Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
“I can’t do this.”
As soon as the words slip out of my mouth, his body stiffens, and his face goes blank.
The Alpha is painfully handsome, with dark brown eyes and a mess of dark hair that falls into his eyes. He’s got a few days of stubble, as if he couldn’t be bothered to shave, and wears comfortable lounge clothes.
Mr. Ortega. My patient. My Alpha.
It’s strange that although I’ve seen images of his brain and can point out where his white matter calcifications are, this is the first time I’ve spoken to him.
“I’m Emmanuel, uh, Manny,” he says awkwardly. His voice is tight. “But I guess I should go. This was a bad idea.”
He has that same devastated look Maverick had. But here, Kieran isn’t breathing down my shoulder. He doesn’t have eyes on the Design Clinic because I’m his eyes on the Design Clinic.
Maybe – maybe I can talk to him? Just once?
“Wait.” One word, and he spins back around and takes a few steps towards me. “I’m Crystal. Do you wanna sit down?”
He slowly lowers himself onto the chair across from me and reaches across the tabletop to take my hand. I pull his wrist to my nose immediately. I can’t help myself.
“You don’t know me,” I begin, unable to make eye contact with him, “but I’m not going to be good for you. I’m bad luck.” I inhale deeply against the base of his wrist again, the smell of sweet vanilla custard and slightly burnt sugar enough to make me want to lick his skin. “But you smell like crème br?lée. It was the dish that allowed me to graduate from the Omega Academy and let me pursue my passion. If I had botched it even a little, they would’ve found a way to keep me there for at least another semester, hoping my scent matches would come to a social.”
I look up, and he’s got his head tilted curiously to the side, with a soft smile on his lips. His eyes are red around the edges, crinkled at the sides, but not in humor.
“Do you wanna know something funny?” I steamroll on without him speaking. “Crème br?lée isn’t about your skill as a chef. It’s about letting the ingredients shine. I scrimped and saved for three months to afford the best vanilla beans I could find to wow the instructors.”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever had crème br?lée,” he says, spinning his hand around until our fingers are clasped. “It’s vanilla based?”
“It’s a vanilla custard that has to set just right , and then you top it with raw sugar and hit it with a culinary torch until it’s just under burnt. It’s incredible.” I finally make eye contact, falling into dark brown depths that I know must hide a world of pain and hopelessness if he ended up here. “You smell incredible.”
“Forgive me,” he begins, squeezing my hand, “then why don’t you seem happy? Am I – do you not want to get to know me?”
“I am happy, it’s just that…”
It’s just that I’m trapped working for a madman.
It’s just that being with me could get you killed.
It’s just that I’m not meant to have a normal life.
“It’s just that you’re my patient, technically.”
It’s not a lie. Forgetting that if Walter knew, he could hold it over my head or report back to Kieran. Although I am not his doctor, I am still part of the research team supporting his gene therapy treatment.
“I’m sure there must be a precedent for this?” An edge of desperation has crept into his voice. “We should be allowed to get to know one another.”
“My…” Icarus and Jordan pop into my head, and I smile softly. “There may be something we can do.”
And maybe it’s selfish.
Scratch that. It’s super fucking selfish.
But I’ve already lost the chance to get to know Maverick because he showed up at Prism.
Maybe I could know Emmanuel and keep it a secret. To protect him.
So much of my life is bleak. Don’t I deserve a little light?
And fuck, Emmanuel seems like light. He looks like someone who would hold me while I sob and tell me it’ll all be okay, but then immediately help me devise a plan to solve the issue that made me cry in the first place.
I deserve a small glimmer of hope in the form of an Alpha with sad eyes.
I slide my phone across the table. “Can I have your number? I have a colleague who should have some ideas.”
* * *
Doctor Icarus Knight grins when I poke my head into his office.
“I trust your new Alpha came to speak to you? I hope you don’t mind that I guided him to you.”
Dr. Knight met his Omega in this very office over four years ago when she was his patient. If I recall correctly, they moved in together immediately. She had been a Beta with a repressed Omega gene, and the sudden exposure to her Alpha’s pheromones triggered her presentation.
She volunteered to be monitored regularly as Icarus continued his Omega gene study, hoping to identify more Omegas trapped in Beta bodies. While they still haven’t determined the why behind the suppressed gene, they have confirmed that exposure to high doses of scent matched pheromones will activate it. Icarus has been working on a way to utilize synthetic pheromones in hopes of saving others the pain his Omega went through.
I’m excited to see where it ends up.
“I don’t mind. I know how you feel about scent matches. I’m just glad it was you and not Walter.”
His face twists in distaste. Icarus is not Walter’s biggest fan. He’s tried to poach me from his service several times. “Ah, I’m assuming he’s a patient of your study, then?”
“Yeah,” I slip into the chair before his desk, resting my chin on my hands. “I’m not sure ethically and legally how I can proceed from here.”
He steeples his fingers and rests his elbows on the desktop, propping himself up. Icarus is a handsome Alpha in his forties, and though he’s a little odd in his mannerisms, he’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.
“With Jordan, it was different because she was a short-term patient. I was hired to interpret the results of tests others had run. There was no expectation that she would see me after that first meeting. If your Alpha-”
“Not my Alpha,” I interject half heartedly.
“What an odd objection for you to make. You’re a woman of science, Crystal. You know a scent match defies our current knowledge: part science, part magic, all permanent. The man is your Alpha as much as you are his Omega. Made for one another.” He waves me off and digs into his desk. “I have some journal articles if you’d like.”
I roll my lips inward to hide a smile. “I believe you, Dr. Knight.”
He hums and closes the drawer. “Right. Of course you do. Anyways, if your Alpha is a part of your study, that does present a difficult conflict of interest. You’d need to excuse yourself from his charts at the very least.”
“So, who would monitor his progress?” I can’t let him go neglected. He needs the study. I’ve seen his tests and read his self-reports. I could never let him live with this pain if the treatment could help him so that I could get to know him.
“I would.”
My head jerks up from where I was staring at my worried hands. “You would?”
He smiles softly. “Of course. You’d have to let Walter know, of course.”
My heart nearly crumbles in my chest. “I can’t. He can’t know. He’ll… dismiss him from the trial, regardless.” I almost told Icarus he’d tell on me to Kieran, which is not something I want to explain to Dr. Knight.
“Okay,” he draws out the final syllable. “Then don’t tell him, but don’t hide it. My name will be all over his charts. If Walter doesn’t notice, then that’s on him.”
A tentative hope blossoms in my chest. Walter is not a thorough man. He won’t look that closely at the charts to see who signs off on them. “You’d do this for me?”
“Of course!” His face brightens as he turns around a picture on his desk. It’s his pack on the day of their bonding ceremony, his beautiful, red-haired Omega in the middle of four men with a massive grin on her face. The pack is so eclectic, but they work together, and jealousy spools in my gut because I know I’ll never have that.
“Everyone deserves a love that surpasses everything else, Crystal.”
My hands shake a little as I pull my phone out of my pocket and pull up Emmanuel’s contact. “Thank you, Dr. Knight,” I whisper as I stand up and slip out of the room.
Hi, Emmanuel. It’s Crystal. Would you like to come over for dinner?