He kept up with her as easily as always, his long legs taking one stride for every two of hers. She ignored him, determined. Art was not far away. Although… all of the hallways were beginning to look the same.

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

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

“Come on.” He took her elbow and steered her in the wrong direction. Darcy yelped. She attempted to dig her feet into the floor but her shoes had no grip and her 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 she fell silent, allowing herself 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.”

“She 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 her mate,” Luca announced. Loudly. Firmly. With a little too much aggression in his tone for Darcy’s liking. His form pressed closer to her, his extra foot and a half of height curling over her like a protective canopy that smelt way too damn good. Darcy refused to acknowledge his words, she 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 her 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 spiked her right between the eyes and the ice pack fell to her lap when she cringed. She groaned and pressed her still-warm hand to her head.

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

“Brain freeze,” Darcy whined. Her 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 her hand and opened her mouth, twisting her tongue back and forth trying to lay the underside of it against her palate.The eye-prickling cold was still radiating through her face.

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

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

Her body reacted.

Her bra was suddenly constricting and trapping her breasts, her marbled nipples fighting against the material that until now had felt soft and comfortable. His tongue spun round hers. It curled and wrapped around her, unperturbed by her own lack of oral finesse. Her eyelids dropped shut again, unable to bear looking him in the face as he took ownership of her mouth.

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

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

Darcy gasped when they broke apart. Luca was watching her, panting softly, when she 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 she scrambled from his lap. She snatched the ice pack up from the ground and skittered out of the room with Luca in tow. Her 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 her anxious power-walking. He shoved her into one of the lockers, mimicking they way he would have done a week earlier, but far more gently. He was teasing her. His smirk was still in place, it sparked an ache inside of her to be bitten by him.

“I can smell you,” he chuckled into her ear.

She said nothing.

“I can smell the scent you give off here,” he brushed two fingers from her collarbone to her chin. Her 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 hem of her skirt, grazing the soft skin of her inner thighs, just a few inches down from her soaked underwear. “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 her body and clothes. Everywhere he had grabbed or bumped her throughout the day. When he bullied her he always managed to only touch her clothes or her hair. Now everything seemed to be coated in a vaguely beta odour.

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

“No,” he 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, her 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 her back and made his way to the class he was late for.

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