Page 8 of The Rejected Omega

“We have to arrange a surrogate alpha for her.”

“What? She's my son’s mate!”

“Who abandoned her to suffer! She can't go through this alone.”

A surrogate alpha? My mind rebels at the idea. I want Connor, not some stranger. I’m avirgin. It’s my first heat. The most vulnerable time in an omega’s life. I’ll be feral, unthinking. No more rational than an animal needing to be bred. I have to get out of here before they bring some stranger to service me like a stallion at stud.

I press my sliced up fingers together, using the pain to bring some clarity. I could send him another text message—tell him plainly that he’s my mate and I’m going into heat—and hope he turns his phone back on and sees it in time.

But if he doesn’t?

His message about Cassandra glares up at me incriminatingly. He’s with another woman. Connor and I havebeen friends for years, and he's never shown romantic or sexual interest in me, going so far afield as to only date betas.

Will he even want me if I tell him? Will he resent me?

Or worse, would he only come out of a sense of obligation? Not love or desire.

His sense of duty to tradition runs deep. Defying his father by skipping the ceremony might be the single most rebellious thing Connor Masters has ever done.

Too bad it will be my undoing.

If I text him, I’ll be undermining his choice. Undermining his relationship with Cassandra, which he apparently cares about a lot more than he’s previously let on.

Something inside me fractures.

I need to get out of here. To find somewhere quiet, somewhere still. Somewhere to mourn.

Somewhere to die,the back of my mind whispers. Bond sickness in newly paired alphas and omegas has a high fatality rate. I spent the last ten years in close proximity to Connor. If the wrenching pain in my chest and the solo heat doesn’t kill me, it'll take me all the way to death’s door and knock a few times.

People die of bond sickness two ways. Fast, from the shock to the system a severed bond creates. Or slow, when they lose the will to live, to eat. Either way, they’re dying of a broken heart.

I drop the phone. I can’t bring it with me. Soon, I’ll lose my rational mind, and contacting his silence will only hurt me more.

I pull up a stake at the back of the tent and duck under the loose flap. If they bring a surrogate alpha near me right now, I might not be able to control my reaction.

So I run toward the woods. The wind, chilly earlier, feels pleasantly brisk on my overheated skin. I’ll find a quiet, safe place, to make a nest and ride this out.

Alpha will come,my omega insists. But she’s stupid. Misguided by centuries of evolutionary drive and the inevitability of omega biology.

I run until I can’t anymore. The cramping in my abdomen sends me to my knees. My bare feet ache, and I just want to crawl into a ball and go back in time to this morning.

I find a mossy clearing and sink to my knees. I have no blankets or spare clothes—no endless supply of my alpha’s scent to craft a nest with—so I have to settle for dead leaves and sticks and stray fern fronds.

I half-heartedly arrange them around me, then strip off my jeans and the rest of my clothes and incorporate them into the nest. Everything but Connor’s shirt.

But it’s all wrong. I need Connor’s clothes, Connor’s scent. Blankets and pillows he’s slept on and saved for me.

My belly starts to cramp again, worse than any period I’ve ever had, and more slick floods out of me. There’s a gnawing, empty ache in my core getting worse by the minute.

I’m too empty. My cunt spasms around nothing, longing for an alpha’s knot. The pain will intensify the longer I go without something filling me up. I try fingering myself, even bringing myself to a clenching finish, but it barely takes the edge off. My hand is a poor substitute for what I actually need.

Alpha will come!

I dig my fingers into the earth as another wave of cramps wracks me. I roll on the ground and groan.

An alpha’s purr would ease my pain and anxiety, but instead it goes unchecked.

My chest aches like something inside me is dying, the blood supply slowly being twisted off but refusing to go numb. Everything is a fog of pain and need.

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