chapter 4
Lucien
I’ve been locked in my room for hours. After the initial hysteria of my discovery had me opening my bags and dumping everything in them onto the floor, I managed to calm myself enough to sort things into neat piles.
Since then, I’ve systematically searched every item I packed twice.
I’ve turned out pockets and patted down hems. I’ve shaken out the wigs and feather boa I brought for the murder mystery night, and I’ve gone so far as to search the boxes the games came in with a fine-tooth comb, even though they were unused—and unopened—when I packed them.
I’ve cried three times, and I’ve used every swear word in the English language at least a hundred times each.
I’ve had a cold shower, washed my hair, brushed my teeth, and changed into the lightest pair of cotton pants I packed and a tiny tank top.
I’m still warm.
Eventually, hunger and an urgent need for coffee coax me out of my room, so I slink down the hall, speeding up when I see Branson on his phone on the porch. He doesn’t see me because he’s pacing up and down, waving his hands as he talks.
I crank up the coffee maker and raid the fridge.
It’s psychosomatic, I tell myself as I shovel food into my mouth. It’s too soon. It’s not a symptom. It can’t be a symptom, unless…
No. It’s the hangover.
Obviously, it’s the hangover. I’m always hungry when I’m hungover.
It takes three cups of coffee, a tub of yogurt, an entire container of strawberries, and two bowls of leftover curry to sate my hunger.
I’m a little shaky afterward, but that’s the hangover too. I get the worst hangovers. Seriously, the night before is never worth the day after. I need to start remembering that.
Branson is still on his call, so I creep past the windows that look out onto the porch and head down the hall to my bedroom again. I perform a last panicked, cuss-laden search of my possessions.
When it proves unsuccessful, I bundle my clothes into the closet and kick the games, wigs, and feather boa under my bed in a mix of despair, disbelief, and choked horror.
The entire time, my cheeks burn with what I can only hope to God is humiliation.
As the day wears on, my humiliation increases exponentially. It must because the twin stripes of heat that have burned my cheeks since this morning have expanded, spreading down my neck and leaving my upper chest lightly coated in perspiration.
I make two more furtive trips to the kitchen, consuming an inordinate amount of food both times. It does nothing to cure the humiliation and barely staves off my hunger.
At around four in the afternoon, the few lights that are on in dimly lit corners of the house flicker off, and the hum of the fridge falls silent.
Oh fuck.
Branson was right.
The power has gone down.
A generator growls to life, and the hum of the fridge starts up again.
A few essential lights come on, but it’s darker and quieter in the cabin than it was before.
Outside, snow falls steadily. The silhouette of pine trees has morphed into something stark and sculptural.
Deciduous branches blanketed in a thick white cloak make me feel like I’ve been dropped onto a different planet.
In a different galaxy.
It’s remote here. Removed. Far, far away from everything I know.
After a while, Branson comes in, shucking off his boots before he enters and hanging his coat up at the door.
“Power’s out,” he says, without looking at me.
Neither of us says anything else for a very long time.
He’s shivering from being out in the cold for so long, nose pink, lips slightly blue, and is trying his best to hide it.
He gets a saucepan out and starts shakily making hot chocolate on the stove top.
I watch silently as he brings the milk to near boiling before dropping a generous helping of chocolate into it.
He uses a wooden spoon to stir it, pausing now and again to rub his hands together to warm them.
When the hot chocolate is ready, he pours it into two mugs and offers me one.
He waits until I’ve had a couple of sips before speaking. “I called everyone I could think of, Lucy. I did everything I could. I tried but…I can’t get anyone up here to help you.”
My cheeks flush, burning with heat that I’m pretty sure really is embarrassment this time.
“Y-you know?” I squawk.
His eyes flash and his head spins as he turns to face me.
“Of course I know. I can sense an omega in heat a mile away. You’re under my roof.
” He enunciates the last few words clearly and with a slight growl.
I take a very small step back. “How could I not know?” He takes a breath and slows, voice softening.
“I scented the change at four o’clock this morning. It woke me from a dead sleep.”
His words land and settle uncomfortably between us. There are many things about them I’d like to address, but none outweigh the childish sense of dismay and embarrassment I feel about the fact that Branson knows what’s happening to me.
I’ve been in such a state that I haven’t had time to process things.
Obviously, I know that alphas can sense heats.
I don’t need anyone telling me that. Everyone knows it.
It’s just that I’m clinging to denial as hard as I possibly can, and I haven’t come close to accepting what’s happened.
I’d have liked some time to work through it on my own before having to discuss it with a near stranger.
An alpha stranger at that.
“I…er, I just don’t know why it’s happening so fast,” I mumble.
I should have paid more attention in biology class. I know that, but at the time, I was convinced this kind of information didn’t pertain to me. I had no intention of ever going off my suppressant and experiencing a heat.
I could swear we were taught that symptoms of impending heat wouldn’t appear for at least five days after the last dose of suppressant was taken. Sometimes more.
I remember learning that.
I’m fucking sure I remember it. Mrs. Bradshaw, my sex ed teacher, was all, “Now, when you want to start a family, be sure to go off your suppressant in plenty of time. It’ll take at least five to seven days to go into heat, and you can’t conceive for one full cycle after you stop taking the drug.”
She said that. She definitely said that.
“Could be a number of things,” Branson says, a lot calmer than I think the situation calls for. “Where are you in your cycle?”
“I don’t track my cycle,” I say very quietly.
He doesn’t reply directly, but I notice him blinking a little harder than normal. “Do you skip doses of your suppressant routinely?”
“No,” I say.
He raises both eyebrows and tilts his head at me.
He’s annoyingly stern and up his own ass. He has that whole broad-shouldered, in-charge thing going, and that’s irritating too.
Unfortunately, it’s also unnerving as hell.
“Yes,” I amend, “but it makes no difference. I do it all the time, and nothing like this has ever happened.”
He opens his mouth to speak, but then seems to reconsider his position and decide against it. It’s the right choice. My temperature is rising by the minute, and the heat in my face is starting to feel remarkably similar to anger.
Evening melts slowly into night, and dinner is a strained affair. Branson spends most of the meal trying to breathe through his mouth and pretending he’s not doing it, and I’m too busy shoveling food into my mouth to make conversation.
In some ways, it’s a mercy.
I go to bed early, stripping my bed of the blanket and bedspread, and fall asleep under nothing but the top sheet.