Chapter 93: Alpha-Omega Dependency

I didn’t dare look back at the couch as I hurried toward the door. I could practically feel Reid’s burning, intense gaze drilling a hole straight through my shoulder blades, completely aware that I was fleeing the scene.

The moment the front door clicked shut behind me, I let out a massive, ragged breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, leaning my head against the cool metal of the elevator wall.

Safe, I thought, my heart still pounding. At least for a few hours.

The elevator ride down felt like a blur, and by the time I pulled my car into the familiar, quiet garage of my own apartment complex, the silence was almost deafening.

I unlocked my front door, stepping into an apartment that felt cold, sterile, and entirely empty compared to the chaotic luxury of Reid’s penthouse.

Dropping my keys on the counter, I slumped onto my couch, staring blindly at the ceiling. The heavy, sharp scent of frozen pine was still clinging to my skin, my collar, my hair. It was suffocatingly present, a constant reminder of the last three days.

Hands shaking slightly, I pulled out my phone.

My mind was a complete mess. I didn’t even know what I was looking for, but the sheer confusion and panic inside me needed answers.

I opened a private browser, my fingers hovering over the keyboard as I tried to put the bizarre, terrifying sensations of the past few days into words.

I started typing exactly what I was feeling, letting the raw symptoms spill into the search bar: racing heart around a specific alpha, extreme comfort from an alpha’s embrace, restlessness when away from alpha’s scent, irresistible urge to kiss a sleeping alpha, why do I want an alpha to touch me?

The moment I tapped send, search results loaded instantly, a wall of medical forums, dynamic blogs, and secondary-gender health archives.

I scrolled through them frantically, my eyes skimming the text as my stomach dropped lower and lower. The search engine was so unhinged. It laid out the brutal, unvarnished truth of what was going on, likening it all to do with an Omega.

Every single link, every medical breakdown pointed to the exact same diagnosis—things I absolutely, fiercely did not want to accept.

The bolded words practically leaped off the screen: Severe physical and psychological dependency.Pheromone-induced attachment between an Alpha and an Omega.Early-stage bonding submission.

"No," I whispered, slamming the phone face-down on the couch. "No, no, no. That’s impossible." I was breathless. ℴ

I was sure that this didn’t apply to me,but I had no concrete reason to believe it so my heart was racing frantically.

But then I told myself I couldn’t just trust generic internet articles; they didn’t account for the illegal, high-grade suppressants I had been pumping into my system for years to pass as a Beta just to be on the ice.

Sure, I haven’t taken the suppressants since last week thanks to Reid ruining the flushing process, and I even got marked, have been sleeping with and getting knotted by an Alpha, it didn’t mean I was... well, all of the things they said on the Internet. I chose to stay in denial.

Instead, I needed someone who actually understood the exact chemical cocktail keeping my secret safe.

I picked up the phone and dialed Vance, my illegal distributor.

It rang three times before his rough, low voice answered. "Kain? Everything alright? You’re not due for a refill for another two weeks."

"Vance," I said, my voice tight as I paced the length of my living room. "I need to ask you something. If someone is on your strongest regimen of suppressants, but they suddenly start... experiencing an intense physical calm around a specific Alpha’s scent, and a massive restlessness when they leave... What does that mean? Is the batch faulty? Are the blockers failing?"

There was a long, heavy pause on the other end of the line. I could hear the faint rustle of papers before Vance let out a deep, knowing sigh.

"Kain... you and I know it has nothing to do with the suppressants, so let me ask you straight," Vance said, his tone dropping all professional distance. "Has this Alpha marked you? Or have you had a massive, constant influx of his pheromones over the past few days?"

My breath hitched. My mind flashed back to the last three days I spent completely wrapped in Reid’s heavy embrace, my face practically buried in his neck while he held me against his chest.

The previous weekend, we spent it together but it didn’t cross to the third day, so I can’t say things seem the same as then. And compared to now, I didn’t feel this way. I only felt spiteful and wanted to shove his cock up his own ass.

Reid definitely knew exactly what he was doing when he saturated me in his scent these past few days. That was why he’s been so calm... That was why he hasn’t initiated anything. He was... waiting.

"No," I lied smoothly, my grip tightening on the phone until my knuckles turned white. I couldn’t admit it to Vance. If I admitted it out loud, it made it real. "Nothing like that. I’ve just been... around the team a lot."

Vance didn’t sound convinced, but he didn’t push the lie. Instead, he delivered the cold, hard science I was desperately trying to run from. "Right. Well, whoever this ’hypothetical’ person is, if they are experiencing those symptoms despite the blockers, it means the Alpha’s pheromones are powerful enough to override the chemical suppression. And truly... if it’s getting to the point of a physical craving or emotional distress when separated, it’s a symptom of standard Alpha-Omega dependency."

I froze in the middle of my living room, my blood running cold. I saw it in the article but I just didn’t want to believe it. "Dependency?"

"Yeah," Vance explained bluntly. "It’s a biological cocktail, Kain. It’s the kind of symptom that usually happens to an Alpha and an Omega who are in a committed relationship and spend a massive amount of concentrated, intimate time together. Their systems sync up. The Omega develops a deep, primal dependency on their Alpha’s presence to feel safe and the Alpha in turn gets possessive and territorial. But it’s not just chemistry, Kain. It’s the physical manifestation of truly growing feelings. Biology can only do so much—the mind and the heart have to be leaning into it for the suppressants to fail spectacularly and the bond to be initiated."

The word feelings echoed in my ears like a gunshot.

"If this keeps up," Vance added seriously, "the suppressants won’t just be useless—they’ll start making the Omega physically sick. They need to pull away from that Alpha before that happens if that’s not what they want."