Page 8 of His Problem Alpha
“Turn it down,” I mutter, knowing he can’t hear me. My hands are shaking now. A strange, hollow ache is building in my core, radiating outward. It’s not quite pain—it’s an emptiness. A gnawing need that demands to be filled.
No. This can’t be happening. I refuse to even think it.
The thought is a poison I push away immediately. It’s impossible. I’ve been on suppressants since I was sixteen, when my first mini-heat made me cry in the school bathroom whilemy mom brought me pills and promised I’d never have to feel like that again. I’ve never had a real one, not once. Just the occasional mild warmth, easily ignored, easily controlled.
This is just a flu. A really, really bad flu.
I grab my phone, hands trembling so badly I can barely type. I search for “flu symptoms omega” and scroll through the results, desperately looking for confirmation that this is normal, that this is just a bug I can sleep off.
But the symptoms listed—fever, aches, nausea—are accompanied by others I’m starting to recognize with a growing, sickening horror. Hypersensitivity to sound and touch. Increased body temperature. An aching emptiness. Overwhelming awareness of alpha scents.
As if on cue, a faint trace of Alex’s scent drifts under my door—coffee, leather, something earthy and electric—and my body responds with a jolt of pure, animal need that makes me whimper.
This is not happening. This is NOT happening.
I throw my phone down and stumble to the bathroom, locking the door behind me. I splash more cold water on my face, trying to shock my system back to normal, but it doesn’t help. The heat is building, becoming unbearable. I barely recognize myself in the mirror—flushed cheeks, huge pupils, skin shiny with sweat.
And there’s a smell. A sweet, cloying scent that seems to be coming from me. I’ve never smelled like this before—like honey and citrus and something darker, muskier. It’s sweet and wrong—the smell of an omega in heat. My smell.
“No,” I say out loud, my voice cracking. “This isn’t real.”
But then I feel it—a warm, slick wetness between my legs, soaking through my sweatpants. I freeze, unable to process what’s happening for a long, horrifying moment. My heart hammers against my ribs.
With shaking hands, I pull down my sweatpants and underwear. There’s no way to lie to myself anymore. Clear, viscous slick coats my thighs, more of it leaking from me with each passing second. The sweet smell intensifies, filling the small bathroom, thick and suffocating.
“Fuck,” I whisper, panic clawing at my throat. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
My suppressants have failed. Completely, catastrophically failed. I’m in heat. Full, unmitigated heat, for the first time in my life. And I have no idea what to do.
I grab my phone again, frantically searching for “emergency heat suppressants,” “heat clinics near me,” anything. The results blur, but I find a 24-hour omega clinic about twenty minutes away.
I could call Lawson or Kole. They’d help. They wouldn’t judge.
But the thought of them seeing me like this makes my stomach twist with a humiliation so profound it’s almost as bad as the heat itself. I’m the one who calls them out on their bullshit, the one with the witty commentary. My entire role in our friendship is to be the entertaining one, the one who isn’t a problem. The moment I become a pathetic, whimpering mess begging for help is the moment the jokes stop—and the moment they’ll realize I’m not worth the trouble.
No. I can handle this myself. I always handle everything alone. No one needs to see me like this—needy, desperate, too much to deal with.
I pull my clothes back on, grimacing at the uncomfortable wetness, and grab my wallet and keys. I just need to get to the clinic. They’ll have emergency suppressants, or heat rooms, or something. Anything is better than staying here, where Alex’s scent is becoming a magnetic pull I can’t ignore.
Another wave of heat hits as I reach for the doorknob. This one’s so bad my vision blurs. The hollow ache in my coreintensifies, becoming a desperate, gnawing need that makes me double over. More slick leaks down my thighs, and I bite my lip to keep from making a sound.
Just get to the door. Just get outside. Just get to the clinic.
I repeat it like a mantra, forcing myself upright and stumbling out of the bathroom. The hallway stretches before me, impossibly long. Alex’s door is closed. Thank god. If I can just make it past without him hearing me…
But my legs are shaking, barely supporting my weight. Each step is a monumental effort. I’m burning up from inside. My skin’s on fire. Everything hurts.
I make it halfway down the hall when it hits again. Harder. Worse. Pure animal need whites out my vision. My knees buckle. I fall hard, my palms slapping against the wall, the impact jarring through my wrists.
A pathetic, broken sound escapes me—half whimper, half moan. I can’t move. I can’t think. I can’t even feel embarrassed anymore. All I can feel is this awful, endless need. My body is no longer my own; it belongs to the heat, to the desperate, primal imperative to be filled, to be claimed, to be taken.
The slick between my legs is a flood now, soaking through my sweatpants, the scent of desperate omega filling the hallway. I’m beyond pride. There is only need, raw and terrible.
And then I hear it—the sound of a door opening. Heavy footsteps. The sharp intake of breath.
I force my head up, my vision swimming, and see Alex’s worn boots. My gaze travels upward, taking in his long legs in worn jeans, his broad chest under a black t-shirt, his shocked face. My own scent was a cloying, sweet cloud of panic. It was suffocating me in my own need. But his—coffee, leather, the sharp tang of ozone from his equipment—it cut through the sweetness like a lightning strike in a summer storm. It wasn’t just a smell; it was a promise of stability. Of control. Of everything I had lost. Mybody didn’t just want an alpha; it had identifiedthealpha who could pull me back from the edge.
Our eyes meet. I see the exact moment he understands. Shock gives way to something else—something dark and hungry that makes fresh slick flood between my thighs. His pupils dilate, his nostrils flare, and a low, rumbling growl builds in his chest.
