An unpleasant dream woke him up, he felt all his senses on high alert.

He looked around—the living room was still in shadows. He sat up, and had to clench his teeth hard to avoid letting out the groan that had gotten stuck in his throat. Every corner of his body ached. With his heart pounding hard in his chest, he searched for Jared with his gaze, thousands of excuses came to his head, he felt like his heart would race out of control.

Suddenly, he sighed with relief upon discovering his figure—Jared was lying on the carpet to his left side. He had fallen asleep. Leo sat up slowly, something began to drip down his inner thigh, and immediately after he felt a wave of heat on his face from the shame that invaded him. He had to act quickly and get out of there before he woke up.

The first thing he did was head toward the large windows—it couldn't be that it was still nighttime. They had a device programmed to close them during the day. It was 11 AM, and he sighed with relief when he confirmed that the device was programmed to keep the curtains closed until 2 PM. With light steps and ignoring each stab of pain that shot through different parts of his body, he went looking for his clothes. With a furrowed brow and frustration, he picked up the remains of his shirt—luckily the jacket was still intact. Great, now he had nothing to wear. He headed to the bathroom, cleaned himself with one of the towels which he then threw in the laundry basket. His eyes remained fixed on the contents of the basket—there was Jared's clothes. Decided, he grabbed a white t-shirt to use. He looked for his phone and Jared's. Jared's was off, it had run out of battery. He would have preferred to delete the trace of the received call but would have to think about how to respond to the interrogation that would come. He had finished getting dressed, had gathered all his things, took a look around and nodded satisfied when confirming that there seemed to be no trace of his presence there. Slowly he headed to the entrance door, a noise startled him, he turned with his heart in his mouth but Jared had simply turned over and let out a groan. He was naked and from the erection he had, the effects of the rut inducer were still present.

Holding his breath, he opened the door and closed it immediately regretting that thoughtless action. The metallic sound and the beeping the door emitted made him run out and head straight toward the stairs. He didn't hear any noise behind him, but still felt a growing fear of being discovered, so very slowly and pressed against the wall he descended the building's stairs. There were approximately 10 floors. When he was on the third floor, he heard the echo of a door opening, and thought he heard Jared's voice, but at that moment a door opened on another of the upper floors and the noise of a group of several people going down the stairs, along with their voices, was what he needed to camouflage any other sound and gave him the opportunity to hurry down and shoot out through the back door. He wouldn't risk going out through the main entrance. He ran toward the back street at full speed as if he were a fugitive from justice. Luckily he knew the area very well and knew that just 100 meters away there was the metro entrance. He still felt his heart pounding and his stomach churning due to nerves. He reached the platform and despite it being a metro line that didn't serve him, he got on anyway. When the doors closed, he finally felt safe. He was unable to feel pheromones but from the expressions of several passengers, he supposed he still had them impregnated on his skin. He got off at the next station and changed cars, doing this for 3 stations total. Then he got off and made the final stretch home by taxi.

When he arrived home, he entered slowly—his mother wasn't there. At that hour she was usually at the neighborhood community center, but still he wasn't ready for surprises. He immediately got in the shower. He scrubbed his skin well with the rough sponge and when he got out he applied body lotion with a special lotion that neutralized pheromones. The hardest part was cleaning that intimate place where Jared had ejaculated several times. The area was inflamed and reddened, and he had to resort to an anesthetic cream to open the area well and remove all the semen from inside. Luckily, the pain in his lower abdomen disappeared quickly after emptying his interior.

Fortunately he had no type of tearing, something that apparently was recurrent in alpha or beta men when they received. They also advised against spending the rut without having the necessary experience. He sighed with relief—luckily nothing bad had happened.

When he left the bathroom, he put his clothes in the washing machine to avoid uncomfortable questions, however he kept Jared's used t-shirt in his closet, in a box he had reserved for special garments. He emptied its contents and carefully placed the folded t-shirt inside. He felt like an idiot again doing that, but it was his room, so there he was in no danger of being discovered. He wouldn't use it—it was just a memory of his first love, of his first time.

After all that, he put his phone to charge, but decided not to turn it on until it was 100% charged. Actually, he was afraid to turn it on—he didn't know what he might find. He was incredibly tired and his whole body hurt. He lay down on the bed and before he knew it, it was seven in the evening.

Someone was shaking him, he opened his eyes with a shout. His mother looked at him scared.

"Are you going to have dinner?"

Then he realized that all the study materials were on his desk so his mother probably thought he had been studying, and his mother also didn't usually spend weekends at home—many times she met with other work colleagues at a farm on the outskirts. She probably didn't even know Leo had been absent. It was logical that she wouldn't ask questions.

He nodded and told her he would come out.

When his mother left the room, Leo decided to turn on his phone. The group chat was full of messages. He had several missed calls from North. He cleared his throat and, trying to ignore his nervousness, called him.

"Where were you? Don't tell me you were really studying all this time." He let out a snort. Leo was about to apologize when North added, obviously annoyed, "You should get that obsession checked. You leave your friends hanging."

Leo blinked without understanding.

"Yesterday I was beat, I fell asleep," biting his lip, he decided to bet everything on roulette. "Jared called me but I don't remember very well. Did something happen?"

North clicked his tongue to show his anger.

"I don't know, it seems like Jared took something or someone gave him something to induce the rut. His mother called me today at noon—we have to notify the school, well you have to notify them, not me. Jared will be back in a few days. It seems they gave him something super strong."

"Ah..." Leo didn't know what to respond. "Wasn't he with Clara?"

North let out a groan.

"No, she's a bitch. I saw them arguing at the party, I don't know what happened after, but Jared almost broke one of the windows. They had to kick him out."

Leo let out a snort before asking:

"Is he at home now?"

"No, his mother took him to the hospital because the suppressor didn't work."

The dark-haired boy didn't know what to respond. It was hard for him to separate the events that had really happened from the lie he himself was building.

He decided to take the path he always took in these cases.

"North, by the way, did you finish the historical novel summary? I have a question..."

North hung up.

Leo smiled—it never failed.

#

It was Monday.

Leo arrived at school early, as always. At least he knew he wouldn't run into Jared that day, so first he stopped by the office to report Jared's temporary absence and returned to his classroom.

He had been in his seat for five minutes and had barely prepared his study materials when the classroom door suddenly opened. Clara appeared in the entrance, her expression was serious, as always. Leo didn't remember ever seeing her smile, which always seemed strange to him.

It was chemistry time. The teacher, a woman with a completely silver 50s-style bob, looked at her severely.

Clara proceeded to fix her gaze on Leo.

"Leo Candem must report to the office."

The dark-haired boy looked at her with a puzzled expression.

The teacher directed her gaze toward him and with a barely visible smile, gave him permission. That gave him a small satisfaction—at this point he was settling for quite little. There were some murmurs—it was the first time Clara had appeared in their class's classroom.

He headed toward her, closed the door behind him, and followed her. They walked in complete silence through the long hallway, however instead of turning left at the glass doors that led to the administration wing, Clara continued straight toward the back part of the institute, to be more exact, to the "Green Zone," where the waste compartments were located.

Leo was about to say something—it was obvious the young woman wanted to talk about Friday's party.

They went out to the back area which was uncovered, it was one of the areas that no classroom or office window faced. She was smart.

She stopped to one side, where they remained hidden from possible curious looks.

She turned to face him. She really was a beauty, Leo had to admit, and that bitter feeling he so abhorred appeared again. She was tall, had abundant straight hair of a dark brown color that accompanied gray eyes. She had bangs that perfectly framed her delicate features. She emanated a strong presence and at the same time seemed like those goddesses portrayed in fantasy tales.

Her voice was sweet, like her pheromones—now that, unfortunately, he knew perfectly well how they smelled.

"Leo, regarding the incident on..."

The young man had to admit she had guts—she didn't even feel the need to explain why she had taken him out of class that way, she didn't even intend to apologize. It seemed that Jared and Clara were worthy representatives of their respective social strata.

"I prefer to discuss matters unrelated to school outside the institute. If you want, I can give you my number."

Clara looked at him surprised, and for a thousandth of a second was about to smile, but since she was obviously very intelligent, she straightened up and with an attitude that denoted she had to comply with protocol, added:

"I'm sorry for taking you out of class to talk about a personal matter, but I need to know something about the pheromone party, and no, I'm not interested in having your phone number."

"I see we agree on something," Leo added with a dry tone.

Clara clicked her tongue, amused by Leo's attitude.

"I'm sure you heard about the party incident..."

"The truth is I didn't know you went to those types of events..." Leo commented with a tone and look full of prejudice that he didn't care to hide.

Clara narrowed her eyes and her voice changed—for a few seconds she became a completely different person.

"My alpha was going, so I decided to go."

Leo opened his eyes in surprise.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know you were in a relationship..." he hurried to add.

Clara smiled widely before responding. Leo had to admit he would have preferred never to know that smiling face—she was doubly beautiful when she did it.

"Actually no, not yet," she paused and her eyes took on a dangerous shine, "but it's a matter of time, they always fall." She added, smiling widely. "The next party is in a month and I need you to accompany Jared."

cont - part 2-