Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Lizette
O ne pill isn’t enough.
I groan, curling up like some kind of addict in withdrawal. I wish for the millionth time that I was just a regular ol’ girl. A beta. A gamma. Literally anyone else.
On the TV, some terrible movie is playing something I don’t have to think about as I burrow deeper into my blanket nest.
Whoever that blond man was…he’s just as bad at the one who reported me. The Council guy.
But the thing is, thinking of the man who gave me some convoluted warning doesn’t drive me crazy. It doesn’t do anything. Except I know he used his alpha command to make me rush home. Just like the Council man used his to warn off the cops.
And land me in trouble.
Oh, hell…
I suck in air. There’s something about the Council man that won’t leave me alone. That makes my body thrum and invades dreams.
I can still smell him.
I can conjure him from my memories, dark and hot and pure sex. Even though I didn’t see him, I know this. I envision him from his intoxicating scent if I close my eyes and breathe in deep. It twists my insides, makes me ache, and sends painful urges shooting through me. It’s like I want to claw my way out of my body and find him and…
And…
I laugh. The sound’s so pitiful that I pull the covers over my head.
And what? Sniff him to death? Lick him all over? Jump him?
I push him from my mind and drag my computer under the covers. I go to a discussion forum. It’s for omegas, and I scroll through the posts about the mate crap and posts from some of the almost evangelical girls who see their status as a higher calling. Finally, I come to what I need.
How to cope.
There’s so much advice, ranging from rubbing cut lemon into your armpits at midnight—like, what? —to going out and getting laid.
I emphatically do not want either of those, and while the word sex sets off all kinds of images with a man I’ve never seen, just smelled and heard, I want that one least of all.
I’m not a machine to make babies.
I’m not.
What’s always funny is no one ever suggests over-the-counter pain killers because it’s not that kind of pain. It’s different, an urge that turns into agony if left alone, even with the blockers I felt the last two times. What’s going to happen now?
Then I see something about alcohol .
I go through the forum page. There are posts from hundreds of girls and women talking about how drinks can dull the sensations and urges.
It’s preferable to naked moonlight dancing, sex with strangers, and lemon halves in the pit after dark.
“Fuck it. I need a second hot water bottle.”
I get up and grab the wine, the whiskey, and a glass. Not that I intend to drink it all at once. I only plan on getting up for bathroom breaks and maybe a meal.
I pour a glass and take a sip, willing it to work.
I might be a little tipsy, but I feel better. Or is that numbness?
I roll up to sitting, ready for another drink, but the bottle and the bladder of the box wine are empty. Pain knifes low through me.
Part of me wants to believe it’s all a psychosomatic response. I’m good, and the heat’s a few days away. It’s just my finding out there’s no more booze left that’s setting off the pain.
But I don’t think so.
The pull in the depths of me, which combines with a painful ache like an itch that’s been left too long unattended and needs to be scratched, tells me otherwise.
Heat’s coming.
It’s instinctual, the knowledge. Beyond pain or aches or misery.
My whole being knows.
The drugs took down the pounding urge, the edges of agony, but for me, they didn’t quite manage to wipe it out entirely.
Just like the booze tried to conceal it and… Shit, is my body metabolizing the alcohol faster than it should? Because tipsy is n’t where I should be. I should be impending-hungover-tomorrow level of drunk. But I’m not.
The word I’m looking for, I suspect, is fuck .
“I miss you, Dad. I…” I take a breath, hugging the hot water bottle to me as I get to my feet. “I need you.”
This little threadbare apartment is full of him. Not his things, although they’re here, but him. Like his essence has soaked in, like this is safety and home, because of him.
And now…
“How am I going to do this without you?” I hug the water bottle tighter, its contents sloshing in protest. “I don’t want to. I…I just want you back. You and me against the world? And I fucked up. They know about me. I didn’t exist to the stupid Council until…”
Until that alpha who smelled so unbelievably good pulled up and had me reported.
I’m going to have to run.
As soon as my heat’s done, I have to run.
I just don’t know where.
The TV chatters on. Bursts of incidental music swell and crash like waves in a maudlin sea. I glance at the screen. Some horrible, sappy romance plays. I scrounge for the remote control and click it off, letting silence settle.
The idea of leaving this place horrifies me. The apartment is so entwined with Dad that it would be like killing him myself.
But I have to.
What is there for me but a mate I’ve never met? Who I know I don’t want.
Maybe if the cruelty hadn’t been captured in his eyes, or his lips hadn’t looked so fish-like…
Or if he wasn’t older than my dad.
As the booze-induced softness dissipates, panic starts to swirl and bubble. I need…I have to go, get more to drink. Get th rough this heat any way I can and tonight’s the last night I can go out, stock up, before I’m hit hard. Tomorrow.
It’ll hit me tomorrow.
Swallowing down bile, I shower, dress. Combat boots, a loose floral dress, and Dad’s old leather biker jacket. I’m so beside myself I don’t even indulge in singing in the shower.
While I haven’t sung properly or to anyone but myself since Dad was killed in that car accident, I always sing in the bathroom. It’s a ritual, something Dad liked. He always told me it would ring through to wherever he was in the apartment and sounded better than the radio.
Brushing teeth, doing my skincare, getting ready for work, I’d sing in the bathroom.
But not tonight.
I can’t. That gnawing inside with sharp, painful edges strangles my voice.
Or maybe it’s what I’m about to do.
I shove most of my money into my socks, down deep below the top edge of the ankle high boots. And then I pack a small backpack. I keep it light.
Two pairs of underwear, a bra. Socks. Jeans and a hoodie. Sneakers.
It’s light and something I hope won’t arouse suspicion if someone comes in. Then I just leave it by the door with black pants and a top on it, like that’s what I take to work.
Next, I take important things. Dad’s tablet that has everything I need on it, thumb drives, an external hard drive. Some polaroids of me and Dad. Money, my pitiful jewelry, an address book of his that has numbers, addresses, code names and names for places all over the country.
He always told me that it could be handy if anything happened to him. At the last minute, I take the letter I stuffed back in the envelope with my supposed mate’s photo.
My bag’s a big bucket bag and it’s got a hidden bottom zipper that I put all those things into. Then I dump makeup, a brush, gum, and a book in the main compartment.
I feel better having packed to run if I decide, or if I need to tonight. And having my important things, treasured things, on me is soothing. The last thing I do is put Dad’s old black hat on.
I’m not sure what type it is, but it always makes me think of old school detectives.
With a breath, I add the money I have for emergencies and extra food.
Whatever happens, I won’t be here much longer.
And having things on me so I can run in an instant gives me some kind of solid ground to stand on, even if it’s false. The bag at home is for the reality.
After I get some booze, I’ll go home, wait out the heat, and then run.
But the panic’s fluttering hard, threatening to break through and leave me a mess, so I take a breath, spray myself with cloying drug store perfume, and head out into the night.
Someone’s following me. Someone’s following me. Someone’s following me.
The mantra won’t leave my head as I grip my bag hard. I’m fighting not turning around and bumping into whoever it is. Because there’s a compulsion to seek this person out, to run just enough to make it thrilling, and to then get caught.
The wind occasionally washes over me with a smokey scent that’s so wild, it almost brings me to my knees. It’s up there with the scent of the alpha in the car. Just as compelling as him. As delicious.
I throb. Ache. And I know my thighs are slick.
The smoke on the wind holds hints of rum and roses. Moss and secrets, naked pagan chases under a big-bellied moon. I want?—
“Stop that,” I reprimand myself.
I smell an alpha. Another one. That’s all.
Someone rushes, bumping into me. The man smells of expensive cologne that assaults my senses, mainly because he bathed in it, and he offers me irritation in a frown. “Don’t hog the path!”
He darts off, checking his watch, and my shoulders slump as I force myself to walk.
But the smoke is tinged with a dark note like rum soaked tobacco, and I almost stumble as it rolls over me. So damn close. Danger and sex and blood and need. Rough sensuality. That’s the smell.
I whirl around. People are on the streets and cars drive by. Noise the scent blocked out rushes me, and I’m once more in a living, breathing city.
I didn’t even notice when that strange blanket came over me. I search the faces of the crowd, men alone, in groups. Women. Couples.
Nothing. No one stirs me and the scent…
It’s gone.
This is too busy. Too dangerous. I need…I need a place where people don’t follow societal rules. Where I can buy cheap booze, where people keep to themselves.
I’m hoping my vile drug store shield will keep working. I read once that it doesn't stop an omega going crazy over the scent of an alpha, but it can help hide the omega’s scent.
It’s got to be true, right?
My heat’s coming tomorrow, and I need to get something to get me through it. First, I steel myself and head to the place in the Hollows but when I knock and the slat opens, whoever it is slams it shut again and locks it when they see me.
I stand for ten minutes, trying to get them to open, knocking until my knuckles are bruised, but…no one comes .
That blond ghost of a man warned me, but…what am I meant to do? I’ll buy booze, yes, but what kind of fool would I be if I didn’t try to get the blockers?
I can’t stay here. Not tonight. My skin buzzes as I ache, and I’m in the shadowy street. Alone.
No. I’m not alone. I’m being watched.
And as I turn, I catch a knee-buckling whiff of the invisible alpha.
Pagan. Hunter. Killer.
Mine .
I almost stumble back and fall.
Mine? Mine ? Where did that come from?
It’s got to be the heat talking. My body’s revving, like it’ll take any alpha.
No. It won’t.
That disgusting man flashes in my mind. Craig. My betrothed.
Anybody except him.
And I can’t stand here all night, either. I turn and walk until I reach the water, the river that runs through Starlight City. There I breathe in the slight salt that comes from the sea beyond and the brackish pools under the boardwalk. It’s a nice walk for an ugly part of town and when I reach the Avenues, I turn left, away from the water.
The Avenues sounds fancy, but it’s a step up or down or maybe sideways from the Hollows, lots of legit and not so legit places. Streets are old, crooked, and cross each other. They’re not on a grid.
But I’ve heard from snippets of conversations at work that there are clubs and bars where you can have a good time, even buy drugs if you want. And the booze is cheap.
I bet I can find a cheap liquor store here.
I keep walking, going deeper into the Avenues.
I pass a grimy bar and then a tattoo parlor. I turn into another street .
The pink of low-lit neon draws me. The sign says Pandora’s Box. I go closer. It’s a bar, I think, but not one of those rough ones—upscale, maybe even with more of a club vibe.
That’s the other thing about the Avenues. Parts are getting classier, if that’s the right word. Sold, bought, and then reimagined.
Maybe this is one of those places.
The sign seems simple, quaint, just the words in fancy script. There’s not a naked lady in sight or any kind of advertisement for strippers, topless waitresses, or burlesque.
A nice enough place—nice, for this part of town—where I can find out where a good liquor store is and maybe have a few to take off the growing edge inside me.
I stand outside long enough that a mountain of a man appears in the doorway and eyes me. His hair’s long, pulled back, and he’s bearded.
Handsome. Virile. I can smell it.
I don’t want him, even with my coming heat. Whatever pheromones I pick up from him don’t engulf me in need and wild urges. Like what I smell is just a natural thing, something that comes from an attractive and wild man mountain.
I think he’s a beta but somewhere in my mind I remember Dad stating love can happen with anyone. That it’s only the council who sets rules against it.
But inside my bones, I know another truth.
One I don’t want to know.
A truth I want to run from.
I need an alpha.
I need an alpha to help with my heat, to ease the ache, assuage that itch, stop the pain.
Not now, not today. But one day. In the unseen future.
Dad knew this because he never mentioned the type of anyone he wanted me to love. Never once said beta or gamma. He meant, without stating it, an alpha. But one of my choosing.
“Are you coming in or staying out?” the bearded man asks. “Make up your mind.”
Someone comes out of the club, and carries with her a whiff of something intoxicating, something I crave. “I’m going in.”
“Well then, come on.”
He holds open the door and I walk past him.