Page 36 of Knot Your Average Beta

Logan pulls his gaze and his hand away from me, and I’m left feeling strangely bereft. Like I feel whole with him touching me, looking at me. Isn’t that a terrifying thought? That without him, without them, I’m not a complete person? How do other omegas handle this shit? How does Sylvie manage to walk around with parts of her missing?

How have I missed that after years of friendship?

I should call her.

Talk to her.

Make sure she’s doing okay. Because she’s dealt with this feeling for seven years and I’ve only had to deal with it for seven seconds and I already want to fall apart.

Suck it up, Sade. I mentally hiss at myself. This won’t last. They don’t want you. It’s becoming more and more clear. If they want me, it’s only their alpha instincts. Hadn’t Logan just said there is no alpha in their right mind who could listen to their scent match talk about fucking someone else?

It’s the scent match, the instincts and nothing more. When they get to know me, they’ll realize… they don’t actually want me.

And that’s what I want, right?

Right?

Resolve hardened, I snatch up the bag as the man behind the counter takes Logan’s credit card and head for the door, not bothering to wait. I hear Logan curse, but he’s stuck where he is for the moment, and thank god for that, I need a break.

Which directly opposes how I felt last night and this morning when I woke up, where I was bemoaning the fact that I was alone. Stupid omega instincts.

I smell him before I see him, that butterscotch bourbon hitting my nostrils and chasing away the scent of the dirty street and too many people. His hand touches the base of my spine gently, but he doesn’t chide me for leaving the drug store unattended, so I guess that’s a good thing.

“You know there’s no guarantee I’ll even have a heat like a normal omega,” I say, not looking up at him, even though a part of me really wants to check him out again. His dark red hair, his light green eyes behind those glasses.

“Why do you say that?” I give a noncommittal shrug and pick up my pace. The sooner I can take this pill, the better. I should have grabbed a bottle of water from the store. Stupid alpha distracting me.

“Sadie,” he insists as we reach the block where their apartment is. “Why do you say that?”

I shrug again. “I wasn’t exactly a normal, healthy beta. It’s crazy to think I would be a normal, healthy omega.”

He frowns and guides me to the private elevator. The one no one else who lives in the building can use. “What do you mean, you aren’t normal? Does this have to do with the man we ran into today? The Doctor?”

I don’t say anything as the elevator rises. “Omega, answer me.”

The tone is demanding, but there’s no alpha bark in it, so it’s easy enough for me to shake it off. “Its nothing, Logan,” I say, more to nip this in the bud than anything.

“It’s not nothing if you think it means you aren’t healthy. I’m a doctor, Sadie. Tell me what I need to know.” I clamp my lips around the words. I don’t enjoy talking about being sick as a child, because once they find out, people look at you differently, like you’re weaker, more fragile. Inevitably, it means they treat you differently too. Usually, it’s a lot of checking how I’m feeling, watching me for any sign of relapse.

I can feel Logan’s stare on the side of my face, but I don’t look at him as he slowly says, “he said you’d worked hard to get healthy for years. What does that mean, Sadie?”

I glance at him, but the elevator doors ding and slide open and I take the out while I can, rushing from the lift.

But something tells me he won’t let this slide.

Chapter 11: In which I find out that my omega is sick

“Tell me what he meant, Sade,” I demand quietly, following on her heels as she tosses her purse over the back of the couch—Maddox is going to hate that—and then heads into the kitchen, the bag from the drugstore still clutched in her hand.

She glances over her shoulder at me, silver eyes wary, before she opens a cabinet and frowns when she finds it full of tea and coffee.

“There’s not really a lot to tell, Logan.” She moves to the next cupboard and finds canned goods and dry ingredients. A huff of frustration falls from her lips that I can’t ignore, so I step up behind her as she moves to the next set of doors, pressing into her back and beating her to opening them, grabbing a glass out for her.

She spins into my body, scowling up at me, but I just offer her the glass.

She takes it with another of those cute little huffs and goes to the sink to fill it with water.

“You know we can just find out, right?” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and watching her as she opens the bag and pulls out one of the boxes. We got seven because I don’t trust my pack not to fuck up again and fuck her raw, fill her up. Fuck, I want to do that. Right fucking now, I want to bend her over the counter, yank down those tight as fuck jeans and thrust into her with nothing between us, but she’s made it clear she’s not ready for us to breed her, so we have to take this at her pace.

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