In times of crisis, Float did her no wrong.
An update was revealed for the system, and Quinn had frowned in bed, facing the wall as she stared at a new currency…Hearts, pretty pink and sweet. She had five, and where she'd gotten them was beyond her. She'd squinted and pondered their meaning, wondered if they signified her pain and suffering.
A click on the icon and she was brought to a new cheery page that revealed a list of items available for purchase. And her eyes shot open and grew wider as she stared at the first on the line. And the only option available for purchase.
Item Box- Stores items in another dimension, and preserves them forever.
Her jaw dropped open, confusion brimming. But the purchase was made, and a new icon was revealed on the panel. A tentative finger dipped, and her hands were sinking into nothingness, disappearing into a slit of light, like a chasm in the wall.
The space felt odd, cold and slippery as her fingers twisted around. Quinn marvelled, waved another hand beneath the slit in the world, and yet there was nothing. She removed her hand from the space and the slit vanished, slipping back into the icon. An invisible, endless bag.
It was another cheat code, she quickly realised, a smile blossoming on her face.
After a day or two and she learnt that she no longer had to destroy the products that she purchased for her god-like cleaning. She could store them within the item box and pull them out again to use. For the Omegas that demanded to watch her clean, she'd faked a show of performance anxiety and then agreed to have a camera to her back.
It was too easy to hack the device, place a screen over the spinning lens and provide a feigned recording of her slow and steady scrubbing with artificial intelligence.
And Quinn was soon enough, sitting back with her fingers darting over Float, playing games and even feasting on the occasional cheap biscuit from the online store. The crumbly chocolate was so sweet and sinful on her tongue. Her head bounced to music playing straight to her ears as new robots worked on the scrubbing.
There was no punishment to be handed to her with her abilities to make bathrooms seem almost new a whisper of awe that spread around the House of Fern. Her hands grew increasingly prized as her stars increased, pulling her further up the ranks from factories to malls, and then offices.
A sedentary lifestyle returned to her quickly, and Quinn thrived in crappy conditions with a lazy shrug. But it seemed that her success would never go unnoticed. For doom soon arrived, in the form of a panicked Mina that seemed oddly distraught. Her robots flew into the box, the old crappy brushes swinging out of the space and into her hands just as the woman stepped into the bathroom.
"Quinn, do you know how to clean a Heat room?" she wrung her hands, and seemed anxious and an Omega soldier stood by her side. She'd long forgotten his name for they were all just masked, scentless figures to her. But this one seemed just as stressed, his body swayed.
"Yes, ma'am" Quinn replied, lips curving downwards, the lesson spinning through her brain. "Good morning, sir." She bowed for the soldier–a new practice they had learnt in their morning 'lessons' where they were taught etiquette and servitude. Quinn deemed it a session of soft measures when it came to the continuous brainwashing of the Alphas.
"She's well-practised enough," was the older women's quiet comment. "A good girl, no Ruts in her lifetime. Beta. Very good at cleaning. She's got a hundred stars, her work is exemplary. No complaints at all from all her instructors at the House of Fern. There's no one else? Surely, an Omega would be better for his hi–"
"This close to Heat, he will see a foreign Omega as a threat to the nest," was his explanation. "And an Alpha will have her throat torn out for even touching the space, a Beta will have to do. And one with a pretty scent? We shall take our chances." Mina nodded, falling into a deeper bow.
"As you wish, sir."
There was no more explanation as she was ushered into another elevator, one that was far newer and more luxurious than what she was used to. Her collar flickered to a heavy buzz. Quinn swallowed and straightened her back as the elevator climbed up to the highest floor, far beyond what she was allowed to clean and deep in the bowels of the workspace of the elite. Her heart was pounding as the door opened with a soft ding.
Her feet grazed the cushion, skin tingling as icy temperatures soared through the air from an air conditioner unit. This was beyond the norms of what she knew, the luxury beyond simple drapes over cracking scaffolding from the radiation.
The space almost seemed normal, set before the times of the apocalypse, a replica of her own office in her own time. The lights were soft, and the interior was designed with styled glass and pretty houseplants. They stopped before a door of mahogany to a team of the most heavily armoured Omegas, she'd ever seen in her life their eyes pouring over Quinn. And she gulped, feeling the magnitude of power that her newest client had.
"You will clean what he wants you to, you will not touch him, you will not speak to him. We will have cameras on every wall, a single scream, a single alert from him, a spike in his power. And your collar will kill you immediately." She knelt on the ground, her brow twisting into a furrow, a cart was wheeled forward decked in cleaning equipment a thousand times better than what they were offered. "You will be rewarded heavily if you do well. Any questions?"
"Sir, what if he talks to me?"
There was a blink, then a shake of his head. "He will not."
The door was closed behind her as she entered, and immediately she was stumbling. Her breath caught on the deliciousness of it all. She was in a room with an Omega at the start of Heat, a room with an Omega building a nest. And the scent was nothing like what Helios had emitted in its gentle approach because this was potent and rising.
It was a nutty aroma, twisting with deep generous notes of honey goodness. She couldn't quite point the scent towards a single smell. The way it seemed to waft and change like a space of roasting nuts had her confused and sniffing for more. A scent of slow-roasted soybeans, of hazelnut and pecan, toasted into powdery bits. And mixed generously within the deepest, richest scent of honey in generous wet blooms.
And for fuck's sake it was delectable, so good that it had her knees weak and her breath entering her lips in slow heavy pants. Quinn felt her insides quiver, something shaking within, a change flickering. But she ignored it, standing quickly and trying her best to be strong.
But her eyes were on the broken bits of glass, now focused upon the trash on the ground. She knelt and picked the pieces, but her eyes were swaying across the darkened space, an office of sofas and desks. Then laid upon the broken window that whispered with powdery flakes of snow.
Quinn moved to the light, her fingers tasting the bite of cold air, her nose red as she looked at the buildings, tall skyscrapers that peeled and broke. Then to the endless wall at the edge of the city, it seemed to stretch forever. And she realised with a solemn sigh that she was now inside and not outside those walls.
"You're not going to jump out of the window, are you?" a low voice hummed, the baritone sweet, smooth and oh so buttery. There was a dizzy hint of a drunken undertone, the Omega a little sweeter because of his Heat, a little insane.
"No sir," Quinn immediately answered, completely forgetting her promise. And she winced, but no heads blew off instead there was a shadowy shuffle as the Omega continued building his nest. The scowl burning in his voice.
"Good, because my nest is fucking dirty. I need it cleaned by someone fast," there was a slur in his voice and through squinted eyes, she assumed he must have his back to her. "Beta, the floor. I don't want my Omegas cutting their feet."
Her hands moved carefully scooping the broken glass into a bin with a broom. She made quick work with the dusting, then began wiping items down with the antiseptic they had provided. There was no deep cleaning that she could really do with the Omega settled in the room, and she realised now that it was never about her abilities but more about her status as a Beta.
"I want that jacket," he hissed and she stared down at the fabric draped over the couch. She made quick work to glove her hands, knowing from her lessons that they were particular about smells. "And that peach."
Quinn blinked and caught sight of the pink fuzzy fruit in a container on the desk. She approached him carefully, slowly inching to his nest. A circle of fabrics and pillows, a fort that seemed more like a makeshift bed. A space for fucking. It was the first time Quinn had seen one in her life and she got on her knees to gift it to him and placed the items in outstretched hands, the shadowy figure hissing when she tried to drop it at the edge.
His fingertips brushed her hands, and there was a spark. A flicker of something quick singing straight through her twisting along her arm, warm and sweet. And Quinn flinched back and felt it whispering in her throat, a familiar ache that she'd felt with Helios. A click of something that filled deep within her, and then her limbs were shaking, her cheeks growing warm and her body seemed to gape blubbering for something more.
And the scent only grew sweeter, the ooze of Omega slick flowing from her touch. Her mouth was now full with the taste of honeyed nuts as he perfumed. There was a whimper so filled with a need that it had her thighs clenching as he huddled into himself, against the objects and the peach rolled onto the ground.
"Oh," was his whispery cry, a shaking twitch of his hips. "Oh, wow." There was a wet twist of his body, the lick of light over slippery droplets of sleek oozing down muscular naked thighs. The cream of his skin caught more light as he arched and sobbed into her hand, held it fast and tight against himself. The skin of her wrist grew red at the force of his hold.
His moan was sinful, and velvety as it twisted from his lips and caressed all parts of her. The cold pebbled her nipples, and his voice was a phantom flick to her clit. From the depths of the darkness, clementine eyes danced open, and a shift of a body and smooth naked skin revealed itself to her. A gorgeous face caught the light.
Rowan.
"Y-You," he gasped, "you might be able to make me cum."
Fuck.
A/N: Read 10+ parts ahead on my Patreon https://www.patreon.com/tinyeyecat