31. Sterling
STERLING
I wake up with a hollow ache in my chest. It feels both emotional and physical, wrapping around my ribs like something is pulling too tight inside me.
It’s Tuesday morning—the first day back after the long weekend. I thought I’d feel rested and invigorated, ready to plow through the long stretch of school before Thanksgiving break.
But instead…I feel like I’ve been hit by an emotional freight train and then dragged back to reality by my too-loud alarm.
After getting home yesterday—and leaving Quinn at urgent care, which I still feel ridiculously guilty about, even though he was in the hands of his pack—my phone kept blowing up.
Cass and JP were texting every ten minutes for almost an hour until I finally responded with a half-lie…
“I think I’m coming down with something.
No, I’m fine. Don’t come over. I’ll text you later. ”
Then I turned off my phone.
And ignored it for the rest of the night.
I couldn’t make my brain wrap around the violence of it—the cruelty of Graves. I feel like I’m the straw that broke the camel’s back, the absent-mindedly tossed cigarette that ignites an already dry forest, just waiting for a spark to unleash the fury of a wildfire.
They were barely able to bear Graves’ brutality before I showed up and now…it’s just been so much worse. Somehow, I’ve fanned the flames by allowing myself to feel. To let them in. To feel…like I belonged somewhere. For once.
I don't want to be the reason anything like that ever happens again. What if Blake had been there? What if he’d seen that violence, that rage aimed at the people he loves? It makes my stomach turn.
There’s something about me that makes Graves volatile. I don’t know if it’s because I won’t back down, or if I remind him of someone he couldn’t control. But I saw the way he looked at me.
I was a threat.
I just need time. Time to figure out how to hold all these pieces in my hands without breaking them.
Time to figure out if I’m brave enough to believe I might deserve it.
Time to decide what I want to do about the whole damn thing.
And I just can’t do life today. I can’t fake it, can’t force it, can’t pretend everything’s fine when my chest still feels too tight to breathe.
My heart's a mess, my brain won’t stop spinning, and the idea of putting on a smile and standing in front of a room full of wide-eyed five-year-olds feels impossible. I love my job, I really do. But today? I’m calling a mulligan. A draw.
Okay, life—you win, today’s a mess. I’m taking a pass and starting over tomorrow.
I reach for my phone, typing out a message to the school.
Sterling Hart: Hi, I’m not feeling well today. I won’t be in. I’ll have my lesson plans sent over shortly.
A few moments pass before I get a response.
Principal Everly: Feel better, Miss Hart! We’ll see you tomorrow.
I drop my phone onto the bed, exhaling sharply. I wish it were that simple. That tomorrow I would be fine, that I could show up, smile, and pretend the last forty-eight hours hadn’t happened.
But I know better.
I shove out my nest, the blankets still warm with Cass and Quinn’s scent. My body reacts—core clenching, heat blooming low—and it makes me want to scream.
Not from desire. From frustration.
I reach for my laptop to send over my sub plans when a sudden, overwhelming urge to cry floods me.
I can’t do this. I can’t be this person.
I hit send, hoping that at least getting the plans off will buy me a little grace. Then I shuffle to the kitchen, praying my favorite tea will somehow fix…whatever this is.
I’ve struggled with mood swings since I was a kid. My therapist and I have spent years working on it—radical acceptance, cognitive behavioral therapy, every acronym under the sun—until I finally felt like I had a handle on things. Enough tools in my kit. Like I was good. Balanced. Normal.
And it’s been a long time since the doom and gloom has crept in this heavy. Since the weight of it has felt so inescapable.
Right now, it feels like I’m drowning in it.
Maybe being courted by a pack isn’t for me. Maybe I’m not enough of an Omega—the kind who fits into a dynamic with grace and certainty. I’ve spent too long protecting myself, learning how to survive without anyone.
And now that I’m standing on the edge of something real, I can’t help but wonder if I belong here at all.
JP’s avoidance doesn’t feel like disinterest—it feels like rejection. Like he wants me but thinks he shouldn’t, and that kind of shame burns. It brings back memories I thought I’d buried.
Being someone’s mistake. Being molded into what someone else wanted, never enough as I am. His silence cuts deeper than I want to admit, making me question everything.
Maybe I’m too complicated, too scarred. Maybe no Alpha would ever truly choose me once they see the whole picture.
And yet—I want it. I want them. I want the future I can almost taste: a home, a pack, a family. But if I fall and this breaks apart, I don’t know if I’ll survive it.
Maybe walking away now would be easier than risking what it would mean to stay.
Every step to the kitchen feels heavy, like I’m dragging the weight of my own failure behind me. I wanted them. Still do. But want isn’t enough—not when I’m the reason things keep going wrong.
A burden. A complication. The chaos in their calm.
Cass’s father was right—there’s a reason I’m unclaimed. I try to drink tea, but my hands won’t stop shaking.
Panic. I feel it rising, sharp and cruel.
No. Not again.
I shuffle to the bathroom and flick the light on. The reflection that meets me is pale, wide-eyed, my chest visibly rising and falling too fast.
“Breathe,” I whisper, gripping the sink with both hands. “You’ve done this before. You know what it is. You’ve got this…”
I turn the tap and splash cold water over my face, the shock helping pull me back. I do it again. And again. Until my hands stop shaking.
Then I look myself in the eye.
“This doesn’t get to own you,” I mumble. “You are not the problem. You’re not broken. You’re just overwhelmed. This is just your brain having a thought.”
I stay like that—watching myself, grounded by the chill on my skin, the sound of the water running, the quiet repetition of my breath.
It passes. Not all the way, not completely, but enough. Enough that I can stand without crumbling.
I towel off, shut the water, and press my palms to the side of my face.
“I’m okay,” I whisper, more to myself than anything else. “I’m okay.”
I keep repeating it like a lifeline, like I can will it into truth—right up until a sharp cramp hits low and brutal, stealing the breath from my lungs.
I double over, gripping the edge of the counter for support, and my mind flashes back to my last doctor’s visit.
“If you’ve stopped your suppressants, it could take weeks…
maybe a month before you feel anything. Some Omegas never experience a full heat, but if you do, Sterling, you need to be prepared.
It’s not just arousal—it’s physical. It can be consuming, overwhelming.
Really harmful, if you’re not ready. And your own body may override the suppressants anyways. ”
Another cramp ripples through me, worse than the first, and a hot rush of slick soaks my underwear.
My breath comes fast, shallow, darkness licking at the edges of my vision again. I thought I had more time.
But as the next wave of heat rolls through me, I know. Time has run out.
It starts with a slow burn, a prickling awareness beneath my skin, then deepens into a pulling, twisting need low in my belly. My whole body is too hot, too tight, my skin sensitive to every shift of air.
I strip off my sweater, standing in just a thin tank top and shorts, but it doesn’t help. My thighs squeeze together on instinct, trying to quell the ache, but it only makes it worse.
Fuck. Fuck.
I stagger toward the shower, turning the shower as cold as it will go, stepping under the spray with a choked gasp, clothes and all. The water cascades over my fevered skin, shocking me, cooling me down for a few blessed seconds?—
Until another wave slams into me, dragging me under.
It’s too much.
Too hot.
I sink to my knees, my forehead pressing against the cool tile as my body betrays me, my Omega instincts rising to the surface, demanding. Wanting. The empty hollow feeling at my care is almost unbearable.
A strangled sound leaves my throat, somewhere between a sob and a moan.
I can’t do this. Not alone. I reach for my phone, my fingers shaking, my vision blurring. But I left it in my nest.
Another wave crashes through me—and everything goes dark.
—
When I come back to myself, I realize I must’ve blacked out—only for a few minutes, thank God—but still. The shower is still running, hitting my skin like needles. My limbs feel heavy, useless.
I’m slumped in the tub, drenched and shaking, and everything hurts. Every inch of me aches, like my body doesn’t belong to me anymore.
The heat is still raging inside me, curling through my veins like wildfire. A dark, breathless laugh slips out of me—if that was just a pre-heat cramp, I’m literally going to die. How do Omegas do this?
I crawl out of the tub and shut off the water.
I’m kneeling on the bath mat in just my shorts and sleep tank, soaked to the bone.
I’m shivering—from the cold and from the unrelenting, burning heat blazing under my skin.
I try to breathe, try to get my lungs to cooperate, to regulate, when I smell them.
Their scent clings to me—embedded in my nest, still on my skin—and the second it reaches my nose, my back arches involuntarily. My core clenches so hard I cry out. The sudden need is unbearable. The ache for a knot, for them, so consuming I can barely stay upright.
Omegas need Alphas. It’s biology. And the injustice of it all isn’t lost on me. But right now? I’d fucking crawl across town to drag them into my nest if I had the energy. Just to make this ache stop.
Thank God we at least talked about it. I know that if I can call them they’ll know what to do. I can’t imagine being in public like this—just the residual scent of an Alpha has me wrecked. If the real thing were here?
I’d be on my hands and knees. Ass in the air…begging. And I wouldn’t even be ashamed. Just the thought has me moaning. I need to get to my phone.
But every time I try to stand, crawl—move at all—my head spins so violently I feel bile rise in my throat. My slick is pooling, and running down my leg, my scent thick in the air like a goddamn beacon. It’s humiliating. Overwhelming.
I try again, pushing against the cold tile, willing my body to cooperate. But my arms tremble, weak and useless. My muscles won’t respond. My body refuses to move.
Fuck.
I don’t even have the strength to get to my phone. To call them. To ask them to join me. That I don’t want to be alone. That I can’t do this without them.
A sob rips from my throat, raw and choking. Frustration and shame twist together, wrapping around my chest like barbed wire until I can barely breathe.
I sink back down, curling into myself on the wet bath mat, my vision blurring again.
And through the haze, through the pulsing heat and crushing helplessness, one thought claws its way forward?—
I need them.