Page 66 of Slow Heat
“Yeah?”
“Specifically the rate of fetal development in modern omegas compared to Old World women.”
“Why do we have to learn about that?” Xan groaned.
“Because that, combined with a smaller hip-size and lack of flexibility in an omega’s ligaments, all contribute to the danger omegas face in birth. It’s why, during pregnancy, they have to take synthetic hormones to help their bodies handle the rapid expansion of the baby and to help ease labor.” Jason rattled it all off in an neutral tone, though his heart had skittered wildly in class imagining Vale with their child growing inside, his body struggling to accommodate their creation. He’d sweated with fear and a strange arousal he simultaneously loved and hated.
“The Old World babies grew slower?” Xan tugged at his scarf, pushing it back into place, still not looking Jason in the eyes.
“Yes. Apparently, human women gestated their fetuses for four months longer than our omegas do.” Jason shifted to his other foot; an eagerness to get home so he could go to Vale hummed inside him, but he kept his tone open and friendly. “It’s all there in the notes. But you’ll have to go watch the movie about heat Stage 3 and impregnation in the library. It was intense.”
His mind supplied him with images of the same dark-haired omega in all the educational movies he’d seen so far. In this one, the man crowed with joy and pleasure, quaking visibly, as his alpha’s knot swelled and filled him with bursts of semen. The film had explained in dispassionate tones that the head of the alpha’s cock was lodged in the omega’s descended womb, which would be filled with the alpha’s semen. This would hopefully result in insemination of the egg that had dropped earlier in the week and which the hormones of heat had readied for fertilization.
Jason’s fevered brain had barely been able to process what he was hearing. As the omega had come on the alpha’s knot, writhing with an anal orgasm before shooting a sticky white load of his juices from his brutally hard penis, Jason had almost jizzed his pants in class. Several of the other alphas around him actuallyhadcome, their moans and musk bombarding him along with the images from the film. Just thinking about it all flustered him again. Heat rose up his neck.
“You should make sure to watch it,” he repeated. “There’ll be questions about it on the next test for sure.”
Xan nodded and examined the papers in his hand before hesitantly meeting Jason’s gaze. “So, how are you?”
A cold breeze blew past them and washed away Jason’s renewed arousal. He was able to smile genuinely when he answered, “I’m all right. How about you?”
Xan shrugged, his mouth wobbling a little before he ducked his head. “Not so great.”
“Yeah?”
“I miss you and…things aren’t the same.”
Jason threw his arm around Xan’s shoulder. “C’mon. I have half an hour before I have to leave or risk being late for another obligation. Let’s head back to the dorm and talk.” Xan tried to shrug him off, but Jason just held on tighter. “You can still talk to me, you know. Just because we aren’t roommates doesn’t mean we aren’t best friends.”
Xan’s attempt at rejection collapsed miserably under Jason’s insistence, and he let Jason steer them to the dorms.
Once in their old room together, Jason released Xan to remove his coat and flop down on the stripped mattress that had once been his. “Wow, it looks weird in here without my stuff.” They’d hired beta movers to come in and gather all of Jason’s belongings. The boxes were still untouched in his closet at home.
Xan didn’t say anything, taking his time unwinding his scarf and neatly hanging up his jacket in the closet.
“So what’s up?” Jason asked finally. “Why did you skip class today?”
Xan sat down on his bed opposite Jason’s. Covering his face with his hands he was silent for a long time before coming out with, “I get too turned on by the movies.”
“We all do.” After class, he’d had to make a long stop in the bathroom, along with half the alphas in their year, to deal with his problem.
“It’s different,” Xan whispered.
Jason cocked his head, considered Xan’s creeping flush, and winced at the pain in his voice. “Because you like to play omega?”
Xan choked on a sob, nodding desperately.
Jason sat up and leaned forward, trying to understand. “When you watch the films, Xan, do you never imagine yourself as the alpha? As the one on top?”
Xan shook his head and his shoulders quaked. Sobs spilled from him. “I’m made wrong, Jason. I’m unmanned. I’ve always been this way, even before we started. I’m a disgrace to my family name. I hate myself.”
Jason’s heart twisted, and he shook his head. “No, it’s not like that.” He moved over next to Xan and gathered him into his arms, kissing the top of his head. Xan trembled against him, stinking of fear. Throat tight, Jason whispered the only thing he knew to say. “It’ll be different when you find yourÉrosgápe.”
Flinty rage poked through Xan’s misery as he hissed, “And if I don’t find him? If I don’t have one?”
“You’ll feel differently about whatever omega you contract with.”
“And if I don’t? Then what?”
