Chapter 14
I stand at the door of our doctor’s trailer, cursing Jude and Quinton for forcing my hand.
If Dr. Alex confirms Quinton’s mystery illness as Alpha Rot, nothing is going to stop him from begging her to go off suppressants to prove his theory that they’re scent matches.
And I worry that the rejection when she refuses could kill him.
I’m fine with the possibility that they’re matched, because there is a chance for me to be her match as well. It’s relatively rare for a Beta to match with an Omega, but Quinton and I are matched, which is even more unlikely, so it’s not impossible.
Not that we spread around the fact that I’m scent matched to him. It’s no one’s business but our own. It doesn’t change our relationship at all.
It’s just that right now, when Quinton is rapidly deteriorating, it’s not the time to consider opening up our relationship to the sweet Omega physician that Jude hired.
I knock for a third time .
“She must not be here,” I say to Q as he leans against the side of her trailer and stares at the clouds. It’s a gorgeous day, with a blue sky and white, puffy clouds that almost look fake. If I weren’t so worried about my Alpha, I’d suggest we go lie in the grass and maybe have a picnic.
“These are her open clinic hours.” He doesn’t look at me. “She’s there.”
The door opens a crack, and I can see one bloodshot eye of our circus doctor.
“What’s up, Matteo?” She’s not being rude, but the warmth I’d expect from her is gone from her voice.
It catches me off guard, and I stutter over my words. “Uh, Quinton is sick.”
“I can get him some antacid or something,” she says, closing the door. A few moments later, she shoves a hand through the crack in the door and drops several over-the-counter medications. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
I grab the door handle, preventing her from closing it. “It’s not that kind of sick,” I hiss, pissed at the way she’s dismissing us. “And these are your clinic hours that you committed to.”
The door closes, and I hear the sound of furniture moving before it opens fully into the dark trailer. Did she have her door blocked off by chairs? Why would she do that? Does her lock not work?
“Fine. Come in.”
Quinton shrugs, answering my unasked question about what the fuck is going on, and follows me in. The whole trailer is dark, lit only by what little light makes its way through the curtains over the two small windows. My Alpha flips the light switch out of habit as he strides into her space.
As soon as the lights flare on, the doctor winces and folds over herself with a loud whine that makes my heart ache.
Her back heaves as she tries to calm herself, and I have to place a hand on Q’s forearm to keep him from rushing to her.
When she spins around, her face looks gaunt in the overhead light.
It’s puffy, with bloodshot eyes like she’s been crying.
But that’s not the most upsetting part.
“Who?” Quinton growls, taking several steps toward her. “Who did this, Alex?”
“Dr. Alex,” she says tightly. “You’re here for your medical needs, not mine.”
A raised bump on her forehead looks fresh, already getting a purple ring around it, and her eye sports a partially healed, black eye, with yellow and green splotches around it.
It’s healing, for sure, but it must’ve been a bad one. Based on the color of the bruises, it’s maybe a week or two old.
Before she came to us.
How was she able to hide such a brutal shiner with makeup, and we didn’t notice?
“Please, sit down, Quinton, and let’s discuss your symptoms.”
The Alpha stands in front of her, growling, his fists clenched. He doesn’t move, despite what she says. I think, in his anger, he’s not able to read her fearful body language. She’s shivering, arms banded around her waist as she stares at him.
She’s barely shorter than me, but right now, she looks minuscule, curved into herself as if it’ll protect her from an unseen foe. Her clothing is worn, and she doesn’t look like she’s showered recently.
“Alpha,” I say gently, touching his arm. “Come on. Let’s let the doctor work. ”
He shrugs me off. “No. That one,” he points to her forehead, “is fresh. Who did it, Alex?”
“Dr. Alex,” she corrects again, but her words have no bite. “And no one. I tripped. It’s nothing.”
Okay, that was definitely a lie, and a bad one at that. But what are we supposed to do? It’s not like we can force her to tell us anything.
It’s clear to me now why she doesn’t like to be touched. Enough bad touches can ruin you for the good ones.
Quinton is inches away from barking at her, demanding an answer, but if he tries, there is no chance she will ever forgive him. Not with the way she’s shivering under the oppressive nature of his presence.
I take my partner’s hand and pull him over to the table, releasing Alex from his undivided attention.
He turns to me, grabbing my hands. “Someone’s hurt her, someone hit her, did you see those bruises?
How did I miss them?” His voice is low, but there’s no way she doesn’t hear him.
He’s not thinking about that right now. His instincts are riding him hard.
“I don’t know, but that’s her business. We’re here about yours.”
“Her business is my business!” he snarls, trying to wrench his hands from me. “Someone hurt her, Teo. What if she’s not safe?”
“It is none of our business unless she makes it ours, Quinton.” My words are firm, even if I wish they weren’t the truth.
“Yes, thank you, Matteo,” the doctor says, sitting across from us with a pen and paper.
It’s old school. Most doctors nowadays use tablets.
But in the times I’ve seen her, she’s not glued to her phone like most people, either, so maybe she just isn’t much for technology.
“Please tell me a little bit about what’s going on. ”
Quinton is no use, just staring at Alex’s forehead, so I launch into the timeline. She had read the prior doctor’s notes when she started, but said they weren’t as detailed as what I was telling her, and thanked me for filling in the gaps.
I make sure she knows that it’s getting worse, but don’t theorize it’s because of her. I cannot put that responsibility on her when she’s clearly dealing with a heavy burden of her own.
Fifteen minutes and several questions later, she sits back, chewing on the end of her pen.
“This sounds like a clear case of Alpha Rot. I’m not sure why the previous doctors missed it,” she muses. “And unfortunately, as I’m sure you know, there isn’t a cure.”
“There is,” Quinton says, finally snapping out of his rage spiral. “There is a cure.”
She sighs, folding her hands on top of one another and smiling gently at Quinton.
“I know what the internet says, but meeting your scent match would not be a cure. It would halt the progression of the disease, and maybe, just maybe, you’d heal over the long term.
But just meeting your scent match, even bonding them, won’t fix you entirely.
This is a chronic illness you will have to live with. ”
I suck on my tongue and slide my hand to Quinton’s lap, squeezing his thigh tightly.
I hope he can hear my thoughts.
Don’t tell her.
Don’t ask this of her.
Don’t.
Don’t.
Do-
“I think you may be my scent match.”
-n’t.
Shit .
Dr. Alex stumbles backward out of her chair, shaking her head. A true, visceral fear has taken over her body, and she’s vibrating with it. Quinton is out of his chair, walking towards her, and I snag him around the waist.
“Please leave.” Alex’s voice is harsh and gravelly. Nearly a bark, which I’ve yet to hear from an Omega. “This is wildly inappropriate.”
“No. I’m not leaving,” Q says, trying to throw me off. But I cement my feet and don’t let him move. “You may not realize it, but your Omega has marked me.”
I hiss, slapping one hand over his mouth.
Omega marks are an old-fashioned idea that the instinctual parts of us call to one another without us knowing, like what happened with the nest shopping. But it’s not real. That’s not how things work anymore.
Alex mirrors my thoughts. “That’s not real, Quinton.”
He slips an arm away from me and rips my hand off his mouth. “Then go off your suppressants and prove me wrong,” he challenges. “We’ll know in what, two days?”
She snarls, a feral sound that rumbles in her chest. It’s the most life I’ve seen from her since we got here.
“Get out of my home,” she spits. “Now, Quinton, before I say something I’ll regret.
” He looks like he’s about to challenge her again, but I grab him, dragging him backwards from her trailer.
“I’ll send in a prescription for synthetic pheromone cream like menopausal Omegas use.
There are preliminary studies that show that it may relieve some of the worst symptoms.”
Even offended, even pissed at him, she’s still thinking of his care plan. She’s a great doctor, probably what we all need, but fuck. Maybe having an Omega here really is going to fuck shit up. Quinton is the last person I would’ve expected to upset her like this .
Once I get him out of the trailer, he spins around, poking a finger into my chest.
“Do you not even care that someone is hurting her?”
I smack his hand away and begin to walk back to my trailer. “Of course I care. Someone hurt her here, and someone hurt her before she came here. But you can’t force an abuse victim to talk.”
I have never seen him so unmoored. He’s pulling at his hair, the brown strands sticking out at odd angles when he stops assaulting them. “But she needs help.”
“She does, and you tried. This explains the ‘only using cash’ thing, as well as the burner phone. You got her the stuff for a nest, to be comfortable here. You also bought her groceries and fed her. You are taking care of her. You are helping her.”
“But she doesn’t know that I’m helping her!” he whines. “I need her to know I’m a good Alpha.”