Alpha Assignment (GL) Chapter 4 (Early Access) (Patreon)

Quinn let her eyes wander from Remi (and Remi's ninety-nine percent full mug) and a spike of stress shot through her. Her watch was silently screaming at her that she was very behind schedule. By this time on any other day she would have finished her breakfast and set up her workspace. She jumped up from her seat and Remi immediately followed suit, although she didn’t know why they were moving yet.

“I’m going to be late,” Quinn hissed to herself.

Remi gasped as though she had been notified of a horrific accident. “I will get out of your way, Alpha.” She hurried to the other side of the living room, skidding on the carpet as she turned to the door that lead back to the hallway. “I will get washed and dressed now. Please let me know if you need anything from me.”

“Sure,” Quinn grunted. She laid out her laptop, planner, notebook, pens, mouse and mouse pad, wrist rest, water bottle, mug, and cafetière in their perfect places. As soon as she plugged in the charger, she pushed the power button and let her laptop bring itself to life while she neurotically checked her watch.

Remi was back in a flash, face still a little damp but now she was dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and a woolly cardigan.

"Can I help, Alpha?"

"Um, no. Sorry, Remi." Quinn left her laptop's side to join Remi in the living room. Standing over the omega's tiny figure, she realised she didn't have anything for her to do with her time, helpful or otherwise. "How about you sit here?" She gestured to the sofa with a hand wave and watched Remi follow the command without hesitation.

Remi's droopy cardigan took up more sofa space than the omega herself. The cushions didn’t sink beneath her weight and her feet could no longer reach the ground. She wiggled her way to the back of the seat and her toes pointed up at Quinn where they hung over the lip.

“As soon as I’ve caught up with my colleagues and set up my plan for the day, I can find something for you to do while I work,” Quinn promised, hurrying to the laptop on the dining table at the other end of the room. She never skipped breakfast and was definitely never late.

"Yes, Alpha," Remi called, still sat perfectly still.

"I need you to try and stay as quiet as you can, just for this first part, as I may have a catch-up call with my boss."

"Yes, Alpha."

"After that I can get you a..." Quinn floundered with her lack of experience in entertaining guests. The connection to the company's secure network finally halted the spinning dots on her login screen and allowed her to type in her credentials. "Movie... or something."

This time, Remi whispered, "Yes, Alpha."

Quinn nodded to herself and began clicking open all of her most important tabs. Jordan had sent her a message in their private chat from the train, already complaining about having to go into the office. They both worked hybridly, but Quinn was lucky enough to live a fifteen minute drive from the office building in the centre of town. Jordan had to commute for an hour on a bus and a train, but she lived in a more rural area. Very beautiful, from the pictures Quinn had seen at least. If the Assembly territories didn't cover just about every pastural piece of land in the continent, Quinn would choose to live somewhere similar. To get anywhere close to a forest or fields, meant putting yourself in the Assembly’s grasp.

Placing herself outside of their boundary lines hadn't stopped them dropping an unwanted dependent on her doorstep, though. Quinn sighed quietly to herself and forced her eyes to remain on her screen as she sent an unsympathetic reply to Jordan.

They had a report due Friday reviewing the conversion rates of the ad campaigns the marketing team had been running. The marketing team did not always appreciate the stats that Quinn brought to those meetings, but the numbers were what they were. Just because the head of that magazine sends you gift baskets and invites you to fancy dinners doesn't mean their website will bring in anything more than empty clicks for the company.

Quinn didn't mind being the one who had to disappoint them with the truth. Jordan revelled in it.

Work expectations set with her colleagues and manager, plan laid out for herself, and all emails and direct messages responded to, Quinn could finally relax into her seat for a moment.

A soft snore jerked her back into perfect posture again. Remi. She had stayed so perfectly silent that Quinn had completely forgotten she was there. From her seat, she could only see a lump of cardigan on the sofa at the opposite end of the room. She crept through the archway that separated living room from dining room, approaching the snoozing omega with the lightest of steps.

Remi’s small feet were curled and her cheek was squashed up against the pillow. It brought an ache to Quinn’s teeth to watch her sleep so sweetly. Something deep in her gut told her that the only way to relieve the ache was to sink them into Remi’s skin. For a few minutes, she stood over her, casting an ominous shadow over Remi’s innocent slumber. A mindless beast hibernated inside of her, and Remi’s presence stirred its consciousness. How much longer could Quinn contain it? Playing human day in and day out couldn’t last forever… She shook her head against the unwanted thoughts. It wasn’t true. She was fine. A moment of weakness meant nothing. She was in control and her beastly instincts were just a warning light on in the background. Irritating, but possible to ignore.

Quinn stalked away. They both needed breakfast, and she needed a repetitive task to clear her mind. She cut a variety of fruits and distributed the pieces between two bowls. She added a tablespoon of Greek yoghurt to her own and sealed Remi’s to go into the fridge.

Back at her laptop, she ate with one hand and ran data exports with the other.

Remi woke around eleven. A sudden gasp announced her return to the conscious world, and gave Quinn a scare that almost caused a coffee spillage. When she turned to the sofa, Remi was sat up with her cardigan hanging off from her elbows and fluffy hair loosely flicking out from her head. Her hair tie had clearly been eaten by the couch creases.

“Good morning,” Quinn called.

A flash of fear rippled from Remi’s face down her body: limbs tucking in closer to her torso and a shiver running over her skin. The pitch black of her eyes made the shaking of them that much more noticeable. Just a moment earlier she had been sleeping peacefully. Not a nightmare, then, but Quinn’s presence had given her a shock when she woke up. Maybe she’d forgotten where she had ended up.

Drawing attention to it wouldn’t help, so Quinn announced, “breakfast is in the fridge for you. The wrapped bowl.” The coffee had gone cold, it didn’t seem that Remi had drunk more than the initial tasting sip. Quinn could take a hint. She added, “there’s yoghurt, too, if you want it.”

Remi rose slowly, tugging her cardigan around her more closely despite the warm house. As she shuffled towards the kitchen, she dropped her eyes again. A factory reset back to her original omega behaviours. Quinn tried not to look disappointed. She liked seeing Remi’s eyes in full dark force.

Quinn returned to her work, or rather, responding to Jordan's incessant messaging about anything other than work.

“I’m sorry, Alpha.”

“Sorry?” Quinn repeated, distracted by the SEO audit that had finally arrived in her inbox. Six days late.

“I shouldn’t have fallen asleep. I’m so sorry.” The trembling tone of Remi’s voice cut through Quinn’s train of thought. Her head snapped up to where Remi hovered in the kitchen doorway, twisting her thin fingers into a twig pile. Her eyes were low and her lips shaking. She looked awful.

“Remi!” Quinn gasped. "What's wrong?"

Remi’s eyes flashed up, but only to lock onto Quinn’s face filled with fear. “I didn’t mean to,” she sobbed.

Quinn rose from her seat and the smaller woman’s entire frame began to shake like it had when she first arrived.

“You’re not in trouble!” Quinn reassured her, palms raised in what she hoped was a non-aggressive gesture.

Remi sniffed and shook and then there were tears rolling down her cheeks.

"You're not-" Quinn reached for her and immediately retracted her hands when Remi flinched. She began to openly cry, mouth agape and chin dripping. "I'm not-" Quinn was floundering again, stuck between her instinct to hold and her logic to retreat. Remi wasn't hearing her words, but she didn't know how to act in a way that spoke for her.

The sniffles of her cries caused hiccups that caught Remi's breath in her chest. She was frozen with fear. All it seemed she could do was cry and try to breathe through it. Quinn had seen small children in the supermarket get this upset before, one of them vomited right by her cart.

"Remi, you need to calm down!" she whispered as gently as she could. "You're going to make yourself sick."

Tiny hands clenched together as Remi looked to be attempting to force her body to stop moving completely.

"Don't- just-" Quinn turned on the spot, looking around the room for anything that could help her. Why didn't she keep the paper bags her groceries came in?

There was only one thing that she knew Remi would respond to for definite, but she really didn't want to do it. The short gasping breaths of the distressed omega behind her confirmed she didn't have a choice. Just this once.

Quinn turned back to Remi, bent her knees just enough to force eye contact and spoke in her firmest and most forceful voice. "Omega, sit down on that chair." She pointed to the dining chair at the furthest point of the room from them. The bond opened between them, but flowing solely from Quinn to Remi. There was no reply or push back along the connection. "Now."

Immediate, and possibly instinctive, movement. Remi almost ran to the chair and hopped onto it with half her behind hanging off.

"Sit properly," Quinn ordered.

Remi shuffled back onto the seat until her feet were no longer touching the ground.

Quinn took a deep breath and approached. She could see Remi's knuckles had gone bone-white as she clutched at the armrests, but she was breathing at a normal rate. Her focus locked onto Quinn so intently that her body could take over and regulate. That was the important thing, more important than the self-disgust that was bringing an acidic sickness to Quinn's stomach. She squatted in front of the chair, close enough to touch but keeping her hands draped over her knees, and locked their eyes again.

"Omega." She was going to need at least five heartburn tablets after this. Maybe a glass of milk, too. "You are not in trouble.” Slow, solid statements. “You are allowed to sleep when you like and where you like. I am not angry with you. I am worried about you and I need you to calm down for both of our sakes. Can you do that for me?"

Remi nodded. It shook off the tears that had been hanging on the edge of her jaw.

"Would you like some water?"

Remi nodded again.

"Did you eat your breakfast?"

Remi sniffed and shook her head, the guilt returning.

"Do you not like fruit?"

"I do," Remi croaked.

"Then I'll bring it out and you can eat it here."

Remi pulled her cardigan over herself, more a blanket than a garment, and hid the lower half of her face in the fluffy knit.

Once she turned away, Quinn felt the bond connection fizzle out. The sensation came with a wave of relief.

Quinn presented Remi with the fruit, yoghurt, and water, and left her to gather herself in peace. After a wiggle of her mouse to keep her status active, she retreated upstairs. Quinn needed a few moments to herself as well. She shut herself in her bathroom and stared at the alpha in the mirror who had just used their natural authority over an omega in distress.

She chewed six chalky tablets from her bathroom cabinet, wondering if it was cowardly to push away the burning guilt. Maybe it was deserved.