Page 4 of His Problem Alpha

Devon

T he rage from yesterday has apparently decided to take up permanent residence in my joints.

I wake up feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck, then backed over, then hit again for good measure. A low, throbbing ache lives deep in my bones, and a strange, feverish heat crawls under my skin. Even the light brush of my sheets feels like sandpaper.

“Perfect timing,” I mutter to the empty room, my voice a rough croak. My body protests as I force myself to sit up. “Nothing says ‘professional freelancer’ like being incapacitated by stress-induced illness right before a major deadline.”

The digital clock on my nightstand reads 9:37 AM. I’ve already slept through two alarms. Great. Fantastic. Just what I need when I have exactly two days to finish the Eco-Soap rebrand before Monday’s presentation.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed, and the room tilts alarmingly.

My hand shoots out, gripping the nightstand to steady myself as the world spins.

This has to be some kind of karmic retribution for unplugging Alex’s equipment.

The universe has a sick sense of humor, making me physically ill after that confrontation in my bedroom.

The memory of Alex crowding me against the wall, his heat and scent and fury a physical presence, sends an unexpected shiver down my spine. I blame it on the fever. It’s just a fever.

“Coffee,” I decide, my voice raspy. “Coffee will fix this.”

Shuffling to the kitchen in sweatpants and a t-shirt that feels oddly rough against my skin, I’m grateful for the silence. Alex must still be asleep after his all-night mixing session. Small mercies.

The coffee maker hums to life, and I lean heavily against the counter, my limbs feeling like lead weights.

I pull out my phone to scroll through emails, but the screen is too bright, the words swimming before my eyes.

I squint, trying to focus. Three new messages from the Eco-Soap people, all with urgent subject lines.

A reminder about Monday’s presentation from Richard Shaw’s assistant.

An invoice that needs to be paid. My head pounds in time with my pulse.

The rich, dark smell of brewing coffee fills the kitchen, and my stomach lurches violently. I clap a hand over my mouth, stumbling to the sink and dry heaving. Nothing comes up—I haven’t eaten since yesterday—but the waves of nausea are intense and deeply wrong.

“What the hell?” I gasp, turning on the faucet and splashing cold water on my face. The coffee smell, my usual lifeblood, now makes me want to vomit. That can’t be good.

I abandon the coffee and fill a glass with water instead, gulping it down. My throat feels parched, my skin too hot. I press the cool glass against my forehead, trying to think through the fog in my brain.

A flu? Possible, but I never get sick. Food poisoning? I haven’t eaten anything questionable. Stress? Definitely a contributor, but this feels… different. More intense. More elemental.

I make it back to my room and collapse onto my desk chair, opening my laptop. I have work to do, illness be damned. The Eco-Soap rebrand won’t finish itself, and I can’t afford to lose this client after yesterday’s disaster.

But as I stare at the screen, the colors seem too vivid, almost painful to look at.

The low hum of my laptop fan, normally unnoticeable, sounds like a jet engine whining in my ears.

I wince, turning down the screen’s brightness, but it doesn’t help.

Every sense is dialed up to eleven, raw and oversensitive.

“Just power through,” I tell myself, gritting my teeth. “You’ve worked through worse.”

I manage about twenty minutes of unfocused design work before another wave of heat washes over me, this one so intense it steals my breath. Sweat breaks out across my forehead, my back, under my arms. My t-shirt clings to me, suddenly unbearable against my hypersensitive skin.

I peel it off, tossing it aside, but even the air against my bare chest feels abrasive. What the hell is happening to me?

A sound filters through the wall—Alex’s stereo, playing something low and bass-heavy. It’s not loud, not even close to his usual volume, but each beat hits me like a physical blow, reverberating through my bones and setting my teeth on edge.

“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 while my 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 core intensifies, 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.