Page 16 of The Faceless Omega

Delirium

Gettinghomehadbeensomewhat petrifying. Brinley severely disliked using rideshares or cabs, but the idea of walking or taking any kind of mass-transit system while her cramps continued to build was out of the question. Miami wasn’t known for being full of alpha-types, but it was too populated to be devoid of them. She needed to minimize her exposure, and therefore her risk. So she’d opted for a taxi, paid cash despite that the choice emptied her wallet, and had it drop her a block from her apartment. As a precaution. Being the middle of a weekday, her neighborhood wasn’t as bustling as the downtown-adjacent areas.

Of course, the entire dilemma surrounding how to get back to her hole-in-the-wall apartment only worked against her fragile emotional state. She wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and sob. Preferably into a pile of soft, fluffy, unscented things. Or something with just the faintest whiff of old leather.

Brinley released a sound that started off as a grunt and ended in a gasp as another wave of cramps rolled through her. Her hands flew up to her abdomen and she stumbled forward. She did not need to be thinking about Lennox Mitchell at a time like this.

In an attempt to distract her mind, and because she could still smell the unpleasant traces of someone else’s body odor, Brinley chose to strip everything off right there in what passed for her entryway. She even shimmied out of her bra and panties for good measure. Then she stepped wide over the pile, went into her small kitchen, and dug through the cupboard she used as a faux-pantry until she found what she wanted. She set the box of large garbage bags aside, pulled on a pair of heavy-duty cleaning gloves, and clumsily extracted one bag. It was much more difficult to manage with the gloves, but she succeeded. It was much easier after that to stuff the pile of stinky fabric into the bag and cinch it tightly closed. She briefly debated setting the whole thing aflame and tossing it out a window, but that tactic would ultimately get her in trouble and further ruin her shit-tastic day. So she shoved the bag into the bottom of her rolling laundry basket, set the entire thing up against the wall near the door, and spritzed the air with her preferred odor-neutralizing spray.

Once that chore was accomplished, Brinley went straight for her shower.

The steamy water helped a little, though probably more for her emotional state than for her physical one. Her skin finally stopped itching, but the cramps continued to come in waves and she was starting to feel the tell-tale slick dripping between her thighs. This heat had come on almost unnaturally fast, in addition to being two whole freaking months premature.

Brinley wrapped herself in towels and immediately had to fight the urge to rip them all away again. She hadn’t had the time—or honestly the foresight—to dig out the nicer, softer, more luxurious set that she’d splurged on and reserved specifically for her heats. Ordinarily her usual set were fine, but when her body was in this sort of state, they felt too coarse. Too rough. She hated them.

Just endure them for a minute.

She repeated the words to herself and practically sprinted into her bedroom. Nothing was prepared, of course. There hadn’t been any signs of an oncoming heat even that morning.

She rushed through throwing on something soft and loose, if only to get the towels away from her body, before setting about the daunting but entirely necessary task of turning her normal bed into a proper nest. Or moving a nest onto the floor. She’d done both over the years. Sometimes she knew what she wanted, but this was not one of those times. The suddenness of this heat didn’t just have her physically miserable, it had her restless and unsettled.

All the bedding came off in quick succession. The sheet she hadn’t slept on the night before was tossed aside, smelling wrong. Except everything smelled wrong. Even her favorite blanket, while still soft to the touch, made her nose crinkle.

Brinley dropped it all to the floor in an aggravated huff.This is stupid. I’m stupid.

Her body had betrayed her at the worst possible time, and because her boss had decided to set jarringly unrealistic standards without warning he’d been severely unreceptive to her pleas for a few sick days. Never mind that she actually never took sick time. It hadn’t mattered. He’d refused, but her heat hadn’t left her thinking straight, let alone with options, and their second confrontation of the day had resulted in her losing her job altogether.

Her belly cramped painfully and Brinley stumbled, bending forward and letting out a long groan of pain. She couldn’t even let herself sit and dwell on her bad luck, or worry about how she might afford rent if she failed to quickly find a new source of employment, because her suppressants had failed her entirely and her body was launching a coup. Life was much easier when she had fewer, more predictable, and frankly less severe heat cycles.

Nest. Need a nest.She just wanted to curl into a pile of soft things until the pain and rapidly building, aching emptiness in her core went away. Already her body burned for something she couldn’t give it.Stupid omega biology.She forced herself to focus, to look around, and frowned again.

She didn’t have what she needed for her nest to be perfect.

Maybe perfect nests were a fantasy.

Something had to be better than nothing, though, so she forced herself to pull out a fresh sheet and start again. She opted for the bed—more comfortable than the floor—and quickly made the decision to bring in all her assorted spare and decorative pillows to tuck around the perimeter, protecting herself from the harsh surface of the wall. Blankets were layered, pulled away, and layered again until she finally added her softest and most comfortable one to the top. Then she positioned the pillow barricade, plumping and adjusting repeatedly as she went, and eventually she was able to drop into the center of the more built-up space and let out a breath.

She was done. It wasn’t her best work. It wasn’t her favorite nest she’d ever built. But it wasn’t terrible. The things she could touch most easily were pleasant beneath her fingers and nothing around her held any offensive odors. Sometimes, a girl had to accept that the bare minimum was all she could get.

Brinley rolled over on her side and curled into a ball as yet more cramps attacked her belly, triggering a renewed, pulsing ache deeper inside. Her recently washed thighs were half-coated in slick already and more continued to leak out of her.

She really envied human women and their monthly bleeds. Their ability to ease the misery with medicine and external heat.

Tears spilled from her eyes and Brinley buried her face into the soft blanket beneath her. It offered no relief, only another layer of frustration.Wrong.It was wrong. Her body was wrong. Everything was wrong. But she was in no shape to fix it, even if she knew how.

She froze, going so completely still she even forgot to breathe, when someone began pounding on her door.

No one should have been looking for her. It wasn’t as if she had any close friends or relatives, let alone any she’d reached out to after her firing who might have reason to know she was home. She sure as hell didn’t want to open her door to any ex-colleagues.

The knocking resumed, no less insistent or intimidating. This time, a deep and familiar male voice carried with it. “Open the door, omega. I know you’re there.”

Brinley finally dragged in a breath, but couldn’t quite bring herself to move yet.No way…There was no way that was Lennox at her door, calling for her. She’d never told him her name or shown him her face. But her insides gave a sharp tug as he resumed his knocking, and before she realized she was moving, Brinley was on her feet.

She was fully dressed in a shirt and shorts pajama set, and yet still, she felt entirely too vulnerable when she cracked open her door. So she attempted to hide most of her body behind it and only tilt her head around in order to peek out.

Liquid excitement gushed from her as heat flashed through her body the moment she laid eyes on him. On the alpha she’d met at the masquerade party, the alpha whose knot she’d taken only the night before, standing just beyond her step. If she weren’t on the verge of passing out from a strange and concerning combination of agony and half-euphoric need, she would have been highly embarrassed.

Lennox Mitchell raked his familiar hazel eyes over whatever part of her he could see and a low rumble wafted from him. “You said two months.”

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