Chapter 3
“Posey!”
I look up from my map to see Lainey jogging across the quad, frantically waving her arms like she’s trying to take flight.
A giggle slips out before I can stop it, she looks indignant for half a second before she bends in half, panting with her hands on her knees.
“I would be offended if I could breathe.”
It takes herculean effort to dam back my amusement, but I do it for my new friend. “I thought you were joking when you said you didn’t exercise.”
She scowls at me, and I finally break, my laughter ringing out around us and drawing way too many eyes.
After helping me pick out things for my apartment last weekend, Lainey and I exchanged numbers and have quickly become inseparable.
The perky omega is exactly my brand of weird, and as it turns out, she’s also a freshman at Harbor U, though she lives off campus with her mom instead of in the dorms.
“Clearly… I wasn’t… joking.” Lainey pants out. Her cheeks are bright pink and she looks a little sweaty, but her breathing finally begins to slow just as my alarm goes off.
I cringe, patting her back. “I hate to rush you, but that was my ‘oh shit, you’re going to be late’ alarm. We need to get to class.”
“I was coming to find you since we have the same class! I was trying to beat you there so I could save us seats but then I got distracted by… well, it doesn’t matter. The point is, we’re going to be late. Hurry!”
Luckily our classroom is in the next building over, so we make it just in time to slip into the last two available seats before the professor starts class.
Because we’re both first years, I got lucky and seem to have a lot of the same classes as Lainey, which could either be really good, or really bad.
I’m a notorious chatterbox with the people I love, and always have been.
My teachers would send report cards home with high marks and then write in the margins, “Primrose is a wonderful student, but she could do better if she would stop talking so much in class.”
Needless to say, I can’t really afford to do that here.
I don’t have a family counting on me to make something of myself or any young, impressionable omegas looking up to me to break the next glass ceiling.
But you know what they say, the most intense kind of pressure is the kind you put on yourself.
Lainey gently nudges me with her elbow, mouthing “you okay?” Her brown eyes are filled with concern.
I nod, shaking myself off and tuning in to the professor as she launches into the syllabus and course expectations.
It’s a basic entry-level English class, so most of the syllabus is just assigned books and the papers we’ll write on them.
I’m halfway through reading a synopsis for one of the longer novels when a sudden cramp hits, twisting my lower abdomen into knots.
Lainey startles when I double over with a quiet groan. “Holy shit, Posey. Are you okay?’
Sweat gathers on my forehead, a single droplet rolling down my face. “No… I don’t know,” I whimper. “I thought I had at least another year or two before my first heat hit since my mom’s didn’t start until she was twenty-one. But this feels a lot like the way they describe heat symptoms.”
The moment the words leave my mouth, my perfume explodes around me, the air saturating with the syrupy sweet scent of apples and honey.
My eyes widen as a frenetic energy takes over, clashing with the panic rushing through my body in a wave.
Lainey sees the look on my face and darts her hand up, catching the attention of the professor.
“Yes, Miss…?”
“Lainey Ryan, Professor Caldwell. My friend here needs to go to the clinic immediately, can I take her?”
Professor Caldwell takes one look at my sweaty, flushed face and nods, her own eyes widening slightly. We stand up and several growls thunder through the room, likely catching my perfume. The professor growls right back, her tone edged with the start of an alpha bark. “Gentlemen, sit down.”
To my complete shock, the three guys who were getting up drop like stones into their seats. I’ve never met a female alpha before, and if it wasn’t so hard to think straight I might have fallen a tiny bit in love with her for protecting me and keeping those alphas in their seats.
We rush out of the classroom, the floor swimming in front of me and making me stumble.
Lainey catches me, but just barely. “What do you want to do, Pose? The clinic will have alpha heat volunteers on standby and they’re all thoroughly vetted.
Or there’s a dating app that also has a heat partner option?
Or I can take you home and gather all the supplies you’ll need to ride it out alone.
But… that will most likely be pretty painful.
I can give you one of my sedatives, but you cannot leave your apartment once you take them because they lower your inhibitions as well as your pain. ”
I try to think through the options, but my head feels foggy. “I just want my nest.” The sniffle I let out is borderline pathetic, but I couldn’t stop the tears if I tried.
Her eyes soften, and she wipes my tears with a gentle hand. “I know it’s scary, but I’m right here. Let’s get you settled in your nest so I can run out and grab emergency supplies. You’re in the Lighthouse, right? Is there anyone I should call for you?”
My head bobs just as another cramp rips through my abdomen, and this one is accompanied by a flood of slick I pray doesn’t soak through my jeans.
I briefly wonder if I should call Maisie to let her know or ask her for help, but the thought of smelling her alphas and seeing her bond marks makes my omega irrationally upset that we are doing this alone and Maisie has never had to.
It’s only a few steps into the hallway when something shiny catches my eye, making me stop and distracting me from my internal dilemma. “A penny! Is it heads or tails?”
Lainey looks at me like I’m crazy, but graciously doesn’t call me out. “Umm, heads?”
I lunge forward, picking up the penny and admiring it for a moment while she watches with an amused slant to her mouth. The world starts to tilt around me making me list to the side and into my friend. “Alright, sweet cheeks. It’s time to get going.”
Time loses all meaning as we trek across campus at a snail’s pace with me having to stop for labored breaths every dozen feet or so, but Lainey is patient and viciously glares at anyone who so much as looks at me sideways.
I’m not sure how long it takes us to get there, but it feels like only a slow blink passes before we’re standing in front of my second-floor apartment. Lainey says something, but I’m too foggy to catch it. Her hand moves up to grip my chin, and my eyes immediately snap to hers. “Keys?”
I lift my bag silently, grateful when she takes it as the invitation I meant it to be and digs through the mess for my house keys.
“I won’t come in, but you go get settled in your nest and I’ll be back in a bit with food and supplies, okay?
Maybe you’ll get lucky and a few rounds with a battery operated boyfriend will knock you out of this wave before it becomes a full blown heat.
” She aims a side eye look my way. “You do have at least one of those, right?”
I nod, words escaping me once again. There’s a smoldering heat creeping under my skin, and my core clenches painfully as I let loose another whimper.
My friend gives me a gentle shove towards my nest and smiles calmly.
“I’ll bring your keys with me and leave everything on the counter.
And I’ll lock up before I go. If you need anything, call me or send an SOS text. I’ll come running.”
Before I can think about how my scent might be affecting her, I throw my arms around Lainey and squeeze, hoping the action conveys how grateful I am for her friendship.
She hugs me back even tighter and pats me on the head before she leaves.
If I were more coherent, I might laugh. But as it stands, my mind is solely focused on one thing and one thing only.
Knot.
I need a knot now. It’s a test in coordination trying to strip my clothes off while stumbling down the hallway, but somehow I manage with only a couple of bumps.
The soothing effect of the twinkle lights in my nest is immediate, my muscles unclenching and breath escaping in a heavy whoosh even as a new wave of cramps wracks my abdomen.
I only make it a few steps in to the dark room before collapsing into my nest, and the moment my omega senses we’re safe the haze fully takes over.