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“Wha ...?” I try to ask.What just happened?Why’d he stop kissing me, and why is he now staring at me in horror?
“Shit. Shit, shit, double shit, shit, fuckingshit!”
“Lincoln?” I don’t mean to sound as pathetic as I feel, but he’s clearly freaking out, and all I feel is vulnerable, hot, and achy.
He paces a few steps away but then turns and comes right back. “Espy—”
I grasp for him automatically as he steps back into my reach, but he jerks away from me before I can make contact. “Shit!”
“You said that already,” I murmur, wrapping my arms around myself instead as I fight the sudden urge to cry.What is happening?
“Espy, I—Damn it!You’re— You just perfumed. And I—Fuck! I shouldn’t have ... I don’t know what I was thinking.”
He looks pained, angry, shocked. My brain barely registers his words, instead focusing on the regret I can feel pouring off him, and suddenly it’s all too much.
“No, Espy, wait!”
I ignore him calling after me as I take off, abandoning my things in the same way I hope to leave behind the feelings of shame that are now drowning me.
27
Esperanza
Without my phone or my keys, I’m left with few options after running out on Lincoln. I could head back to Leo’s and hope either he or Tanner are home, but when I reach his dorm building my feet don’t stop, and I find myself continuing on until I eventually end up at Mackenzie’s building. I follow a group of people inside, bypassing the need to scan an ID, and head to her floor. Claire answers the door, and it only takes one look for her to invite me in.
She lets me shower and borrow some clothes after I give her an abridged version of why I’ve shown up out of nowhere, sweaty and without a phone, keys, or wallet. She tells me she has to get to a late-afternoon class, but she texts Mackenzie before she leaves. Luckily, I only have about fifteen minutes alone in which I start to spiral out before she arrives.
“Girl, what’s going on?” she asks, quickly dropping her bag before joining me on her couch.
It doesn’t take long for the whole story to come pouring out, starting yesterday evening with Mason, through running away from Lincoln after he pushed me away while we were kissing. I barely take a breath as I recount everything, and I’m not surprised it takes her a few minutes to process when I finally stop speaking.
“Okay, wow. So you really weren’t lying when you said the way you feel about the Collins pack is the same as around your brother’s pack. Only, by your brother’s pack, you really meant Lincoln.” She gives me a knowing look, and I reluctantly nod. “Wait—is it only Lincoln, or have you been crushing on Tanner too?”
I shake my head.
“Jeez, you’ve really been holding out on me!” she laughs, relaxing me slightly.
I’ve been so worried about my warped feelings it’s a relief to finally get everything out in the open with her. At this point I’m willing to face possible judgement if it means getting an outside perspective.
“I didn’t know what was happening. I still don’t! Lincoln is part of my brother’s pack. He’s essentially family, and I know how twisted it is that I feel this way. I’ve been trying to convince myself for months that there was nothing between us, but ...”
“Therewasn’tanything between you when you were on him like a koala making out in a public place.” Mackenzie grins at me as she waggles her eyebrows. I’m decidedly not ready to find the humor yet.
“I’m serious! What if ... what if after what happened to me, my omega-ness is broken? What if what my dad did to me messed with my instincts, and now my brain just clings to any alpha I’m around?”
That seems to sober Mackenzie up, and she looks just as lost as I’ve been feeling.
“I don’t think ...” she starts, but then she trails off.
As much as I might want to hear false platitudes, I’m glad she caught herself. The truth is, no one actually knows what effect my father’s experiments have had on me.
I pull my legs up to my chest, curling into a ball and closing my eyes. The headache I’d temporarily forgotten about seems to be back in force.
“Okay,” Mackenzie finally says. “I know this feels really serious and confusing and scary, but let’s not forget to take a moment to celebrate the fact that you just made out with two totally hot alphas, from different packs, in the span of about twelve hours. Was it, like, completely amazing?”
Her grin is infectious, and the corners of my mouth can’t help but turn up as well.
“It was ... mind-blowing,” I admit, letting out a giggle.
