Lance dropped into the chair and went on, “I thought you might be sick, but clearly you’re not.” He crossed his arms over his chest and tipped back so that the front legs of the chair came up off the floor recklessly. “Is this about the auction?”
Adrien’s throat went dry. Of course it was about the auction! Whenever he even left his room to creep down the hall to use the communal showers and bathrooms, he felt the eyes of the other students all over him. They knew what he looked like naked now. The size of his dick, the way his asshole crinkled, and the horrible vulnerability of his expression in his headshot.
Everyone knew.
“Wow, look at you blush. It’s like a full body thing. I bet even your thighs are red right now.”
Adrien’s glasses slipped down his nose as sweat popped up on his skin.
Lance huffed. “You’re embarrassed? Dude, you should be proud. I don’t know the last time an auction went this high. That’s the only reason I even know about it.” He clucked his tongue. “Some alpha in class was talking about how guys like him never stand a chance when the wealthy elite can outbid them by astronomical amounts. So I had to grab a look this uber-desirable omega, and hell, friend, it was you!”
“Yeah. Well.” Adrien rubbed the back of his neck. “Me.”
“Why are you so miserable?”
“It’s all really…” Sordid? Frightening? “Strange. I don’t know who’s going to win me, and it’s a little creepy, you know?”
“No. I don’t know. What do you mean ‘creepy’? It’s just the way it is.
How it’s always been.”
Adrien squirmed but held back his questions about why, and who invented the system, and who really benefited in the end.
Lance took pity on him and didn’t push about his feelings, instead directing his questions to the auction itself. “So you really have no idea who the guy driving the price up is? H. Battershell is all it says. I bet it’s a screen name. Some of these guys are private about their love for handling heats.
Like it’s something to be ashamed of.” He rolled his eyes. “Whatever.
Anyway, who is this guy?”
“No idea.” Adrien waved off the question.
Lance’s eyebrows drew low. “What’s that mean? You don’t care who he is?”
“I thought it wasn’t supposed to matter. That it’s ‘the way it is’ so…”
“So you’re basically dying of curiosity, then.”
“Of course I am! But they don’t give you any information about the alpha until the bidding is over, and then it’s only what he wants to share!”
Lance stared at him, cocked his head, and asked gently, “C’mon, Adrien.
What’s the real problem here? You should be happy. Excited. Eager.”
Adrien flopped back on his bed, exhaustion weighing him down like a pallet of bricks on his chest. “Sometimes I am, but other times I’m just plain scared. Don’t tell me I shouldn’t be.”
“Okay, I won’t.” Lance sounded sympathetic. “I forget you didn’t have an omega parent. Right? Just your alpha dad raised you, and he never took on another omega after you were born?”
Adrien shook his head.
“No close omega cousins or uncles?”
“No.” Adrien sighed. “No one. We lived way out in the country, and the only time I saw other folks was when we went to church. There were other omegas there, obviously. But I’ve never even seen a pregnant one.”
“Wow. I guess this would all be really overwhelming to you then.
Especially since your father isn’t here to help guide you through it all.”
Adrien made a face at the thought of his father guiding him through this situation. Their church saw heats as the punishment omegas endured for daring to be like God and create something from nothing—to make life in their wombs. Adrien’s father hadn’t been as conservative as some, but he’d kept his lips tightly closed when it came to any discussion of sex. “Yeah.
Overwhelming is a good word for it. And when I leave my dorm room, I feel like everyone’s staring at me.”
Lance cracked a smile and dropped the chair’s front legs down to the floor. “Because your hot little bod is racking up the dough!”
“Yeah, but they all know what my asshole looks like.”
“Dude, it’s an asshole.” Lance laughed. “We all have one. Mine is darker than yours, like the rest of me, but it’s not exactly different. Take heart.”
Adrien refrained from pointing out that a dozen alphas were competing at
astronomical prices for access to his asshole, so it must be pretty special, even if neither of them could see a reason why.
“I’m nervous,” Adrien said. “I don’t know who this guy is, or what he looks like, or how old he is, or if he’s rough or sweet or kind?”
“There are protections in place. A vetting process,” Lance explained.
“The alphas bidding for access to you aren’t all gorgeous, but none of them are going to hurt you, either.” Lance smirked. “Not unless you’re selling that, too. Some omegas do.”
“No!” Adrien’s eyes bugged.
“I know, I know.” Lance laughed again and put out a calming hand. “I saw your listing.”
“Alphas won’t try to convince me to do that during my heat, will they?”
Adrien asked, remembering how Ron had said that alphas would sometimes try to convince omegas in the throes of heat to add on breeding at a reduced rate.
“No. There are rules about that. Breeding can be added if an omega consents”—Lance shifted uncomfortably as if even he doubted consent mid-heat—“but pain and all of that has to be negotiated up front.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “I admit I was surprised to see breeding since I know you’re in so deep with the Hontu project. You’ve been so dedicated to seeing it through. But it was a good choice financially, obviously.”
“How do you know so much about how it all works?”
“My father’s omegas and I talk. They knew I wouldn’t get the information I needed in that stupid class they make us take. Traditionally, it falls to the omega parent to pass this information on, or, if you don’t have an omega parent, to the omega friends of the family or your father’s new omegas”
“Yeah, I don’t…” Adrien lifted his hands helplessly.
“I know. But…damn, friend. How is it that you’re so alone in the world?”
Lance asked, a hint of pity flavoring his words. “Even in that little community, I’d have thought the omegas would take you under their wing.”
“Just bad luck, I guess,” Adrien said, and sighed.
“Tell me more. What was your father like?”
“He was deeply religious.”
“Oh? That’s unusual in this day and age. A throwback?”
“Yeah. It was a very small community. There weren’t a lot of omegas for alphas to choose from, though, so my father had to buy a heat to have me. He saved a long time to afford a good one.”
“Wasn’t that looked down on?”
“Necessity breeds generosity. They understood his predicament.”
“What do you think of all that? Religion and church?”
Adrien sighed and rubbed his hands through his hair. “I guess some of his ideas stuck with me and some didn’t.”