7. Jordan
Chapter seven
"How are you feeling, Omega?" asks the handsome doctor who, for some unknown reason, is lying in a bed with me on his chest.
What happened?
Why am I in bed with Vick?
And why did he call me Omega?
"You look confused," he says gently. His voice jostles my head where I lay on his chest.
I am lying on his chest.
I scramble to sit up, and he bands his arm tighter around me, rooting me to the spot. "Just relax for a moment, Jordan. I know you have questions."
Understatement of the century.
"Where am I? Are we at the spa? Why are you at the spa with me?"
He chuckles, the sound soaking into me and heating me all over. "Do you regularly get IVs at the spa?"
I glance down at my hand, at the tube running to the port in the back of my hand. "No, but… It smells like eucalyptus and cucumber." I look around the room, finally taking in my surroundings. The stark, white walls. The uncomfortable, adjustable bed. Even the can lighting and fire alarm equipment on the walls. All of it screams hospital. "I've never been to a hospital that smells like the spa."
"You still haven't, Jordan."
Wrinkling my nose, I look up at the doctor, who is admittedly extremely handsome but also so close that it is disorienting. "Why are you in bed with me?"
"Do you want to keep asking questions, or can I just tell you what's happening?" He pins me with a challenging look that makes me want to argue just for the sake of it. I sit up, pointing at the end of the bed. He chuckles and moves to sit on the end of the bed, giving me the space to sit up.
"Tell me, then."
"What do you remember?"
I roll my eyes. "This isn't telling me anything, Vick. I remember grocery shopping, having a headache, and being tired."
"Don't call me Vick," he says half-heartedly. "You passed out at the grocery store a few hours ago. They brought you in here. We're not exactly sure what happened, but you were right, Jordan."
My heart stops beating. I don't want to assume. I heard that word when I was first waking up. Or I thought I did. "Right about what?" It's hard not to beg him to tell me the words I've been dying to hear for sixteen years.
"You're an Omega, Jordan."
My head falls back on the pillows, and I stare at the bright, incandescent lighting.
I'm an Omega.
I fucking knew it. I always knew it. And sure, I may be the latest presenting Omega in history, but that makes me no less of an Omega.
A firm hand clasps my ankle, and I lock eyes with the only person who ever believed me. "That's not all," he says quietly. "But I'm afraid what I have to tell you next might not be well received."
I cringe at his words. "I'm still defective?"
He chuckles, moving a little closer to me. Before I can comprehend what he's doing, he holds his wrist close to my face.
Eucalyptus and cucumber.
I wrap my hand around his arm, pulling him closer and burying my face in his neck. He mirrors me, taking a deep breath that I can feel feathering against my skin. After a minute, I whisper into his flesh, "Is this what I think it is?"
He chuckles, pulling back and resting his forehead on mine. "Yeah, Jordan, it is."
"You're my scent match?"
"I'm your scent match."
"That means…" My voice trails off, and my mind spins. I have a scent match. A handsome, successful, lone Alpha. The way his hands rest, wrapped around my body, is so respectful, so gentle. I squeeze my eyes shut.
This must be a dream.
I've finally lost all of my marbles in the dust bunnies under my couch, and my brain has invented a scenario where the hot doctor I saw earlier is now meant to be with me.
It's not real.
"It's real," he whispers. I didn't realize I said that out loud. When I open my eyes, I am assaulted with his scent and the intensity of his dark green eyes as he stares at me. "You're mine, Omega."
I can feel his words in my very being, running through my veins and rewriting every evening I spent worrying I'd be alone.
"Yours," I sigh.
It feels so fucking good to be someone's.
He pulls me into his arms, and we lay there, entwined in one another. We don't speak. It's not that we have nothing to say to one another. On the contrary, we have so much to learn about each other that I don't know where to start. But right now, it's like we want our bodies to learn each other on a molecular level as our breaths intermingle and our pulses synchronize.
"Dr. Valentine," a firm voice says as she enters the room. The stern-looking nurse practically screeches to a stop. "Dr. Valentine! Hands off the Omega before I call security!"
"It's okay," I say, sitting up straight to let her see I'm awake and functioning. "He's my Alpha."
"Excuse me?" she shoots a glare at Vick. "You did not disclose that when you said you were her doctor."
"I didn't know." He shrugs and buries his nose in my neck. "Imagine my surprise when I get in here and realize she's my scent match."
"I don't believe that for a second. She's your patient. You'd have known before now." The nurse is backing out of the room, eyes shifting from side to side. I think she's about to call for security, and the last thing I want is my newly discovered Alpha getting ripped away from me.
"No, he wouldn't have. Up until today, I hadn't presented as an Omega." She opens her mouth incredulously like she wants to protest. "I have plenty of medical records that will attest to that, identifying me as a Beta. So, please. Vick…" He clears his throat and raises his eyebrows at me. "Icarus is telling the truth. Don't make this a big thing."
The nurse deflates a little, her eyes darting between us. "This doesn't pass the smell test," she mutters, pushing her computer in on a cart. "But not sure what I can do here other than have you fight it out with security and administration."
"I'd much rather not," the doctor says. He tightens his grip on me, and I happily sink into his embrace. "You know me, Ruby," he implores. "I would not lie to you about something as serious as this."
She tuts, clicking her tongue as she scrolls through something on the computer. "I know nothing. Now, Miss Cross, how are you feeling?"
"Just fine. Do you know what happened?"
"You went through a minor heat spike, but that's the only thing your blood work tells us. As of now, Dr. Valentine is the lead doctor on your case, but I think we'll need to remove him."
"Don't worry about it. I'd like to leave."
She shakes her head, closing her laptop screen as she does. "No, Dr. Valentine is your Alpha. Therefore, he is unable to be objective about your care. I'm going to get Dr. Carr. He's on call right now. When he says you can leave, you can."
The nurse leaves, pushing her little cart, and I slump back onto Vick's chest. "I don't even know why I'm here," I whine.
"You were found passed out in a milk cooler, Jordan. They've got to do their due diligence here."
"Is that why you came, Vick? To do your due diligence?"
He groans, scrubbing his hands on his face. "Are you going to insist on calling me Vick?"
"It's better than Ick."
"Everything is better than Ick, and neither is my name."
I make a show of sighing and rolling my eyes dramatically. "Okay, fine, Icarus. Were you here doing your due diligence?"
He stumbles over his next few words. "They found my card on you, told me you were an Omega, and I knew I had to come. It was like a visceral need to be near you when you were in my office. I was drawn to you."
"I think… I think I felt the same, yeah."
Our conversation tumbles off, and we fall into a comfortable silence together. Eventually, the nurse returned and took my blood, and an hour later, Dr. Carr came in.
"There's nothing wrong with you, bloodwork-wise. I can't see any reason to keep you. But you did pass out today, and we're not sure why. So you have to take it easy for a couple of days." His gaze falls on Icarus. "You need to take care of your Omega, Russ."
He tenses beside me, hand gripping my knee. "Of course I will. That's all that matters to me."
And I don't know this Alpha, but I believe every word he says.
Dr. Carr nods, happy with Icarus' response, and says, as he walks out the door, "Nurse West will be back with your discharge papers."
When we're alone, Icarus looks around nervously. "I suppose we need to talk about what happens once we leave here."
"What do you mean?" All I can think about is getting home, curling up, and watching TV while I relax. I haven't thought much past that.
"Are you coming home with me?" He looks bashful and vulnerable, a slight flush on his cheeks.
"I hadn't thought about it. I live alone. I have a nice place. I don't necessarily want to abandon it." His face falls, and he busies himself, rubbing his thumb across the back of my hand.
"That's fair," he says softly. "I suppose my place isn't fit for an Omega. And we'll see each other frequently, right?"
Suddenly, the idea that I would have to schedule seeing this man makes me feel sick. I don't want that. I don't want to be away from him. How will we get to know one another if we're living separate lives?
Scent matches are absolute, right? Aren't they supposed to be our other halves? Or sixths or whatever if it's a pack.
Some sort of weird pie of destiny.
"Come home with me." The words fall out of my mouth in a rush. "Stay with me. My place isn't far from the clinic, and I have plenty of room."
He blinks wide, deep green eyes at me, jaw a little slack. "I… have a cat."
I snort at the gobsmacked look on his face. "So do I. Bring him."
"I -"
"Miss Cross," the nurse says, walking in with a handful of papers and cutting off whatever Icarus was about to say. "I have your discharge papers here. However, some Alphas are waiting to see you."
"What?" I say, sitting up straighter. "What Alphas?"
A low growl starts in Icarus' chest, and I clasp his hand in my own. Nurse West raises an eyebrow at the Alpha but powers through. "Pack Stargazer. They're saying you're their Omega."
My body completely freezes at the ridiculous pack name a couple of teenagers came up with.
A name I haven't spoken aloud in over a decade.
"No." I jump off the bed, anxiously looking around for my clothing. "Where are my clothes? We have to go. Now. They can't see me." Icarus is on his feet, looking around until he finds my heels, blouse, and skirt.
"She can't wear this. Get her scrubs," he barks at the nurse.
The nurse stands frozen momentarily before darting out, sensing danger if she doesn't comply. She's gone for less than a minute before she hands me a pair of mint green scrubs.
I don't care who sees my body as I rip off the gown and slide into the scrubs. "We have to go now. Sneak me out of here, Vick."
My new Alpha doesn't ask questions. He nods, throws my stuff in one of those weird plastic hospital bags that always remind me of police evidence bags, and puts his hand on my lower back. "Are they in the waiting room?" He asks nurse West.
"They've been there since she was admitted."
"Okay, keep them there. Give us fifteen minutes, and then you let them know she's already been discharged, and they missed her." He guides me out of the hospital room. "Do not, under any circumstances, tell them anything more than that. Not that she left with an Alpha, not why she was admitted. Just that she is no longer a patient here. Understood?"
The nurse swallows at his dominant command and then nods. "Got it. Go out the east staircase. It won't pass the waiting room at all. Then you can take the elevator from the fifth floor down."
"No, no elevator," I say, shaking my head. "I don't want to risk one of them going to get coffee or something and finding us in the car."
"Agreed. Let's get out of here. And then, Omega, you owe me an explanation."
His words send a shiver up my spine that isn't all bad. As the door to the stairwell clangs shut behind me, I whisper, "Yes, Alpha."