Chapter 25
Dexter fell asleep with his face plastered into the side of Alex’s bed, his hand loose in hers.
To say I’m shocked by the way my brother is behaving is an understatement.
I can’t help but wonder if this is a sign of him truly changing the way he views Alex, or if his instincts have taken over and he’ll be back to normal once she wakes up?
Of course, I want this to change the way he views her. I hope this marks the beginning of something genuine between the three of us. I can’t think of anything I want more right now, outside of her getting better.
My whole life, I’ve known that I was going to share an Omega with Dexter. I didn’t care what they said about us not finding our scent match and settling down with Betas on our own. That was never a possibility for me.
If someone isn’t a twin, it’s hard for them to understand the connection the two of us have.
Dexter isn’t just my brother. It’s deeper than that.
There’s no happy life for me if he isn’t by my side, and I know it is the same for him.
Even as kids, we have always been two parts of a whole.
I would crawl into his crib to sleep with him, and we shared a room until we moved out at eighteen.
This circus is the first place we’ve ever “lived” apart, and we only did it because I wanted to get laid and felt weird doing that in the same bed as Dexter if we weren’t going to share.
All of that means that even though I want to explore things with Alex, I can’t if it makes him miserable. I would choose for him to be happy a thousand times before I put myself first.
I don’t ask the same of him. I can’t.
Dad’s death fucked him up. It’s interesting that we’re identical twins, and yet we had massively different reactions to the same traumatic event. It’s been one thing that’s hard for me to understand.
Not to say I’m not messed up by what happened. I am. But not like he is. Where his distrust and hate of Omegas runs deep, my need to please, to soothe, to diffuse any situation comes from being unable to help calm Dad when he was in Storm.
The room is quiet except for the soft beeping of a heart monitor, and Dexter isn’t the only one sleeping.
Quinton’s got half his body thrown over Alex’s feet, and Matteo is curled up in an uncomfortable-looking chair.
Jude was taken away by a nurse about an hour ago, because, of course, the doctor’s estimate of being ready for the infusion in two hours was wrong.
We’ve been here nearly five hours already, and I can’t help but wonder if this is fruitless. What if she doesn’t wake up?
Or worse, what if she does wake up and tells us to leave, that she doesn’t want us around her, and she’s willing to take the chance of her Forsaken Omega Syndrome getting worse to escape us?
Could I let her go ?
I’m not the type of Alpha to push my will onto another, and I don’t want to be anything like her ex, but fuck, will I be able to let her walk away knowing that she may die without us?
I’m close to deciding it’s time to try to sleep, hoping the rhythmic noises from the heart monitor will be enough to lull me asleep, until Jude comes in with a cardboard carrier filled with coffee cups.
“Any change?” he says, his voice dropped low. He’s looking a little pale, and his hands are trembling. I hop to my feet and take the tray from him, knowing he won’t ask for help even though he clearly needs it. He immediately lowers himself onto the couch.
“No change,” I tell him, settling down next to him, close but not too close that I scare him off. “But they don’t expect one until after the infusion, right?”
He grunts, taking a swig from his coffee and grimacing. “This is the worst,” he mutters. “They said that my pheromones, if we’re truly scent matched, should bring her around pretty quickly. No guarantee or anything but…”
“But it’s our best shot.”
“Yep.”
I toy with the paper sleeve around the body of one of the cups. “What if you’re not her scent match?”
He narrows his eyes at me. “You think I’m wrong? That I don’t know what I felt?”
“No,” I admit. “I’m just trying to prepare myself for it not working.” And for us not getting a chance to see if there’s anything between us.
But I don’t say that. It’s not the time.
“How is that going to make you feel any better?” He drains his coffee cup with a distasteful expression.
“This is bad, even for me,” he mutters. After a moment of quiet contemplation, he rests his elbows on his knees, the coffee cup dangling loosely between his massive hands.
“We barely know her, except that she’s our scent match and the small glimpses at her personality she’s shared with us.
And now we’re faced with the fact that we may never get to know her.
Nothing is going to be okay if this doesn’t work.
If we don’t get the chance to know her.”
We sit in silence, staring at the Omega that could be ours if everything works out. A nurse enters with a small, wheeled machine that features several tubes and buttons. She attaches a small bag of dark blue, nearly black liquid to one of the tubes.
“My pheromones,” Jude says quietly. “It was one of the most painful experiences of my fucking life, and I’ve been stabbed several times.”
I raise an eyebrow. “How’d it work?”
“Well, they took what they could from my scent glands,” he gestures at the small bandages on his neck under his ears, “but that wasn’t enough.
So they had to get it from my sweat glands in my pits, which was a fucking pain.
I had to jerk off several times, with the help of some meds to keep my dick hard, and they have this fucking machine that milked my knot and not in a sexy way. ”
The idea of a machine on my knot has me crossing my legs with a wince. “You could’ve asked for help,” I hiss, cognizant of the nurse in the room overhearing. “I could’ve made it easier on you.”
He narrows his eyes but doesn’t respond.
The nurse attaches a tube to the IV on the back of Alex’s hand, and the machine slowly starts to pump the pheromones into her. I watch like I expect her eyes to fly open the moment they hit her system.
But of course, it doesn’t work that way.
“Settle in, Alphas,” the nurse whispers as she exits the room. “It’s going to be a long night.”
I jolt awake. After Jude fell asleep, no doubt wiped out from his pheromone extraction, I moved back beside Alex and fell asleep with my forehead resting on the mattress beside her. I wanted to let Jude stretch out on the couch, but I didn’t think I was tired enough to fall asleep sitting.
Apparently, I was wrong.
It takes a moment for me to get my bearings and realize what woke me up.
Sweet chocolate cake. Whipped cream. Cherries. It swirls together in a decadent dessert that tempts my senses and taste buds.
It’s faint, but it’s there. And it’s not tainted by distress like it was in the trailer a few days ago.
Does this mean the treatment is working?
Hope blossoms in my chest, and I squeeze my eyes tightly shut. I don’t pray because, after what I’ve seen and lived through, I’m not religious, but I find myself wishing and hoping that she will be okay. Call it manifesting, call it faith in medicine.
A loud exhale has my eyes popping open, and I watch as Alex’s head turns toward me, her eyelids fluttering.
It takes a moment for the fog to leave her dark eyes, but when it does, she starts to panic. The lines on the heart monitor spike, and an alarm starts sounding. She starts to reach for the call button with one hand and clutches at her chest with the other.
Immediately, I purr, trying to soothe her in whatever way I can. “Hey, Alex, it’s okay. You’re okay.”
“I can’t be here,” she says through a dry and cracked throat. “I can’t be here, I have to go. ”
“You can’t,” I whisper. “You have Forsaken Omega Syndrome. You’ve been down for a long time, Alex. You need to be treated.”
“I know how to treat FOS, Dario. You have to get me out of here. They’ll call Rich.” Her voice is getting louder and louder in her panic, and the guys are starting to stir. She doesn’t notice in her panic.
“You don’t understand! He’s my emergency contact still. They’ll have pulled up my file and called him. He’s on his way, he’s on his way.” She clutches at her matted hair, pulling at it. “I’m not safe.”
Her distress has the heart monitor going crazy, and all of the guys are awake now. A nurse comes in to check on the commotion.
“Dr. Shields, you’re okay,” the nurse says. “You’re in the hospital, but you’re going to be okay.” Shift change happened shortly before I fell asleep, and this guy is new. He’s handsome, with kind eyes and flawless Black skin, and even I want to relax when he speaks.
“Did you call my emergency contact?” she asks, sitting up and ripping the electrodes off her chest.
The nurse stutters and begins to type on his wheeled computer. “Ah.. uh. Yes, we did. It says here your emergency contact is Dr. Richard Smith.”
Alex’s face grows cold, like she’s completely shut down. She nods tightly. “How long ago?”
“We left a message. He just called back about two hours ago, and we told him you hadn’t woken up yet.” The nurse takes several steps back, like he’s about to call for help, as Alex pulls her IV out of her hand.
“Please draw up my discharge paperwork,” she says firmly. For the first time since I’ve met her, I see the buttoned-up professional she probably was before she came to the circus .
The nurse shakes his head. “I can’t do that. You’ve only just woken up, you need…”
“I’m going to be discharging AMA, thanks. Please, don’t delay on my paperwork.” Alex throws her legs over the side of the bed, hands bracing on the side as she wrenches her eyes shut. Her lips move, like she’s counting with no sounds coming out.
“AMA?” I hear Quinton whisper to Matteo.
“Against medical advice,” the Beta responds.
All of us are shocked at her rapid turnaround, but Dexter seems the most unnerved. He’s staring at her, mouth slightly gaped. I don’t know if it’s because of how quickly she jumped into action or if her chocolate scent, now slightly bitter with fear, is affecting him.
The doctor on call enters the room, summoned by the nurse, and begins to try to convince Alex to stay, explaining that she probably needs another pheromone infusion and should be monitored.
She points out that she has all five of us to provide her with plenty of exposure to pheromones, and she needs to go immediately, as her safety is already compromised.
Eventually, they produce the paperwork she has requested, and she signs it, slowly pushing herself to stand once she’s done.
She struggles, and Dexter lends her his arm for support.
“Please, take me back to my trailer so I can get my things.”
“Get your things?” Jude nearly shouts. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
She turns her pale, defeated face to the Prime Alpha.
“They called Rich. He knows where I am. I have to go. If I don’t…
” She shudders. “Legally, we’re still a pack.
And I’m an Omega. If he wants to take me, he can find a way to.
Especially with a diagnosis of FO S and if he spins the story that carnies kidnaped me. ”
“We’re not carnies,” I mumble, before quickly adding, “but point taken.”
“Well, does he know you work at our circus? Would the hospital have told him that?” Dexter asks softly. “Or would they just have let him know that you were here?”
She sucks her teeth contemplatively as we usher her into the elevator. “Depends on what you put on my intake forms. Did you say where I work?”
Matteo forces an uncomfortable smile onto his face. “I said you work as a traveling physician, but I didn’t name the circus. It said occupation so…”
Her shoulders slump, and she leans against the wall of the car. “Okay. That’s good. That’s good.” She chews on her nail, and I can see the exhaustion lining her features as the adrenaline from fear of being found wears off. “I can stay. At least for a little while. I can stay.”