Sugar Coated

25

Delaney Linwood

I didn't know what was worse, the prospect of sleeping smothered in an omegas pheromones, or an alphas. I'd hedged my bets with Jax's scent and the thickened sweetness of it in Andres' room after my time spent marinating in Em's. In the heat of the moment last night, it had felt like the right choice with the tingling warmth of the low-grade fever that had simmered under my skin.

I wondered how Andres handled Em. We weren't alphas, but Betas could still get slammed with the brunt of an Omega's perfume. It staggered me last night and I didn't have half the resources an Alpha did to deal with it.

Jackson's citrus seemed a better bet last night and I'll stand by that since it did seem to soothe the rangey feverishness that overtook me in the foggy liminal space between waking and dreaming. But this morning?

Fuck.

I loved the smell of him. Jackson's scent was a rarer one for alphas, decadent. I'd always caught the citrus of it, it spread in the room the same way that you could smell an orange someone was peeling from across the room. Something about the smell of it spread and lingered in spaces.

I hadn't realized the aromatherapy I'd quite stepped into though. Jackson's smell was strong. I could smell the pastry in it warming me from my lungs out each time I dragged in a breath. I was trying to be subtle about it, metering out my breathing like I was still sleeping in Andres' arms, but I couldn't help sneaking glances at the beta that had definitely been fucking his alpha before they'd crashed in on me and Em.

Before they'd saved you from a bite.

I forced my hand to stay curled into my chest. It wanted to creep up to the unbroken line of skin between my neck and my shoulder. It would have been a mirror of the pale crescent of Andres' bite, but it wouldn't have stayed the way his did. It might have scarred over like any ragged wound, but there'd have been no bond to keep the edges fresh to maintain that mating mark.

Because Em couldn't give me one.

My throat closed up. I swallowed back the worry and the stinging pain I always felt before the tears. No use crying over something twice.

I shouldn't have even cried about it the first time. I knew designations like the back of my hand. I'd seen them again and again around me. I'd bled into the background like any beta. I'd watched as my closest friends were pulled from classes as their designations crept in. I'd listened to their woes and their joys that never applied to me.

...I'd listened to my mother warn me away from them even when she'd known they were all I had.

She'd roll over in her grave if she saw me now. Some say they could still hear the muffled "I told you so's" from the grave down on 54th Avenue. I could probably point you to the very plot they echoed from 6 feet down.

I pulled my thoughts back from the spiral, wrenching them back from the grip of her long fingers that haunted me; gentle and choking.

The warmth of Andres' chest against my cheek and the dull thump of his heart pounding in my ear were the only things that mattered. As they chased away the ghosts of my past I let other things filter back into my consciousness like the sharp line of his jaw and the way my head fit nicely into the crook of his shoulder.

Andres maintained his sharp lines when he slept, everywhere except his mouth that is. It smoothed into a plush curve with just a little pout to it that he never gave customers the opportunity to see, instead choosing to wear a smirk in the shop.

Sunrise slanted through the window blinds. It was a softened dusty light, scattered by grey clouds that had moved in with a cold front that wouldn't manage the temperature lower than 65, but we all counted it as a blessing anyway.