Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Quincy
Life for the severed was supposed to be better on meds.
I begged to differ. Sure, I didn’t experience wild mood swings when I was swallowing three pills a day with meals.
I could go back to work at my little shared office in The Grand Hotel and concentrate on the reports I needed to put together debriefing the comic book convention that had just finished.
I even had the focus to sit through the team meeting about the Barrington Tech Expo that would take place that weekend. The meds made all that possible.
And they numbed me the fuck out.
I hated it, which is why I’d stopped taking them in the lead-up to the Omega Auction and my heat.
I’d wanted to feel every rush of fake fear as I was “kidnapped” and sold to the highest bidder.
I’d wanted to feel the pain of each blow whatever alpha bought me might give.
I wanted to experience the bittersweet pleasure-pain of being fucked and made to feel like some alpha’s plaything.
I’d ended up losing my heart.
“Which is why we’ll need to make a few adjustments to the room assignments for the special presentations and lectures,” Amelia, my team leader and the Head of Events for The Grand droned on as the meeting reached its pitch.
“The senator wants to make certain his contributions to the scientific and technological life of Barrington are given as much media coverage as possible, and his hand-selected choice for keynote speaker has recently changed.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t really paying attention.
My role for the upcoming expo was mostly facilitating, which meant making sure each of the presenters giving lectures had the right AV equipment, enough water bottles stashed in their podiums, and that they got to the right room at the right time.
Considering a bunch of them were mad scientists who may or may not wear matching socks, that was a harder job than it sounded.
Maybe I could sneak into a highway rest stop and steal a few bottles of water.
The thought came at me out of nowhere. It was accompanied by Jack’s shocked, beautiful face as I stuffed donuts under my shirt.
The yearning I felt for Jack tried to push through the chemically induced calm that blanketed my thoughts like thick snow.
It had been just over two weeks since I’d touched him, since I’d breathed in his complex scent, since I’d had his cock in my mouth and his knot in my channel.
Nineteen days since I’d felt his fingers stroking my skin, trying to comfort me, hoping to give me aftershock orgasms.
Nineteen days wasn’t enough to dull the memory of my inner omega screaming with grief and rage that he couldn’t connect with Jack and be one with him.
Jack and I had been texting, sure. We sent each other good night messages when we went to bed and good morning messages when we rose.
But that was it. I’d been too chicken to ask for a phone call, and Jack hadn’t offered.
He was probably busy being a high-powered lawyer and the son of the man who would probably be our governor in the new year.
I missed him.
“Quincy, how are you coming along with arrangements for Dr. Farringdon’s presentation?”
I missed him so hard that even with the meds, the sadness and longing were almost unbearable.
“Quincy?”
I just wanted to curl up and press myself into Jack’s body again. I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut and pretend I wasn’t broken, that we had a chance of bonding someday and making a life together.
“Hey, Quincy.”
Amelia’s voice was soft and sad, and when she rested a hand on my arm, I jumped.
I blinked, glancing around the table at the sympathetic, and some not-so sympathetic, faces of my coworkers. That was when I realized my cheeks were wet.
I gulped and brushed away my tears, mortally embarrassed.
“Sorry,” I said gruffly, then cleared my throat a few times to get the burr out. I faked a self-effacing laugh and said, “I guess it’s time to up my dosage again.”
A few of my colleagues pretended to laugh.
They were good people and good friends. Not many places would have hired a severed omega.
The statistics about employment and job retention for anyone who had gone through what I’d gone through weren’t good.
Amelia was a stellar boss, though. She was a beta, but I thought I’d heard something about her best friend from college being a severed omega whose alpha had been killed in a car crash right after their honeymoon.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Take your time.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, waving off her concern and fiddling with the tablet on the table in front of me.
I cleared my throat one more time then said, “We’re all set for Dr. Farringdon’s presentation.
He has his own equipment, and even though it’s complex and delicate, I’ve been coordinating with his team to get it into his presentation space in time for his demonstration, and then to store it someplace secure for the rest of the expo, until he’s ready to return it all to his lab. ”
“Great,” Amelia said, touching my arm one last time before going on with the meeting. “Harold, how are you coming along with refreshments for the high school science teams?”
I took a deep breath once attention was off me. I could do this. I could continue on with my life and do my job to the best of my abilities, damage or no damage.
I had to do my job. There wasn’t an alternative.
Just that morning, Dad, Papa, and I had had a discussion around the breakfast table about expenses for the house and the kids.
A tree had fallen in the front yard while I’d been off on my adventure with Jack, and our homeowner’s insurance refused to pay for its removal, calling it an Act of God.
On top of that, Miles’ teachers had met with Papa and told him Miles showed extreme potential and was eligible for an early-admissions college program.
The program cost an arm and a leg.
I needed my job. I couldn’t let my cracked mental state get in the way of helping my family. They’d done so much to help me. I could be on the street or in an institution if it wasn’t for them.
“So that about wraps it up,” Amelia said with a smile, ending the meeting. “Great job, everyone. This year’s Barrington Tech Expo is going to be the best one ever.
I stood along with the others, still feeling a bit wobbly. That wobbly feeling increased as we all headed out of the conference room.
“Quincy, I need you,” Amelia said, snagging me before I could return to my office.
I followed her down the hall to the elevator that would take us to the main part of the hotel, definitely feeling like something was off.
“I’m really sorry about my lapse in the meeting,” I said as we reached the elevator and waited. “This last week has been—”
“It’s okay,” Amelia said. “Really. You just went through heat, right?” she asked quietly.
I nodded. In some circles, it was considered taboo for omegas to talk about their heats, especially to non-omegas. Amelia was in her fifties and had a super motherly energy, though. I’d always been open with her about what was going on with me.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, waving the problem away as the elevator doors swished open.
A few people got out, and the two of us stepped in and headed down.
“You’re one of my best team members,” she said as the swoop of the elevator made my insides feel particularly wiggly.
“I pride myself on seeing and hiring talent when it presents itself to me. You’ve never let your disability get in the way of your job performance. ”
I grimaced. I hated calling the sever my disability. There were people in this world who dealt with far more than I did, and their challenges had come to them naturally. Mine had been inflicted on me, with my dubious consent, because I’d been young and dumb and thought I was in love.
“Anyhow,” Amelia said once the elevator doors slid open into The Grand’s huge lobby, “the board of the Tech Expo just handed me an enormous, last-minute change, and I need my best people handling it. We’re on our way to meet with the senator and our new keynote speaker.”
The way she said that was a gentle reminder of what she’d been talking about when I was zoning out. It wasn’t news, but she was telling me like it was to save me the embarrassment of admitting I’d been stuck in my head during the meeting.
“Do we know why this senator has changed out the keynote speaker at the last minute?” I asked as we crossed the hub-like lobby and started down one of the side corridors toward the hotel’s biggest conference room.
“Does a senator have the right to change the keynote speaker or should the board of the expo do that?”
A bunch of things hit me square between the eyes as soon as I asked those questions. Things that I would have picked up on immediately, if I hadn’t been having an emotional lapse.
Senator. As in Senator John Salisbury.
“The official line is that this scientific prodigy of his has invented some sort of app or program or something that’s going to revolutionize the way people do business,” Amelia said, not sounding at all impressed.
“But if you ask me, I think there’s probably some behind the scenes wheeling and dealing going on.
This new tech guy has made, like, a billion dollars or something in the last two years with his innovations company. ”
I nearly tripped before we reached the open door of the conference room.
No. It couldn’t be. It would be absolutely, cosmically unfair.
But I could feel it. Or rather, I could feel him.
I could feel the blunt, severed end of my bond sparking and prickling, like someone had plugged it into an electrical outlet.
That’s why I’d had a quiet meltdown during the meeting.
That’s why the swoopy feeling of racing down in an elevator hadn’t left me when we’d stepped out into the lobby.