Chapter Seventeen
DYLAN
Ididn’t particularly like the hospital—the antiseptic smell, the blinding white lights, and the daunting echo, as if despite being filled to capacity, it was somehow an empty chamber.
My teeth ground together as another pair of shoes squeaked on the linoleum floors, skidding around the corner in a rush.
This place wasn’t like the hospitals I’d been in before. It was private and had a slightly more welcoming waiting room, but there was still that looming essence of sickness and death. Guess it didn’t matter if you could afford decent healthcare, the basics were all the same.
“Minseo Devereux.”
I glanced up at the Alpha standing in the doorway, a clipboard in the crook of her arm. My mouth opened to answer her call, but Caine marched in her direction, saying nothing. I scurried behind with Minnie balanced on my hip.
“Apologies for making you wait, Alpha Devereux,” the doctor said, sounding ashamed. “Had we been prepared for—”
“It’s fine.”
The doctor smiled despite his icy tone, and signalled to the two empty armchairs. “Please, take a seat.”
Caine gestured for me to go first, and I perched on the furthest one away with Minnie in my lap, tucked protectively against my chest. He remained standing, but shifted his stance—as if shielding us?
The doctor sat in the chair behind her desk, rolling it closer to the edge.
Another sound that made me wince. “Alright . . .” She clicked her tongue, her eyes fixed on her computer screen.
“Would you like for me to read out the results or print them out for you to check them over yourself?”
“You can do it,” I answered before Caine did.
He looked about ready to tell her to hurry the fuck up, and I didn’t want to witness it.
We’d brought Minnie here for the test to confirm what designation she’d be once she presented.
“It’s protocol,” Caine had said when I objected.
Though he hadn’t seemed particularly fond of the idea either, and I’d felt torn.
To be honest, it was as if he was only adamant that it be done now because he needed the results for something.
Another of those bullshit expectations that I would’ve rebelled harder against, but it was less hassle to yield and get it over with than to fight an impossible battle.
It just meant I was one minor inconvenience away from a nervous breakdown, so I didn’t have the capacity to listen to his Alpha posturing.
The doctor double clicked her mouse. “Well, the results show that your daughter has all the relevant signs of an omega.”
My eyes widened, my breath lodging in my throat.
An omega?
That couldn’t be right. The doctor who’d checked her over after we found her at the warehouse said he noticed telltale indicators of her being an Alpha.
Traits Caine had possessed as a child, even before they’d known for certain.
A keener sense for pheromones, which omegas typically developed later.
A subtle territoriality toward her possessions that wasn’t purely childish antics.
I had suspected it myself, and hadn’t really considered the alternative.
An omega?
That changed a lot.
“Are you sure?” I heard myself say. She didn’t even look away from her computer.
“Quite sure,” she said. “Though the test is only ninety-nine point nine nine percent accurate. There is a small chance it might change.”
At heart, I couldn’t care less what designation she was.
I would love, cherish, and support her no matter what, be at her side through absolutely everything, but I wouldn’t lie, from a rational perspective it was more complex.
She would always be her, my sweet baby girl, but it was common knowledge that life as an omega wasn’t as naturally breezy as it was for an Alpha, or even a beta in some spheres.
There’d be less opportunities for her in the future, more challenges and restrictions.
More dangers.
It was a cold hard fact that society hadn’t exactly progressed much in the last two centuries.
We were still treated as inferior, seen as nothing more than breeding vessels and property, not independent, spirited people.
It was less repressive and enforced in the lower districts, thanks to all the omega rights protests, but from what I’d seen, it hadn’t budged an inch in Caine’s circles.
I didn’t want that for her. I wanted her to have the best of everything, to be respected and adored wherever she went.
I wanted her to have a career, not just odd jobs she could pick up here and there on the sly, to fall in love and find a mate without consequence—if she chose to.
I needed her to be free and never know struggle or hardship, and while being Caine’s daughter had the advantages of wealth and status, it didn’t allow her a choice.
I had to hope it might be different by the time she presented, that the world might have finally moved forward and she wouldn’t have to go through any of the shit.
But I couldn’t count on it. I wouldn’t count on it.
I’d do everything in my power to ensure she never went a day believing she was lesser, or she had to defer to Alphas because that’s what the rules dictated.
I’d remind her she was enough just the way she was, and she deserved to be in control of her own fate.
I’d make sure she didn’t end up like me.
“—is that correct?”
I blinked, my gaze flicking up from the floor. The doctor’s face was turned toward me, asking a question directly, but I hadn’t caught any of it.
“Sorry, what was that?”
A sympathetic smile curled the corner of her mouth, and she repeated the question in a softer, slower tone. “You presented late, is that correct?”
“Uh, yeah.” I nodded sluggishly. “At twenty-two.”
Her smile widened faintly in acknowledgment, and she returned to her computer. “And I have your records already, Alpha Devereux.” She clicked her tongue again, eyes scanning. “You presented normally at eighteen. Good.”
Normally. I didn’t like that word. Not in this context.
I glanced over at Caine, having almost forgotten he was there. His jaw was twitching, and his fist was balled tight. He was agitated. “Are we done?”
The doctor dragged her eyes away from her screen again, seemingly caught off guard by the question—or maybe it was the sharp delivery. “Have you no questions?”
“No.”
“Yes,” I said, my voice rising over Caine’s. I didn’t check to see if it bugged him. I didn’t care. “I never got the test when I was a kid, but . . . if I had, would there have been any clues to say I might present late or . . . that there were issues?”
I always suspected it was a mix of grief and not taking care of my body properly, but what if it wasn’t?
What if I had a defect of some kind, and I’d passed it on to Minnie?
Presenting late hadn’t seemed to affect me health-wise, but what if there was an underlying problem that could materialise later on?
I hadn’t paid it much attention before. It was irrelevant then, but now .
. . I didn’t even want to consider the possibility I’d caused her more complications.
“Are you asking if you have a condition that Minseo may have inherited, which will lead her to presenting late also?”
I nodded.
She offered me that smile again. It was meant as a comfort, I was sure, but it made me feel two feet tall.
“No,” she said simply. “Late presentation is an abnormality in terms of statistics, but it’s not a cause for concern.
Except in the sense of the factors that might have led to it—unsafe home environment, malnutrition, certain mental health conditions, et cetera.
The fact you presented at all proves nothing terminal was there to prevent it, or nothing that couldn’t be controlled with treatment.
” Her eyes flicked to Caine almost absently before returning to me.
“Our bodies are intuitive. Yours wouldn’t have put you through it if there’d been any possibility you couldn’t withstand the change.
If any conditions crop up, it won’t be because of your presentation. ”
I nodded again, satisfied enough with the answer.
She was basically saying we couldn’t predict the future, but at least we could rule out my late bloom as the cause.
My heavy sigh of relief was internalised.
“Thank you,” I said, smiling though I knew it wouldn’t reach my eyes. “That’s good to know.”
“As long as she grows up feeling safe, is well-fed and cared for, I see no reason for her not to present on schedule.” She studied Minnie, her expression tender instead of clinical. “From what I can tell, she’s never lacked any of that.”
I did sigh this time, a small release of tension.
I might not have been able to give her material things from the get-go, but I knew she’d never wanted for love or nurturing.
She always had a full belly and I would have died to protect her.
Even when I’d failed, I did whatever I could to get her back, setting aside my pride to guarantee it wouldn’t happen again.
While a lot of her contentment was now owed to Caine, to hear from an outsider’s perspective that, in spite of everything, I hadn’t fucked up was reassuring.
It settled a doubt in me I could never totally ignore.
I had done my best.
“Is there anything else?” The doctor asked, but Caine was already stepping aside.
I had no more questions.
Not right now, anyway.
“Thank you for your time,” he offered, his voice strained. His body was angled toward me, wordlessly signalling for us to go ahead. When had he become chivalrous?
I stood, nudging Minnie onto my hip again. “Thanks,” I said to the doctor, dipping my head at Caine as I passed him.