Chapter 11
Arabella
“Just kill me now,” I whine dramatically from where I’m lying on my living room floor, batting my arms weakly in a defensive motion that’s doing little to prevent my dog from trying to lick my face. “Go away, you evil mutt. Let me waste away in peace without your stinky dog breath!”
Ugh.
Suki barks happily, tail wagging so hard it makes loud thumps on the hardwood flooring. Clearly, she’s decided that this is just some weird new game her human has created for her, rather than a person who’s using floor time to question all their life choices.
With a defeated sigh, I let my tired arms fall to the floor, accepting my fate.
It’s only been three days since I got home from the heat clinic. Three days of questioning the way I’ve lived for the last four years of my life. Three days of craving their scent and comfort and then feeling pathetic for it, because for them it hadn’t meant anything.
How can something that wasn’t even real change everything for me?
Sighing, I give up and slowly get to my feet.
Suki whirls around my legs excitedly, and if I didn’t know better, I’d call it a murder attempt via tripping when she continues circling me as I head to the kitchen.
I glance at the clock as I enter, realising it’s later than I thought. It’s already one o’clock.
“You hungry, sweetie?”
The bark she gives in response is definitely a yes, and she happily taps her paws as I grab the dog food from the cupboard and carry it to her bowl.
I gesture for her to wait. She sits, her big brown eyes staring at me pleadingly the whole time as I pour the food and then place the bag back in its rightful place.
“Go on.”
She lunges at the food, scoffing it down like she’s starving, as if I didn’t feed her breakfast only six hours ago.
You’d think she has a medical condition given how eagerly she devours her food at every meal, but the vet had kindly informed me that my dog is perfectly healthy—she’s just greedy.
I have to break her food down into three meals a day rather than two, or midway through the day she’ll start acting more dramatic than I was just now.
Reminded when I spot the little box on the counter, I fill a glass with water and take the medications prescribed to me by the clinic.
As I swallow the two pills, I feel a weird sort of dissonance between them and the suppressants I would usually be taking.
The medications they’ve given me are meant to restabilise my heat cycle and ease any potential symptoms of false bonding.
I’m apparently at a slightly higher risk for getting them for reasons she didn’t really explain, and she’d said it was better to be safe than sorry when it comes to these things.
It’s probably my fault for taking the suppressants for so long—for trying to deny the truth.
Even with the pills, thanks to abusing then stopping my suppressants, I’m likely to have multiple mini-heats over the next six months.
They could happen as often as every two or three weeks if I’m unlucky.
I sigh again at the thought of how inconvenient this is going to be.
Though I’ve never been considered lucky.
Honestly, by anyone’s measure, I’m usually a magnet for bad luck.
At least I managed to get the go-ahead to work from home for the next six months because of it, and I have the next two weeks completely work-free.
No more mandatory in-person mornings, no sitting through pointless meetings or meaningless office small talk.
I suppose every cloud does have a silver lining, and mine is avoiding my overzealous boss and chatty coworkers.
I use the water left in the bottom of my glass to water the single plant that rests on my kitchen windowsill.
I’m unable to resist the urge that strikes me to softly brush my fingers along its bright green leaves.
The leaves fold inward, the entire plant drooping slightly as it retreats from even the gentlest of touches.
I wait, simply watching, and a few minutes later, the leaves slowly unfurl as the plant rights itself again.
I smile. I’m not really a plant person, but this one was my aunt’s favourite.
I’m honestly amazed it’s survived after a little over five years in my care, but I’m glad that it has.
It always makes me think of her. I can’t remember what the plant is actually named, though I know it’s something that sounds like an alcoholic drink, but Aunt Cara always called it a 'Touch-Me-Not'.
With a quiet snort, I turn away, wondering if I should be more concerned about how much I find myself relating to a freaking plant of all things.
I’m sure some therapists out there would have something to say about the fact that I relate to a plant based solely on the fact that I, too, recoil from touch.
Not that I’d recoiled at all during the two days spent in the heat clinic with Alec and Nathan…
Quickly shoving that thought away, I look around for my dog.
Suki, having finished with her meal approximately two seconds after being told she could eat it, is now sitting by the door expectantly. She pointedly glances between me and her lead that’s hanging off the hook, like she’s worried her dumb human won’t get the message.
“Yeah, yeah. I know,” I tell her, petting her head as I walk past. “Let me go get dressed first. The neighbours don’t need to see my ugly, fur-covered pyjamas while we walk.”
The sun is irritatingly bright today.
I hold my hand over my eyes as I glance at Suki. She’s stopped to sniff at one of the gates we’re passing, the same one she sniffs every time we walk this way.
I glance over the fence and shrubs that line the front of the house noisily, noticing a new tree sapling planted in their garden. It must have happened recently—probably while I was busy getting my brains fucked out at the heat clinic. I snort, rolling my eyes at my own thoughts.
That’s one way to describe the experience.
Suddenly Suki gives an unusual tug on the lead as she surges forward, sniffing at the path with a cute determination about her. I indulge her and speed up as she follows the trail of whatever it is she sniffed out, letting my mind wander as we walk.
My thoughts almost immediately return to Alec and Nathan.
Honestly, I want to be mad at them for it.
I wish I could be. However, as much as the after-effects of separation suck, they had both been amazing.
It was the complete opposite of my first heat.
They didn’t make me feel needy or too much.
I believed that any alpha would be the same as he was, and they just had to go and prove me wrong. Ugh, it’s actually infuriating.
I’m not sure what I’m more mad about. That they’ve made me question my beliefs, or that they showed me what I could have and then left.
Because they’re not really my alphas. As wonderful as they were, I was just one of many omegas they’ve probably helped over the years at the clinic.
They’ll probably forget all about me, if they haven’t already…
Suki barks, grabbing my attention again.
“What is it, sweetie?” I ask her, looking down at her curiously. She looks at me and then across the road, tail wagging even more intensely than before.
I spot the reason why immediately. There’s a man walking one of the cutest damn dogs I’ve ever seen.
Okay, so maybe I find every dog adorable, but still.
It’s also noticed Suki and has stopped to look over at her too, its big brown eyes watching as its tail wags in what seems like friendly excitement.
“Wanna see if you can say hi?” I ask Suki while glancing at the road to make sure we’re good to cross. She makes a happy yip, paws tapping against the pavement excitedly. “Taking that as a hard yes.”
With no cars in sight, I lead her across, looking up to see the adorable dog’s human, who’s just paused ahead, the long lead finally reaching its end. He turns around to see why his dog has stopped, quickly finding my eyes as he looks from his dog to Suki and then to me.
“Mind if she says hello?” I call over to him, trying to ignore the fact that the cute dog’s owner is ridiculously good-looking.
Tall, broad shoulders, brown hair and nice casual clothes that only accentuate his obviously fit body.
I can feel my cheeks heat as he takes me in, nerves fluttering in my stomach.
“I think he might disown me if I say no,” he replies warmly with an effortless smile, walking back to close the distance.
As he gets closer, I breathe in the scent of alpha and feel my thoughts lose focus. Oh. His rich scent is almost enough to make me dizzy. I try to blame it on not having seen an alpha since my heat, but he might actually just smell that damn amazing.
Suki and the other dog sniff at each other, moving around in circles and tangling their leads.
“Shit, sorry,” I blurt, realising what’s happening and trying to untangle our dogs as he steps even closer to do the same.
I try not to sniff at him as aggressively as our dogs just greeted each other, but it’s honestly a little tempting to climb him like a tree.
I could bury my face in his neck… Lick his skin to see if he tastes as delicious as he smells.
Oh my, where are these salacious thoughts coming from? I blame those wonderful, awful alphas.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m pretty sure Toast is about fifty percent responsible for this,” he replies, gesturing at the tangled mess our dogs have gotten into. Thankfully, he seems completely unaware of my deranged thoughts.
“Toast?” I ask, trying to focus on normal, polite conversation while looking at the dog curiously and not at his scrumptious owner, who smells like cinnamon and cedarwood. “Such a sweet face. How’d you get a name like that?”
“He stole it. Uh, my toast, I mean,” he explains a little sheepishly, maybe a little embarrassed by his choice of name.
He runs his hand through his hair, and I notice there’s just a hint of red to the brown strands.
“It’s how we met. Hard to believe anyone could abandon him to a life of toast-stealing crime, but some people really suck. ”
“I believe it,” I reply, letting a hand drift down to give Toast a quick pet before adding, “Suki is a rescue too.”
“Really? You don’t see many corgis winding up in shelters. She’s such a pretty girl too, aren’t you?” he coos, having knelt down to give her pets.
Suki, my darling girl who usually avoids alphas just as much as I do, turns traitor, pushing into the pets. Her tail is whipping across the ground in pure happiness. I glare down at her, the man too distracted by her cuteness to notice.
Oh, so you like the owner as well as his dog, huh?
“So, is Toast a lab?” I ask, eyeing his lanky-looking chocolate-fur dog, and definitely not the way his jeans hug his thighs or the way they pull tightly over his…nope. Bad Bell.
“I think so, at least mostly. He didn’t exactly come with a pedigree when I brought his toast-stealing self in.”
“Yeah, the only reason I know she’s a corgi is because…well, just look at her.” I snort, gesturing down at Suki.
“Couldn’t mistake her for anything else,” he agrees, then pauses, hand freezing in place where he was petting her for a brief moment before he meets my eyes.
And fuck. Those eyes are pretty. A shade of green so intense you’d hardly see a gaze like that in your life. Something like curiosity seems to flicker in them as he stares up at me.
“I don’t usually ask for the human’s name, but…?” he says, giving the unfinished statement a questioning lilt at the end as he slowly stands.
“Uh…” I glance at him and his dog, then at Suki, contemplating whether to answer or not. Usually, I wouldn’t give my name to some random alpha but… “Arabella.”
If I could share my heat with two strange alphas, I could give this one my name. He seems nice.
Not to mention he smells like…
“Reid,” he replies, introducing himself and cutting off my runaway thoughts. He smiles, the expression lighting up his face in a way that only makes him more attractive. “Not to be forward, but would you want to grab dinner with me sometime?”
“I…” I would normally refuse outright. I would never go on…is this a date? I’m pretty sure it is. God, he’s staring. I should say something. Give a normal reply. “I—yeah. I’d like that.” I stumble over the words; my cheeks are definitely bright red now, and my scent spikes with my embarrassment.
Smooth, Arabelle. Fucking smooth.
Fuck, the smile he gives me is almost worth feeling like a fool.
“Yeah, me too, Arabella.”
Oh hell, who let him say my name like that? Suki, help me! We’re in trouble, girl.
Despite my absolutely cringe response, we manage to exchange phone numbers without incident. And if I spend the rest of Suki’s walk blushing and resisting the urge to skip, it’s not as if anyone knows.