Lost in Arcadia

Nudge

What would an alpha who had never responded to omega pheromones be so worried about?

Under normal circumstances, nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.

But this situation was far from normal.

For the first time in his life, Kade was going into rut. And he had been forcibly induced to do so through artificial means.

He didn't know what could happen from here on. Your usual alpha in rut was nothing more than a beast that only followed their instincts to mate and procreate. Once they had lost their rationality, it often wouldn't even matter to them what gender they fulfilled their needs with. If it happened to be only an ill-equipped beta who was within reach, they would simply have to do.

On the other hand, if it was an omega in heat that was thrown into the mix, it wouldn't matter what either of them wanted where other aspects were concerned.

Don't want to get pregnant or knock someone up? Well, tough luck. The rate of conception was so much higher for an alpha and omega pair while they were in this state.

Don't like your partner at all? Too bad as well. It wasn't their conscious and subjective mind that was operating at such times, just unthinking desire born of chemical attraction.

Don't want to get bonded to someone random so you could save yourself for your fated mate—or at least for a person of your own choosing?

Tsk, game over, kid. The compulsion to mark and be marked simply came with the territory.

For years, Kade’s "defect" had made him no different from a bonded alpha, for whom it meant that even if an omega other than the one they were bonded to went into heat in front of them, their bodies wouldn’t react automatically.

But he had gone into rut first, and the woman he was with, the one he had thought at first was a beta, had somehow started to go into heat right after.

He didn’t even need to smell her pheromones to know that this was so. Though his instincts were trying their damnedest to overwhelm him and his body had also grown so unbearably hot, he had become so much more sensitive. He could sense every other symptom she was displaying.

If, as so many doctors had asserted with regard to his insensitivity to omega pheromones, Kade was somehow really bonded already, this shouldn’t have happened. His alpha pheromones should not have been able to affect this omega either.

While he was distracted with such thoughts and their implications, he was also trying to fight off his body’s response to everything that was happening.

The alpha in him that was in rut wanted so much to give in.

But the last sliver of his rationality was urging him to throw the female omega off of him and then get the f*ck away from these people.

Amid all this confusion, it registered to him belatedly that the man who had been with them had already moved away.

Completely naked and still very much standing at attention, the man had spent a moment digging through his discarded jeans’ pockets until he had retrieved his phone.

Now, he was standing by the bedside and pointing the phone’s back camera at Kade and his partner.

When Kade finally noticed that and he realized what their scheme was, a quick surge of anger rose from his chest to his head, helping to dispel the hold that his rut had on him.

He sat up and forcefully pushed the woman back. Then, he turned his blazing eyes towards her partner.

From looking at the phone screen, the man also raised his own eyes to meet Kade’s.

The alpha’s expression had been scary enough to behold on video. Face to face, it made the man take an instinctual step back, then another.

It almost looked like he was preparing to make a run for it and leave the woman behind, and who could blame him?

Earlier, this foreigner had only been giving off easygoing and carefree vibes. His youthful and innocent-looking face had frankly also made him seem like the perfect target—just another clueless and gullible guy that they could prey on.

But whatever else he was, Kade was still an alpha.

And now, he no longer looked anything like an angel that was just out naively exploring the world. He looked like a pissed-off demon straight out of hell.

“I am so gonna f*ck you up,” he said, his words not a promise of a good time anymore but an honest-to-goodness threat.

The man really tried to make a run for it then.

Kade snorted. As if he’d let him get away.

What happened next was not pretty. After extending a single leg out, Kade tripped the fleeing buck-naked man. He ended up in a not-so-enticing sprawl on the floor, but before dealing with him some more, Kade first went to pick up the man’s phone.

It was an old and cheap model. While making sure to keep the man down by stepping on his back, hard, Kade returned the phone to factory settings to erase its contents. He also took out the memory card just in case, and then, with his bare hands, he broke the phone in half.

Upon dropping the f*cked-up phone right by the man’s face, Kade made sure he got a good look at it before picking the man up by the arm and punching him.

He then proceeded to do other unsavory things to him that were best left to the imagination.

Suffice it to say, by the time he had dragged the man's body to where the woman still was, writhing under the pain of unfulfilled desire, the man's f*cked-up little d*ck wouldn't enjoy even a second of what was "coming" next.

But no matter how much he would have liked to stay and watch the show, Kade knew it was not the best idea to further test his self-control while in rut under these circumstances.

At the motel’s reception, he slammed a palm on the counter to get the clerk’s attention before demanding, “Call the police—now. And get me a damned inhibitor!”

The next proceedings were tiresome and time-consuming, but Kade wasn’t about to let any of this go.

Who knows what kind of drug that man had injected him with? Also, their aim had clearly been to entrap him for extortion.

He had no idea if this was the first time they tried to do this, but if he didn’t do anything, it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Although the police who responded gave Kade weird looks after witnessing what he had done to the suspects, they still took his side in the end. After all, they had already encountered many cases like this one.

His blood got tested soon after. It was found that while the drug was harmless in itself, it was a controlled substance in this and in many other countries. Upon further investigation, it was also found that the perps had obtained it illegally, obviously for use in equally illegal activities as well.

By the time Kade got back to the hostel where he was currently staying, only one thought was left in his head: This was it. He was done.

But done with what, exactly, even he didn’t quite know yet.

Perhaps he just wanted to drop this aimless and increasingly pointless lifestyle and go home. He could do good work anywhere, but there was only one place where he could be surrounded by familiar things, by people who loved and cared about him.

Just as if the universe was giving him a nudge, after Kade spent a long time in the shower to wash away every last trace of humanity’s filth on him, he saw that someone had sent him a private message.

It was from his best friend, Ren Ashford—the guy who, with the way things had been going for Kade thus far, might also end up being the only person he had ever had romantic feelings for.

Ren: “Can you call me when you’re free? I need to know when you can come back. We’re picking the date for the wedding.”

…

From looking intently at the words on his phone screen, Kade raised his blank eyes and let out a long breath.

All things considered, he probably deserved everything that had been happening to him of late.

That still didn’t mean he would accept any of it with grace.

“Seriously,” he said with a huff before plopping face-down over his bed. “Just f*ck my life…”

Despite being free now, he didn’t immediately make that call. He had just been through a rough and draining time. He sure as hell didn’t need this lovely cherry on top of it.

Ren was really getting married now…

It was a long time coming anyway, but he still couldn’t help feeling a little depressed.

Part of it was because he still had lingering feelings for him—he wouldn’t deny that.

However, most of it was due to the knowledge that he was getting left so far behind.

After he and Ren graduated from their five-year engineering course, Kade had gone off to roam the world while his best friend immediately prepared to take the board exams to get his license.

Kade had come back home more than a year ago to take the exams as well. To no one’s surprise, he’d failed. He wasn’t the brightest student to begin with, and he hadn’t studied for sh*t beforehand.

To no one’s surprise as well, Ren had passed, and he thereafter began officially working with his soon-to-be husband at his small consulting firm.

As if the fated and bonded mates weren’t to be envied already, their working life was equally as harmonious as their domestic one. Getting married was only the next logical step for them, and after that, Kade had heard from Ren that they were planning to start their own family.

Along with most of their peers, it seemed that his best friend had it all figured out already.

Meanwhile, here Kade was, still wondering what to do next.

It really wasn’t the pleasantest, feeling so lost in life.