Luca kept up with him as easily as always, his long legs taking one stride for every two of Darcy’s.He ignored him, determined. Art was not far away. Although… all of the hallways were beginning to look the same. Darcy faltered a step.

After barely a minute Luca asked, “Does your head still hurt?”

Darcy almost tripped over his own feet. “Y-yeah, a little,” he answered reflexively.

“Come on.” Luca took his elbow and steered him in the wrong direction. Darcy yelped. He attempted to dig his feet into the floor but his shoes had no grip and his legs had no strength.

“I have art now-”

“And you were walking the wrong way for the art department. Is your sense of direction always that bad or should I be worried that you’re concussed? Either way, we’re going to the nurse’s office, they’ll have an ice pack for your head.”

“It’s okay! I’ll be fine.”

He growled quietly, but with all of his beta authority, and Darcy fell silent, allowing himself to be lead down a small side corridor.

When they reached the nurse’s office, the door was open and the nurse herself was perched on a wheelie stool as she flicked through a romance novel with a bare-chested man on the front. She sat up straighter and plopped the book on her desk when Luca rapped on the door with his knuckles. He pushed Darcy inside ahead of him.

“Hello,” Darcy said.

The nurse rolled a bit closer. “How can I help you, love?” she asked with a kind smile and a mild head tilt.

“I bumped into someone and hit my head.”

“He needs an ice pack,” Luca added.

“Oh dear, we can get you that. But your friend will need to get back to his own class-”

“I’m his mate,” Luca announced. Loudly. Firmly. With a little too much aggression in his tone for Darcy’s liking. His form pressed closer to him, his extra foot and a half of height curling over Darcy like a protective canopy that smelled way too damn good. Darcy refused to acknowledge his words, he stared straight ahead, body still, mouth shut.

The nurse raised her hands palm-forward, non-aggressive. “I understand. Why don’t you take those seats there. I’ll get you some ice.”

They approached the nearest plastic chairs lined up against the wall and dropped into them simultaneously. There were no other patients in the room and the nurse returned with the ice pack quickly. It was wrapped in a small towel and Darcy pressed it to his forehead with a grateful smile and a mumbled thank you.

Silence fell over the room as Darcy allowed the cool parcel to relieve the sore skin. The nurse busied herself in her filing cabinet and piles of paperwork.

The cold suddenly spiked Darcy right between the eyes and the ice pack fell to his lap when he cringed. He groaned and pressed his still-warm hand to his head.

The nurse called over, “Are you alright, love?”

“Brain freeze,” Darcy whined. He eyes squeezed shut in a wince against the pain.

“Oh dear. Turn your tongue over and press it to the roof of your mouth, it’ll get rid of it faster,” the nurse advised, returning to her paperwork.

Darcy dropped his hand and opened his mouth, twisting his tongue back and forth trying to lay the underside of it against his palate.The eye-prickling cold was still radiating through his face.

A crutch of fingertips caught the point of his chin and turned his head. Before his eyes could peel open past the pain, his lips had been breached by a tongue, bigger and warmer than his own. It slid into his mouth and pressed against the roof firmly.

Darcy’s eyes snapped open, Luca’s were watching him with golden curiosity. Darcy tried to jerk back. The pain was gone now. Luca’s hands took his waist and thigh, pulling him into his lap in retaliation of his attempted retreat. His tongue shifted, no longer performing brain-freeze duty. Now it was off the clock and looking to enjoy the downtime.

Darcy’s body reacted.

His shirt was suddenly constricting him, his marbled nipples fighting against the material that until now had felt soft and comfortable. Luca’s tongue spun round his. It curled and wrapped around his, unperturbed by his own lack of oral finesse. Darcy’s eyelids dropped shut again, unable to bear looking his bully in the face as he took ownership of his mouth.

A stuttering moan-like sound flew from his throat to Luca’s. He had never been kissed at all, let alone tongue-twisted. The growl Luca gave in return sent a tremble over Darcy’s thighs and a wetness to his underwear that stunned him. He was hard, and dripping. He wasn’t completely innocent, he knew what it felt like to find someone attractive or get a little aroused. But his body had never ached for someone like this before, literally inviting Luca to take him without any control on his part. While his brain was in shock at his own body’s behaviour, it didn’t stop the primal urges that rose to the surface. His knees slid open, widening his legs either side of Luca. The muscles of Darcy’s inner thighs were clenching and flexing, he wanted Luca’s torso between them. His bare skin against him.

“Excuse me, my loves.” The words were sweet but the voice speaking them was not.

Darcy gasped when they broke apart. Luca was watching him, panting softly, when he turned to the furious nurse. The woman was glaring at them from the other side of the room.

“If you are well enough to play tonsil tennis, you are well enough to return to class.”

Luca grinned at her but did not apologise. Darcy did for the both of them, babbling a messy apology as he scrambled from his lap. He snatched the ice pack up from the ground and skittered out of the room with Luca in tow. His entire body was burning. From the neck up, in embarrassment. From the chest down, in arousal.

They made it back to the locker corridor before Luca stopped his anxious power-walking. He shoved him into one of the lockers, mimicking they way he would have done a week earlier, but far more gently. He was teasing him. His smirk was still in place, it sparked an ache inside of Darcy to be bitten.

“I can smell you,” Luca chuckled into his ear.

Darcy said nothing.

“I can smell the scent you give off here,” he brushed two fingers from Darcy’s collarbone to his chin. His omega scent. All wolves gave off their secondary gender scent from their neck, but could leave it on items and others through sweat too. “And I can smell this too.” The hand dropped to the crotch of his jeans, grazing the soft skin of his inner thighs through the material, just a few inches down from his damp briefs. “But most importantly, I can smell my scent on you.”

Darcy sniffed experimentally. He was right. He had left a thin cloud of his own earthy smell in patches over his body and clothes. Everywhere he had grabbed or bumped him throughout the day. When he bullied him he always managed to only touch his clothes or his hair. Now everything seemed to be coated in a vaguely beta odour.

“Nothing a shower can’t fix,” Darcy mumbled. It would be a long shower with a lot of scrubbing. Omega skin soaked up other wolves’ scents like a sponge.

“No,” Luca huffed. “Keep it on you. Take my scent for a test drive,” he added with a wink.

Darcy’s mouth couldn’t find a single word to form, his brain had short-circuited.

“I’ll pick you up from your last class and walk you to the bus. Until then, enjoy wearing the scent of a beta.” He pushed off from the lockers at Darcy’s back and made his way to the class he was late for.

Darcy slumped against the lockers, trembling and disorientated. His original battle plan had been completely derailed, and he only had until the end of his last lesson to come up with a new one.