Chapter 4 4

RANDOM FACT: Claire learned to read lips by watching old movies with the subtitles turned off.

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The world is too bright when I wake up, too fucking bright. 

I’m practically squinting as I try to blink and look around, the light from the window burning through my skin. My first instinct is to go under the covers of whatever it is I’m laying down on but before I can hide, someone’s wrapping their arm around my body. 

And by this honey scent, it’s Claire. 

She knows I don’t like hugs, or touch in general, but for some reason, my own hands move and wrap around her body. It takes all of me not to break down in tears as I feel her skin. Her warmth. When she pulls away, I grab her by the face and start to check all over her body. “Did any of them touch you? Did they hurt you?”

She’s shaking her head, her hands hurriedly moving to sign, “No, no, I’m alright. I’m worried about you. Are you okay? After they entered the bathroom, they found you passed out on the floor of the stall—”

“What?” I cut in, a gag sound leaving my lips as I start feeling sick again. “Okay. That’s fucking disgusting. That floor probably has cum all over it and my perfect face touching it—”

“I cleaned you up with a wet towel when they brought you here,”

“You did?” I ask, sending her a small smile. “You’re such a good minion. I would give you a kiss but that’s too gay for me so, no. But—” I look around the room, sniffing slightly. “This place smells… strange. Sort of makes me want to arrange the place, like… take care of it somehow?”

Claire is looking at me with her soft doe eyes in confusion as she signs, “You? Take care? Of a place?”

“Yes, me take care,” I say with a sigh. “I know it doesn’t sound like me but it’s the right thing to do. Doesn’t this place look… weird to you? This is the school nurse’s clinic, yeah? It also smells strange too. Maybe they’ll finally stop treating me like shit if I clean this place up—”

“Miss D’Artag, I told you to call for me when he wakes up,” The Doctor is the one speaking as he enters the room, clipboard in his hand. “I told you that Mr Draken seems to be having a—”

I almost choke now as my hand goes over my mouth, a look of pure disgust crossing my face. “What’s that smell? Is it you? Of course it’s you, this place started stinking the second you came in here,”

The Doctor doesn’t attack me even though I expect him to. Instead, his eyes stare at me sharp and unbothered, his voice cool and aloof as he says, “How bad?”

“Bad,” I say, trying my hardest not to choke on my own tongue while I start looking around. “And why is it so bright in here? This only place reeks. I hate it. Isn’t it unhygienic to have a school kids go to so unprepared and unstable for said kids?”

He stares. A beat passes, then another, before he asks, "When was your last heat, Mr Draken?”

That question takes me back. So back in fact that it makes me momentarily forget how terrible this place smells as I slowly set my hand down. Heat? I’ve heard about it, and how couldn’t I? Omegas experienced heat. And I know this because as an Omega, I was taught personally. Some start early by 15 or 16 years of age, but clearly I’m a late bloomer so I haven’t yet. Not like I care. From what I’ve heard, it hurts like hell. “Never had one,”

I wait for him to say I’m lying, or to call me out and insult me. They always have something to say, to mock me with, but he doesn’t. Instead, he starts to jot down on his clipboard while I share a look with Claire who’s shrugging. I hear him ask, “Does your friend smell to you?”

I’m looking at him now, shaking my head slowly. “Not too bad. I mean, she smells like she always does,”

“And she’s a Beta, yes?”

“That has nothing to do with you smelling like a burning tyre and trashcan had a baby,”

He sighs there. “When Omegas are in Heat, the pheromones of marked or claimed Alphas tend to be very unpleasant, especially as they smell other Omegas on them as well. Your friend doesn’t reek because she’s a Beta, their pheromones aren’t as prominent. You finding the whole place not to your taste also means you’re nesting, and the fever you felt earlier as Miss D’Artag mentioned all leads to the same thing. You’re having your Heat Cycle,”

… what? No. No. That can’t be possible. What I was feeling before was me going into my Heat cycle? It hurts that bad?

“Well, your symptoms will worsen down the line,” That snaps me out of my thoughts as I’m staring at him again. He doesn’t even look sympathetic as he adds, “So you’ll need your Alpha—”

“I don’t have one.”

That catches him off guard. And I can tell from the way Claire’s eyes are about to bulge from its socket that she’s surprised too, and why shouldn’t be? I have an Alpha. Aaron. But I wouldn’t really call him my Alpha. Plus, I know I wouldn’t want him around me. I can almost taste it on my tongue and the thought makes me want to throw up. 

There’s only one thing I can’t stop thinking about. 

And I know better than trying to accept it. I almost lost myself. I can’t let that happen again. 

The Doctor clears his throat, flipping through his clipboard. “You’ll have to go home for a few days, under supervision of a Beta. Unfortunately, Claire’s mate hasn’t granted her permission to go off for those periods of days but there’s a Beta who’s available to care for you,”

All of this is actually starting to irritate me. Heat. Passing out. Him. My headache is beginning to return and this person in my room doesn’t even smell any better to make it go away. I put my hand over my nose as I say, “I am not a charity case, thank you. I can do it on my own—”

“He says his name is… Draken Rowan?”

… Grandfather?