51. Resa

Chapter 51

Resa

I blink my eyes open.

I'm in a bedroom almost identical to mine, stretched out in the center of the bed, wearing, of all things, a pale blue hospital gown.

What happened to my leggings and tank top?

Garrison stands beside the window, arms folded, tension hardening his jaw and shoulders.

I'm in a bedroom with an alpha and my first instinct isn't to curse him. Which is… weird. "Garrison? What is it?"

"How do you feel?"

"Uh. Okay. I guess." A little confused about what happened in the garden and how I ended up here, but okay. I push myself up, leaning against the headboard. "Did I have an allergic reaction to the wasp?"

A wasp I looked for and never could find.

His face is carved of granite. "You went into heat."

I stare at him, then I laugh. " Heat ? I'm pregnant. I can't?—"

"You can when someone shoots a dart at you filled with a drug that triggers heat."

I feel all the blood drain from my face.

The drugs that the Asylum pump in the omegas before auction.

They did it to me. Over and over, whenever they sold me.

But that was before I was pregnant. Before anyone wanted to take a risk in pumping me with a drug that might make me lose my baby, or worse, kill me because who knows what a drug like that would do to a pregnant omega who should not go into heat?

"My baby?" My hand flies to my belly.

"Is okay." Garrison's voice is so confident, I hope to hell he isn't lying to me.

"How do you know?"

"You collapsed outside. We took you to the clinic, but Sadie couldn't stop your heat."

I frown. "What do you mean? I'm okay. Not in heat. I'm perfectly fine."

He crosses his arms and presses his back harder against the wall. "For now. We gave you something to make you lucid so we could talk. But sedating you didn't work."

I want to tell him that whatever Sadie gave me is working. I'm sat up in bed feeling perfectly fine. Garrison looks so certain he's right that I swallow around the dryness in my throat. "How do you know it didn't work?"

"Because I feel the effect you're having on me." He leans into the wall as if determined to push himself out the other side.

He wants me, but he's fighting his instincts to take me.

As if his words triggered it, the scent of sweet peach drifts from my pores. My omega pheromones. The scent isn't strong, but it is stronger than it should be.

"I'm… it's hard to focus. It's only a matter of time before your heat overwhelms you," he says with quiet intensity.

"What happens when it overwhelms me?"

You're in a room with a bed and an alpha. What do you think will happen, Resa?

The same thing that will always happen when an omega goes into heat in close proximity to an alpha. Biology will happen. That's what. Whether the omega wants it or not.

Garrison doesn't so much as blink or breathe, but I'm out of the bed, tucked in the corner of the room. Not out the door. It's closer to him than it is to me. I'm breathing so hard and fast I can barely hear myself think.

I've started sweating. Is the room getting hotter or is it just in my head?

Not the room, Resa. You. Your body is cooking because of heat.

I look around for a weapon I don't have and haven't had for several days now. I got in the habit of leaving my knife beside the bed, and this is what happens. Garrison is the boss. As if he won't see an eye gouge or kidney punch coming.

I hold my breath, curl my fingers into claws as Garrison straightens.

But he doesn't look my way as he crosses over to the head of the bed and sits down, hands folded in his lap, as he stares straight ahead.

My eyes dart to the closed door. He probably already locked it. I'm summoning the courage to make a dash for it anyway when I realize he's speaking.

"Ever Safe is full. There are no available heat suites." He darts a rapid glance my way. "If it wasn't, I would have taken you there and you could ride out your heat in safety."

I stare at his profile, struggling to believe he means it as the temperature rises and the scent of my pheromones starts to dominate the room.

He angles his head slightly toward me. But he doesn't meet my eye, as if he suspects how close I am to bolting. "We could find another free?—"

" No !" Panic lances me. The thought, the very idea of stepping foot into another free heat clinic after what happened to me in the last is terror inducing. "I would rather die."

I will never feel safe in another heat clinic again. Not for as long as I live.

Still not meeting my gaze, he nods. "I understand."

Now it isn't just my scent filling the room. It's his. Cedar, wood-smoke, and leather. So potent and addictive, I slide down the wall, wrap my arms around my shaking legs and soon learn breathing through my mouth doesn't help.

I still smell him. And I still want him.

My skin burns and sweat dribbles down the back of my neck as need grows between my thighs.

"I won't hurt you."

I stare at him. "You're going to knot me. And you're going to bite me."

I'm his scent match. How could he hold himself back from giving me a claiming bite? And once he'd bitten me, he could give me an order and I would follow it. I'd crawl around on my hands and knees, naked, if he ordered me to.

I couldn't say no and I couldn't fight back.

Powerless . I'd be utterly powerless.

I want to lock myself in the bathroom. But what would that achieve? It wouldn't take long for me to unlock the door and start begging an alpha—any alpha—for his knot.

"I won't bite you, Resa." His voice is quiet.

"You can't make that promise." I glance at the closed door, wishing I—no, wishing he —was on the other side of it. "Is Blaine out there waiting to?—"

"No. He's at Frost's house."

He stuns me into silence for a split second. " What ?"

Garrison shudders and his nostrils flare. He's dragging in my scent as deeply as I'm inhaling his. How long will he sit there before his instincts force him to take me? How long before I crawl right over there and beg?

Sweat dribbles down my cheek and my eyes drift to his muscled thighs and the contents of his black pants. What it contains makes me lick my dry lips and?—

"He couldn't trust himself to stay away and he's…" I jump as he rakes a shaking hand through his hair. "None of us have seen his scars in years. Not since the car crash. I don't think he can handle that much touch. From anyone."

Even me.

"So you're going to?—"

"No."

He's shaking and I'm fighting the urge to crawl over to him, spread my legs and beg. This isn't what I wanted, but it looks like this is what I'm getting, anyway.

The first tear that splashes my cheek is hot, and I look away from Garrison, not wanting him to see it. "I don't want this," I whisper.

"Neither do I." Garrison's voice is so anguished and so quiet I nearly miss it.

I whip my head toward him, shocked.

Garrison is looking at me. He's gripping his thighs and there's so much need in his hazel eyes, I can't believe he hasn't shoved me to the ground already and mounted me. He's fighting his instincts. At least for now.

"You don't?" I breathe.

"Not like this, Resa."

My fingers itch with the need to strip my clothes from my body and fling myself at him. "How?"

"Don't you know?" he whispers. "For you to want me because you want me."

Concentrating is impossible. Talking is… not what I want. I fight to keep my eyes on his face and not the bulge growing in his pants. And his scent…

"You won't bite me?" That's when I know I've decided that I'm going to do this.

With Garrison.

He shakes his head.

"This means nothing. It's just…" I fumble for the right word. "Medicinal. That's all."

A tiny, barely detectable hint of amusement pulls on the corners of his eyes. "Just medicinal."

Who am I trying to convince here? Me or him?

"I want to crawl to you," I breathe, eyes on his, hating being an omega when all it does is remind me that I'll always be at the power of an alpha.

He pushes himself to his feet. "You never need to crawl, Resa."

I hold my breath, watching him close the distance between us. He scoops me up, carries me to the side of the bed, and sits down.

I'm straddling him, my knees on either side of his muscled thighs, his eyes on my face and his expression is… unreadable.

Something about it makes me look away, so I drop my gaze.

But I see his body, and I itch to touch.

I lift my shaking hands, palms raised. I want to do everything. Rub my body over his, lap at his pulse, breathe in his scent. I want—No. I need to feast. On him.

He clasps my wrists, and my head jerks up.

His eyes are pools of dark heat. "Touch, Resa. I am yours to touch."

"An order." Typical alpha.

"A request ," he corrects me as he puts his hands on my hips and drags my body toward him.

The sound that one act draws from me is… not me. Can't be me. Hungry and needy. I wrap my legs around his hips, my thighs cradling his cock.

"Garrison…" I moan.

I'd be begging for his knot if he wasn't so insistently rubbing the ridge of his cock over my aching pussy. As if telling me— showing me, even—that it's there. That it's mine.

My panties are soaked, slick spilling from me. I need an alpha to put out this fire sweeping through my veins. My stomach cramps, and I know I can't hold back any longer.

Instinct, memory, or maybe it's just plain self-preservation kicks in.

I pull back. "You won't bite."

"No biting." He strokes his hands up and down my hips. "Just what you need, Resa. Only what you need. Take."