On Sunday, they lazed around the house more like cats than wolves. It might just have been the longest time that Quinn had been able to clear her mind since Remi arrived. Even thoughts of when she would be leaving didn’t manage to penetrate her zen. That night they got to bed on time.

But Quinn was awoken suddenly. The fizzle of a bond tickling the back of her skull for a moment before she was fully conscious. There was no sun filtering in through her curtains, no alarm blaring, no bumps in the night. A feeling, deep in her gut, urged her up. Something was wrong, and not with her. She climbed free of her duvet and stumbled out into the hallway, pyjama shorts bunched at the tops of her thighs.

Flutters around the edge of the bond, fear and hurt. Part of the pack calling her without intent.

Soft cries were muffled by Remi’s bedroom door. Quinn followed the sound, keeping her barefooted steps as light as possible and pressing her ear to the door. The sad sniffling sounds continued and Quinn was compelled to knock.

The sobs stopped. Quinn waited on the other side.

“Remi?” she called gently through the door.

“Yes, Alpha?” A watery reply.

“Can I come in?”

“Yes, Alpha.”

A crown of black flicks stuck up around Remi’s head, adding a few inches to her swollen face. Her cheeks were mottled red and tear-streaked. The white duvet was a cocoon around her with only her small round head poking out of the top. Quinn wondered if Remi had been hiding within it until she requested entrance.

“What’s wrong, Remi?” Quinn whispered. She crept to the bed and crouched at the edge with her hands resting on the sheets.

“I’m sorry, Alpha. I had a scary dream.”

“You don’t need to be sorry for that. Do you want to talk about it?”

Their voices remained low as though there were anyone near enough to hear them.

Remi sniffed. “No, thank you, Alpha.”

“Okay.” Quinn nodded with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. Although with the light from her bedroom at her back she probably looked more like a super villain. “I’ll let you rest-”

“Don’t go!” Remi yelped, falling out of her cocoon like lava from a volcano. Small hands stretched out for Quinn’s legs, struggling to get a hold around muscle wider than Remi’s waist.

“You want me to stay?”

Shiny black eyes pleaded up at her. “I’ll feel less scared with you here.”

“I can’t stay all night, though, I have work in the morning.”

The pout probably wasn’t intended to manipulate Quinn’s heart into mush, but it did.

“Come to my room. This bed is too small for me if we’re both going to squeeze in.”

“Yes, Alpha!” Remi sang, hands still struggling to cling to Quinn’s leg.

Quinn bent down and pulled Remi up by the forearm until she stood atop the mattress. The top of her flicking hair still didn’t reach Quinn’s chin. She clutched her hands around Quinn’s wrist, refusing to relinquish physical contact. It didn’t seem worth the fight to pry her off, so Quinn looped her other arm under Remi’s butt and lifted her from the bed. In Quinn’s bedroom, she plopped her back onto white sheets. Remi crumpled onto her side immediately, curled up against a pillow, pulling Quinn’s hand down with her.

Quinn climbed under the duvet at her side, flicked off the lamp on her side table, and tucked them both in one-handed. Remi remained conjoined to the other. Settled in, Quinn released a pent-up sigh as a long and low breath.

“I dreamed of alpha,” Remi mumbled against her arm.

Quinn blinked. Alpha as in her? Scary? A fidgeting overtook her, wringing her hands under the covers as she tried to work out what to reply.

“My old alpha,” Remi clarified through a barely restrained yawn.

“Oh.” Quinn asked against her better judgement, “was he yelling at you?”

Remi made a non-committal noise.

“Do you miss him?” It filled her with mortification to even voice the question. But regardless of her old alpha being loud or scary… grief was grief. Quinn had no memories of her parents, but she still felt the loss of them. Especially at night.

Gooey lashes blinked up at her, slowing in their opening and closing until they remained shut, where they rested against blotchy cheeks. Quinn desperately wanted to run her knuckles over the skin. It looked softer than velvet, plush and puffed.

Deep breaths brushed the skin of Quinn’s forearm and the body against her sunk close. Quinn was envious. With an omega curled up against her, triggering a plethora of awful primal urges in all kinds of organs, she had to simply resign herself to the fact that she wouldn’t be getting a wink more sleep tonight.

Ridiculous wolf hormones or pheromones or some other stupid moans. A voice in her head scolded her instantly: do not think about moans. Especially not Remi’s.

Quinn’s entire body ran stiff even as the admonishing thought passed through her head. She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists.

Not Remi moaning.

Not Remi writhing.

Not Remi clinging to her.

Tiny hands at her arm quivered, the ghost of a flex. Something rumbled in Quinn’s chest and she winced. Stupid alpha instincts. None of this was real attraction. There was a woman in close proximity and she hadn’t gotten laid since she left her pack. Her body was craving intimacy, and her genetic code called out for what it viewed as the most breedable member of any pack: the omega.

The humans would call this caveman behaviour.

Even though there was no way for someone to deduce her desperation, Quinn burned with humiliation anyway. A feeling of exposure, bared naked before the world in her torturous compulsions. Completely out of her control. She pried her eyes open, knowing it would lead to nothing good. Peeking down at Remi’s sleeping form was definitely a bad idea. She did it anyway.

Quinn wasn’t one for sweet foods, but Remi’s peachy skin brought a watering sensation to her mouth. Instead of bringing her teeth to Remi’s sweetness, she freed the hand that wasn’t trapped between them. Along the curved bridge of Remi’s nose Quinn trailed the tip of her pinky finger. Feathery eyebrows tickled the grooves of Quinn’s fingerprint. She dipped into the crease below her bottom lip and over the mound of her chin. When her finger reached the underside of Remi’s jaw, she could feel the slow beat of blood pulsing under velveteen skin.

Quinn choked on a breath and her finger shook as she fought to retract it. She forced the hand back under the covers and clenched it at her side.

With every ounce of willpower left in her weary body, she managed to keep her hands to herself until the sun rose and her alarm rang. A fluffy head of black hair jerked up at the noise and Remi’s disorientation was plain on her face. She rolled out of the bed without a word and tottered to her own room, assumedly to get ready for the day. Quinn remained stiff in the bed for a few moments, gathering the energy to drag herself up.

Instead of her morning meditation, Quinn used the time for morning masturbation in the shower. The concentration it took to keep Remi from the fantasies behind her eyelids almost dried up her orgasm despite the hot spray.

The release didn’t come paired with relief. Instead, Quinn’s exhaustion seemed to double. There was only one solace she could take on this chilly Monday morning: she was working from home. A slightly more relaxed day sat ahead of her than having to feign energy and cordiality in the office.

But in her home was Remi. The object of her affection. No. Quinn shook her head under the jets of water and scrubbed her hands over her face. The object of her asinine alpha appetite, she corrected.

Remi was sweet and lovely and kind, but Quinn’s attraction was biological and beyond intelligent reasoning. All that could be done to reign it in was practice self-discipline. She had lived amongst humans for years with her wolf form constrained. It wasn’t easy, but she was stubborn, and she would not allow herself to be ruled by doggy desires.

As Quinn set up her work station for the day at the dining table, Remi made herself comfortable on the sofa and promptly fell into a light snooze.