The Scent of Love

Chapter 18

Four missed calls from Beth. Each about fifteen minutes apart. 

Sean scowls at his phone and turns it over on the armrest. It’s not her heat— that just finished less than a week ago. She doesn’t ever call him for anything else, and usually not even for that anymore. She’s more of a texting person. 

The show on his TV barely holds his attention, but he makes a valiant effort to stay focused on it. Whatever this thing with Beth is, she’ll probably find help elsewhere. Maybe from Josh. Or that Beta friend of hers she always talks about. Pat? Payne? 

Maybe she’s calling to break it off indefinitely. In which case, she can damn well drive over here and say it to his face. 

Each missed call has a voicemail. He sees the notifications on his phone and blatantly ignores them. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t care. 

God, maybe she’s found someone else. Another Alpha to take his place. Someone she actually wants to share her heats with. And everything else. 

The TV show rolls credits and switches to a game show— god, he can’t stand game shows. This is ridiculous. He switches off the TV and gets up to go make himself dinner. Maybe open a beer. 

He stares into his fridge for a full five minutes before growling in frustration and shutting the door, a little more firmly than he means to. It’s just so— god, it’s frustrating as hell. Why would Beth call him? She never calls him. What the hell? 

“God,” he says, to no one in particular, as he crosses back over to his couch to get his phone. 

Fine. He’ll check his f*****g voicemail. Christ. 

He presses the first message and puts it on speaker. 

It’s not Beth. 

Hello, Sean. This is Beth’s neighbor Helen. Your omega is in trouble. Come quickly. 

Something cold runs through Sean. He starts the next message. 

Sean. Helen again. Beth needs you as soon as possible. Hurry. 

He almost cracks his phone starting the third message. 

Alpha. This is ridiculous. Your Omega needs you. She’s been hurt. 

In the background, he can hear Beth’s voice. It’s a soft whimper, the sort of noise he can only pick up because he knows it, he knows his omega’s voice and he knows her distress—

The fourth message starts. 

Sean. Helen. I’m staying with Beth for the night. If at some point you decide to man up and come care for your omega—

Helen’s voice cuts out as a horrific, high pitched wail comes over the speaker. Sean stares into nothing as he hears Beth’s voice fill the air in his small apartment. 

No! 

Beth, honey, it’s Helen. I’m calling Sean—

No! I want my alpha! Where’s my alpha? I want my alpha! 

Beth’s sobs fill the room for a few more seconds, and then the line goes dead. 

Sean stands stock still, his spine rigid. Helen mistook him for Beth’s alpha, but clearly— 

Clearly Beth doesn’t agree. 

His chest feels fractured into pieces. His heart feels squeezed too tightly. His throat closes up, and his jaw locks. 

She found another alpha. 

She found another alpha. And she didn’t even bother telling him. Or anyone, apparently. 

Sean calmly sets his phone back on the couch armrest and picks up a pillow instead. It does little to muffle the anguished roar that rips from Sean’s throat. 

***

Beth feels… yucky. 

Her skin is crawling a little, even curled up on the greenroom couch with Courtney, between the matinee and evening shows. Sweet, Beta Courtney, who doesn’t understand why Beth feels so unclean, but pats her head and holds her hand anyway. 

“It’s what friends do,” she says by way of explanation, and gives Beth’s hand a squeeze. 

Beth likes her new leading man, just enough. He’s like a macho Beta, which is pretty nice. No nose for anything, no uncanny ability to read her mood based solely off of her scent. It’s nice, and so is he. Cole, his name is, with pretty, dark hair and gentle grey eyes. She would have been into him, before she presented. Maybe all the way up until she met—

No. God. Not now. 

Cole, though, is married with a little one on the way, and since his wife is having troubles that look alarmingly like toxemia, he left right after first show to go sit with her at the doctors for a late, quick checkup. 

“I hope his wife’s okay,” Beth says, not bothering to look up at Courtney. 

“Me, too.” Courtney pulls out her phone and sighs. “I need to get going,”  

“I know.” Beth sighs, a weight in her chest. She hasn’t been able to shake it all day. “I should try to eat a little before the next show.” She sits up, stretches a little. “Thanks for sitting with me.”

“No problem.” Coutney squeezes her hand again, unusually docile, and then stands and helps Beth up. “Have fun with whoever your sub is.” 

“I’ll preset it if you get the sub’s bag for me,” Beth jokes, then ducks into the ladies’ changing room. 

She manages to eat half the fried rice she brought with her, and a few strawberries Faith offers her. It’s nice to have an Alpha woman on cast. Faith caught onto Beth’s distress the moment they locked eyes this morning, and hasn’t let Beth out of her sight since. It’s a comfort, to have her.

A knock at the door draws their attention. “Costuming.”

“I thought you went home,” Beth says, as Courtney shuts the door behind her. 

“Wanted to zip you girls up before I go.” She does that, snapping the bow of Beth’s dress in place over the zipper. “Oh, and Sean B is your sub.”

Beth fumbles the clip she’d held her wig up with. “He’s here?” Of course he’s here, she realizes. It’s two to places. He’s probably been here.

“Yeah, just wanted to warn you.” With that, Courtney zips another girl’s bodice up and snaps the collar. “If you ladies need anything else, leave a note for me for tomorrow.” 

They bid their goodbyes, Beth feeling particularly detached from the world. Her heart thunders in her chest, in her throat. Just one show, that’s it, and then maybe she could talk Sean into—

No, not that. Not anymore. Only during her heat. 

Not even then, really. 

“Hey, weren’t you and Sean a thing for awhile?” Faith asks, swinging her long braids over her shoulder. 

I loved him, Beth thinks. “Uh… yes. We were. For a bit.” There’s no point in lying.

“Yeah, you always used to smell like him,” Faith continues. “He may not enjoy you smelling like someone else.”

Curse Alphas, Beth thinks bitterly, and their ability to smell anything. She drops her eyes to the floor. “There’s a pretty big chance he won’t care, actually.”

He never showed up the evening before. Helen stayed the night, tucked Beth into bed, and bleached the front room within an inch of its life. Beth only knew from the crippling asthma attack the bleach caused her— everything else was a blur of the wrong alpha voice telling her she was safe, and a mildly soothing thumb circling the gland on her wrist. 

It’s a bustle of smiles and greetings as everyone files out into the green room— Faith ahead of Beth with Nico, a tiny, buxom blonde, mixing in with the men from their dressing room. Beth follows Sean into the hallway, who obviously hasn’t noticed her or scented her yet, and tries to worm her way through the crowd to him. He seems always just out of her reach, where she can’t quite get ahold of him— and how utterly ironic that is. It seems like every server in the dinner theatre crosses her path as she attempts to leave, until one of the men, Karl places a hand on the small of her back and, in his deep, booming voice, politely tells everyone to clear a path. She allows him to direct her outside, where, just as she steps into the balmy night air, she hears Faith’s voice. 

“Hey, Beth’s your Flora.”

Sean tenses, and Beth tries not to sigh as he turns around. She fastens on the sweetest smile she can manage and steps up to follow him around the building. 

He blinks down at her, inhales, and then frowns. Deeply. 

“After,” she whispers. “I’ll tell you after the show. I know it’s—“ nasty. Yucky. Awful. She winces. “—Strong. Just… try to ignore it, please?”

He grinds his teeth; she can see the pulse in his jaw. Then, he nods once, and holds the gate open for her for her to go around to the front of the building ahead of him.

***

“Oh, Beth, that was the sweetest you’ve ever sung,” Nico cries, gripping her hands as they come in from show. Beth laughs and brushes it off with thanks, trying to get into the dressing room before she can cave and spill everything to Sean. She almost makes it. 

“Hey,” he says, gently tugging on her wrist just before she can walk through the door. Shoot, she thinks, but turns to him with a smile. “Do you wanna just talk about…” he looks her over, and she nods her understanding. “Um... at your place, later?”

It’s not fair. The little clutch in her heart, the wave of guilt when she thinks of the terrible, foreign alpha smell still stubbornly lingering in her living room.  She desperately needs to have him there, filling her space with his scent. 

“Sure,” she says. “I’ll meet you there.”