Page 34 of The Runaway

Oh, God, no. Please, not now. Not when everything else in his life was finally coming together. He didn’t need this. The fear, the pain, the disgust of having his mind and body hijacked by surging hormones. What god had he offended to have been born an omega, to have to suffer through these yearly episodes of shame and degradation? He closed his eyes, silently willing the sensations away, as if he could overcome this by sheer force of will.

He hadn’t been mated since he’d left the Riviere estate. No rough alphas pawing at his body. No thick, painful cocks shoved up inside him. No volleys of crude words and demeaning insults slung his way. Why couldn’t he continue that way forever?

“Are you all right?” It was Henry who asked the question, sitting opposite Connor, mending a shirt of Niles’s that had been torn on a broken wire on one of the fences.

Connor looked up, desperately wanting to tell him he was fine, so that he could just ignore his body’s demands. But to do so would only make his situation worse. As bad as being mated was, going without it would mean twelve hours of agonising pain. And Connor had experienced enough of that in the past to know that it wasnotthe better option.

“I think, um…” He fidgeted again, feeling his face flush – not from embarrassment, but from the rush of hormones that was raising his body temperature and sending blood to all the wrong places. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “I think I’m going into heat.” He forced the words out, hating them even as he said them.

Henry’s eyebrows shot up. “Ooh, shit, right,” he muttered, jumping up off his stool. He looked around frantically, but the two of them were alone for the time being. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said, hurrying to the door. “I’ll let everyone know and make sure Niles and Lucas don’t come down here. And Gabriel… Oh, fuck, um… Just stay here,” he muttered, then quickly disappeared.

A few minutes later, Connor heard footsteps, then the door opened and Antoine let himself inside. “It’s all right,” he said, as Connor jumped, his nerves on edge. “I’m no threat to you.”

“Yeah, um… you can’t even smell me, can you?” Connor asked. Having a bonded alpha around was still a strange experience.

“Not the slightest bit,” Antoine said, with a smile. He came forward. “How are you feeling?”

Connor shrugged. “Hot. Achy. Kind of restless.”

Antoine nodded. “When did your symptoms start?”

“Maybe half an hour ago? I wasn’t really paying attention. I had work to do.” He waved his hand vaguely at the pair of trousers, now set aside and forgotten. “But yeah, maybe half an hour?”

“Okay. I’ll send a runner to the Lavignes. Jean-Luc usually comes, but if he’s not available, his son will come instead. They’re both kind and gentle men. You have nothing to fear from either of them. We should have someone here within the hour.” He turned to leave, but Connor called him back.

“No, actually, I was… Um…” Connor trailed off. Contradicting an alpha wasn’t considered good behaviour, for all Antoine’s benevolent nature.

“Actually, what?” Antoine asked, not sounding the least bit offended.

“I was hoping that Gabriel could…?”

Antoine’s eyebrows rose. “You want Gabriel?”

“Yeah. I mean, he pretty much saved my life by buying me, and…” Connor shrugged. “He seems nice,” he finished lamely.

Antoine’s face creased into a frown. He came back and sat down on the stool that Henry had vacated. “I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” he said gently. “You must be aware that Helen wasn’t particularly happy with Gabriel during her heat. And Gabriel himself wasn’t particularly keen about mating with her. I’m not sure he’d be willing to try it again.”

Knowing what he did about Helen’s heat, Connor wasn’t surprised. Helen had been extremely rude about it afterwards, though by Connor’s assessment of the situation, Gabriel had done nothing wrong. “But I thought that he… I mean, it would be… Sorry,” he said eventually. “I don’t want to make a fuss.” He stared down at his lap.

“It’s all right,” Antoine said gently. “You can tell me what you want to say. And then we’ll see if there’s anything we can do about it.”

Connor peered up at him, searching for any hint of anger or deception on Antoine’s face. But he was as calm and open as he always was. “It’s just that… I’ve never met the Lavignes. And being with an alpha I’ve never met is… It’s kind of scary. I don’t mean to offend them. I’m sure they’re good men. But I don’t know them at all. And Helen said the worst thing about Gabriel was that he wasn’t very enthusiastic. And I’m absolutely fine with that. My heats in the past haven’t been very nice. So if this one’s a bit boring, that would actually be a relief.” He trailed off, hoping he hadn’t said too much. If Antoine insisted on calling on the Lavignes, he’d agree to it. Even they, from the comments from the other omegas, would be far preferable to his experiences with the Rivieres, or even with his first master. Thomas Blanchet, who had bought him after he’d been sold from the baby farm, had been a stodgy and unattractive man, but he hadn’t gone out of his way to hurt Connor. He hadn’t been cruel, just indifferent.

But Gabriel had well and truly come through when he’d offered to buy Connor, a bold move that had lived up to his promises to keep Connor safe, and if there was anyone who might be able to get him through his heat without Connor panicking out of sheer terror, it would be Gabriel.

Antoine nodded slowly. “It’s a valid point of view,” he said, which Connor was aware wasn’t quite an agreement. “Let me go and talk to Gabriel. I’ll see what he says. But if the answer’s no, would you be willing to accept one of the Lavignes?”

Connor nodded. “If that’s the next best option, then yes. I don’t want to be left alone for the whole thing. But… if Gabriel will agree, I’d prefer him.” How odd was it, and how far had he come, that he could actually speak ofpreferencesduring his heat, as if his opinion actually mattered to anyone else in the world?

“Sit tight,” Antoine said, heading for the door. “I’ll see what I can do.”

???

“God damn it…” Gabriel muttered. Antoine had come into the study just moments ago and had explained the situation. Connor was in heat. The surge of fear that Gabriel felt at once again being put on the spot to care for a scared and vulnerable omega was making his head spin. “You’re seriously saying he asked for me?”

“He did,” Antoine said. “He knows you, and he’s never met the Lavignes, which makes you the obvious choice. And saving him from the Rivieres earned you a lot of trust, as far as he’s concerned.”

Gabriel sighed, then shook his head. “I can’t,” he said, feeling the full weight of his own defeat as he said it. “Helen was… I agreed to Helen because it was an emergency. But we still have time to send for the Lavignes. Connor’s been abused by God knows how many people, and he’s going to be scared out of his mind as it is. I can’t see there being anything I could do that wouldn’t just make that worse.”