Call You Mine

Chapter Five

***warning: brief descriptions of a past attempted rape/sexual assault***

Shaking, Arthit found the nearest restroom and slammed the door open, startling a second-year washing his hands inside. "Get out," said Arthit, his voice ragged. The student—Yacht, he believed—frowned at him, but he nodded and quietly slipped out without a fuss.

Arthit locked the door. He went to the sink, turned on the water, and leaned heavily against the counter, staring at the steady stream without really seeing it.

"You smell amazing."

He shuddered, closing his eyes against the memory of that night at the beach. But Arthit couldn't stop it from rushing back to him, and it was like he was there, in that empty room, trapped between the wall and the alpha's body.

"I can't wait to take you," Fuse had said, nipping at the skin above his mating gland. He groaned and pressed his erection against Arthit's ass. "You're going to look so pretty with my bite," he whispered, "so good on my knot."

The scar on the base of his neck throbbed painfully—an echo, the witches called it; phantom pain, said the doctors. Arthit whimpered and lowered himself to the floor, squatting on the balls of his feet. He held onto the counter and pressed his forehead against the edge, trying to calm himself down.

But he couldn't stop thinking about it—couldn't stop reliving it. Terror and confusion had consumed him in those moments. He hadn't understood why Fuse, an alpha he trusted, refused to stop touching him or why it felt like his blood had caught on fire.

Omegas on suppressants didn't go into heat on accident, not if they were taking their pills regularly. Every two years, they had to let their bodies go through a controlled heat, but those were arranged and scheduled, and it took a full month for the medication to stop working. Since he had gone through one less than a year prior, Arthit hadn't connected the feverish warmth flooding his body with his heat until Fuse had pressed against him, causing his body to start producing slick.

Male omegas didn't produce slick unless they were in heat, and it was at that point that he'd panicked and begged Fuse to let him go. But the alpha had refused; instead, he'd pressed harder against him, chuckling, and whispered that he could already smell how much he wanted his knot. "I'll take good care of you, love," Fuse had assured him, "I'll make you feel so good."

But Arthit hadn't wanted for Fuse to take care of him, he hadn't wanted his knot or his touches, and that hadn't changed just because he went into heat. Alphas liked to joke that an omega in heat would take any knot offered to them, but that was bullshit. Producing slick during heat was a natural response to stimulus, not an indication of consent or desire, and contrary to popular belief, omegas didn't lose their damn minds during heat. They might be easier to subdue, and their bodies might respond to an alpha's touch whether it's wanted or not, but that didn't mean that they wanted it to happen. But not all alphas saw it that way—not all packs, to be more precise.

Although he hadn't been raised around a traditional pack, Arthit had always been somewhat aware that not all packs treated omegas the same. In some, omegas held equal status to alphas and betas and, even if they had a mate, were considered autonomous and capable of making their own decisions. Their individual rights were never questioned, and they were valued and often held in high esteem. In others, however, omegas were essentially property of their alphas. They were a prize to be claimed, a trophy so be shown off, and a bitch to breed; they lived a life controlled by their alpha, kept at home raising children, and were expected to obey their mate in all matters.

Still, in the majority of packs, omegas held a place somewhere between these two extremes, and Arthit had wrongly assumed that Fuse's pack erred toward the former because he had treated him so well up until that point.