Eleven – Cal
Eleven
Cal
W hy was my lab director asking for a six hundred percent increase in training funds?
I circled the offending item on their budget proposal, added a bold red question mark, and wrote denied. That’s what happens when you don’t provide any supporting documentation.
Turning to the next page, I reached for my coffee. The only way to survive the budget proposal cycle was to stay caffeinated.
After several futile sips, I realized my cup was empty—again. I’d only been at it for two hours and had yet to make a dent in my to-review pile.
What a pain in the neck and ass.
My passion stemmed from helping others, but no good deed goes unfunded. If I wanted to get to the fun stuff—you know, actual designation science—it meant slogging through mountains of paperwork and endless cycles of financial planning.
Speaking of fun…
I checked the clock. Our weekly PheroPass planning meeting was scheduled to start in half an hour.
“Think she’ll keep avoiding me like the plague?” I asked the Captain Tusker bobblehead on my desk and flicked the tip of his horn with my pen.
The anthropomorphic narwhal mocked me with his rictus grin, each enthusiastic jiggle of his head a reminder that Morgan had the right idea. Maintaining distance was supposed to be our default.
I shouldn’t have texted her after the game on Saturday. For a pseudo- supervisor, such behavior teetered on the edge of unacceptable. But I couldn’t ignore how disconnected she’d been—pale, uneasy, and inattentive at times—pushing herself to be amicable with the players and medical staff.
While I didn’t know the finer details of her medical history, I’d observed Morgan long enough to feel confident my concerns about her health were justified.
It was understandable that an unmated omega of a certain age, working around a literal team of horny young men, primarily alphas, may want to dampen their pheromone signature. But Morgan’s scent went far beyond dull.
It was nonexistent.
I didn’t notice right away. During meetings and other indoor encounters, I assumed the university’s industrial-strength air purifying treatments were doing their job. But at the team’s first home game, after several hours under the blazing August sun, there should have been something, at least a slight undernote. Any other omega would have sweated through their blockers or scent-canceling spray—any other healthy omega, that is.
But Morgan’s pheromones were non-existent, save for a faint metallic thread trailing behind her. The hallmark of long-term exposure to maximum-strength heat suppressants and a taboo in the field of designation medicine.
An unanticipated discovery coupled with an unwelcome one. I’d only noticed because I’d been following two steps too close, subconsciously trying to scent her. Because I was interested in her as a woman.
And Morgan Van Daal was not supposed to interest me.
Before starting her fellowship, I knew Morgan was a gymnastics superstar forced into early retirement by a freak accident. Like most athletics department staff, I figured she was looking for a vicarious dopamine hit by working with student-athletes, as close to former sports glory as you could get without competing. It was a big draw for me, too.
Our encounters should have been minimal, occasionally crossing paths on the sidelines or attending the same lecture. She was meant to be a peripheral figure until her fellowship ended next July. Then she’d move on to a permanent placement at a different university or research hospital—another face in an endless parade of former colleagues. I never intended to learn more about her.
Then Anya called, suggesting that PheroPass might benefit from a talented sports medicine fellow with a unique point of view. Code for an omega physician with a strong work ethic—one which she couldn’t, in good conscience, assign to the traumatic brain injury research project like most of the other fellows. Morgan had too much personal experience with the subject matter.
Her academic and clinical background was perfect on paper, and Anya rarely asked anything of me at work—she wasn’t supposed to, as per our prior agreement—but I hesitated.
A growing number of Redwing executives viewed Owen’s technological research and development division as a money pit, only kept afloat by their booming pharmaceutical business. The recently appointed chief finance asshat made things ten times worse.
Their constant demand for profit stripped PheroPass’ project scope to the bare minimum, eliminating dozens of planned functions and outputs, reducing Owen’s ambitious vision to a withered husk.
He would have preferred they’d killed it outright.
While I worried about wasting Morgan’s time and talent if she joined, Owen had no such qualms. His terse reply made it clear: producing results was the medical fellow’s responsibility, not ours. I never expected that his almost thoughtless decision would lead to the revitalization of PheroPass.
It started with her late-night emails, overflowing with logical questions and insightful suggestions—all the more impressive because she was the newest team member. There are only so many ways to politely ask if the powers-that-be were obtuse idiots, but Morgan found every single one.
Each new email was a revelation, her arguments perfectly aligned with Owen’s original intentions. She identified reporting gaps and highlighted the lack of equal analytics for betas and omegas with unerring precision. Her weekly clinical reports packed an even bigger punch.
One of Owen’s deputies championed her recommendations with the Redwing executives, while I did the same with my direct reports and the football coaches. Even someone as thick-headed as Coach Garvey understood the need for the reproductive cycle algorithm.
Ultimately, the Redwing execs had no choice but to greenlight its addition.
And I began to see Morgan as an equal… Maybe even a partner.
The graceful slope of her sculpted nose was an accidental discovery. I’d only meant to look her in the eye while answering a question about a pheromone trend graph. A momentary lapse in judgment. A minor slip-up. It didn’t mean anything in the long run.
But noticing the alluring thickness of her figure and the strength of her well-trained body? That had been an unforgivable mistake. One I couldn’t stop thinking about.
Adhering to professional ethics meant putting Morgan squarely inside the restricted zone. Hands-off.No furtive glances at her toned arms when she took off her lab coat during a long meeting. Absolutely no internal debates about the color of her eyes—were they more of a honey brown or an amber? None of that. She was forbidden.
I could try to deny my attraction to her, but our height difference was impossible to ignore.
When you’re over a foot taller than your most fascinating new colleague, it’s hard not to notice the way her eyes narrow into vengeful slits when the light gets too bright or how her gaze fogs over as a headache rolls in. Or how tense her shoulders become when she focuses, risking muscle strain during every football game.
And her humor? Sharp and a touch dry, with a glimmer of mischief.
There are the devious glints she tries to hide—the ones that reveal how much she secretly enjoys judging people, especially students who take their Narwhal pride a little too far during games.
But if you’re lucky enough to earn her favor, Morgan can’t help but betray her softer side. Take Alijah Peck, for example. One look from his pleading puppy dog eyes, and she’s a goner.
Or maybe she likes pretty boys who don’t shop in the big-and-tall section. Not a point in my favor, but it didn’t matter.
I couldn’t date her. Neither could Alijah due to university regulations. At least not without a formal courting agreement. Just two more men in a long line of chumps drooling over her.
And I wasn’t deluding myself that my behavior was more honorable than theirs.
Our meetings started running long because I wanted to keep talking to her. Most of our conversations were legitimate business, discussing the latest PheroPass data and deciding which findings to act on, but I wasn’t above pulling up a tangential research study or asking for her opinion on a recent article to prolong our time together. To hear one more thoughtful opinion. To dig a little deeper.
Another minute together might let me decipher one of her carefully controlled expressions. I might even uncover the secret to drawing out her elusive scent.
But the greatest mystery was her almost supernatural imperviousness to pheromones, whether it was my amaretto, Alijah’s orange zest, Garvey’s burnt match aroma, or anyone else’s. It was baffling.
Why didn’t she react?
Even my mentor, who had the best poker face of anyone I’d ever met, sneezed when faced with particularly incompatible pheromones.
My phone buzzed. It wasn’t the long-awaited response from Morgan but rather a summons from my father, Chaz—delivered via group text to Anya, Papa Jorge, and my six other nominal parents—the Carling equivalent of certified mail.
Dinner Friday. Business to discuss.
Since Chaz would never bring up Grandfather’s failing health at the dinner table, the summons could only mean one of two things: they wanted to set me up on a string of blind dates with this year’s crop of eligible omegas—fresh from finishing school, impeccably bred and trained to meet all the needs my parental pack deemed essential but had never experienced for themselves—or my cousin, Roddy, had fucked up again.
For once, I hoped Roddy had committed another round of light embezzlement. Turning down dates with women handpicked by the parental committee was exhausting.
It’s not like they cared about my happiness—just my genetics.
I respected my grandfather, but he was a product of his time, clinging to the tradition of alpha-only inheritance. Chaz would inherit the bulk of the estate when Grandfather passed away, including a majority stake in the family’s shipping and logistics business, Verray. That meant he would become the chairman of the board and, more importantly, the new head alpha of Pack Carling.
Grandfather’s will was a legally binding crown, anointing a new king—as was his right.
Besides, Chaz had earned it. Managing the day-to-day operations of a sprawling international business was no small feat, especially without real power. Even at ninety-seven and confined to a hospital bed, Grandfather refused to relinquish decision-making authority.
The problem lay with Chaz and his embrace of similarly antiquated views. After finally accepting that I would never abandon my career in designation medicine to play businessman, he began pushing me to find a mate and have children, to ensure an alpha successor for the so-called direct line.
But he already had my nephew, Spencer, the alpha son of my half-sister Heather. He was a great kid. Ambitious without being greedy, whip-smart without ego, but maybe a little too mature for his age. Anya and Heather had taken great pains to mold him into future chief executive material .
However, Heather was a female beta—a happenstance of birth that, in Grandfather and Chaz’s eyes, somehow made her children less worthy than my nonexistent offspring.
To make matters worse, she had been Chaz’s cherished only child until Grandfather started making threats. If Chaz didn’t produce an alpha son within a set timeframe, everything would go to my uncle and, eventually, Roddy, the rat.
Even then, at only three years old, everyone knew Roddy would tank the company.
Thus, I was born—Charles the Third, the only alpha son of Charles the Second, heir of Charles the First. The physical manifestation of generational greed.
They stuffed me into tiny suits, slicked my hair into submission with pomade, and paraded me about at parties and galas, ensuring everyone knew I was the golden child. The Carling heir.
I offered polite smiles while quietly dying to escape—to read an anatomy book, hunt crabs on the beach, throw a football with a friend, or snuggle with my mom.
Then Mom died, and what I wanted couldn’t be bought with all the riches in the universe.
Heather never understood. Her resentment ran too deep. I was the enemy to her, even though I avoided being at the family compound as much as possible, spending weekends and summers with my maternal grandparents instead.
The fuss I made when I moved out at eighteen, declaring I’d never attend another society event with any of them, should have made my stance crystal clear. My future lay in football and designation science—and neither they nor their vast fleet of container ships could stop me.
I remained single and without a pack precisely because it improved Spencer’s chances of becoming the next heir.
Yet every three to six months, Heather needed reassurance that I wasn’t seeing someone on the sly. She refused to believe that I wanted to be a good uncle to Spencer—a trusted companion, not his competition—even after proving myself for twenty-one years.
It was getting old. Really old. But I still had to go to dinner.
Understood. See you Friday.
I opened my calendar and sighed. My last appointment on Friday afternoon was with Morgan. Her clinic hours were non-negotiable, leaving me no choice but to shorten our meeting by half an hour .
Keeping the peace with my family required concessions. Grandfather insisted on dinner at six sharp, no exceptions, even in the event of his death, and it was a haul from campus to the family compound over in Rosellen Cove.
Home to old money—real old money—Rosellen Cove was a sprawling peninsula on the far northeast side of the bay, known for its multi-acre waterfront estates with hundred-year-old mansions and priceless views. None of which appealed to me. I only visited for family meals and the occasional afternoon talk with Grandfather.
Thankfully, they didn’t request my presence next week. If they had, I would’ve been forced to decline. Nothing would keep me from reviewing every single component of Morgan’s rough PheroPass enhancement pitch—side by side with her, for as long as necessary, even if it took five hours.
Maybe we could even grab dinner afterward.
All for the benefit of PheroPass, of course. Morgan’s spelling was occasionally atrocious, and Owen had no patience for typos.
I didn’t care that he’d refused to read any of her emails and reports thus far. They were small fry compared to the presentation. A presentation he was going to be obsessed with.
He just didn’t know it yet.
***
A plum-red shimmer caught my eye as I stepped out of the elevator, cradling my fresh cup of coffee to avoid spilling it over my legal pad and PheroPass reports.
A few alpha girls had approached Morgan by the water fountain, unable to keep from looking starstruck as they pled their case.
“We’re only asking for a chance to test it out a few times. Even just once would be enough. Can’t you talk to him? He’ll listen to you.”
Morgan appeared relaxed yet distant, leaning her hip against the wall and idly toying with the cap of her water bottle as though the conversation had nothing to do with her.
“I understand how you feel, but I’m not here to meddle in gymnastics.”
“But you should, you totally should! We’d love that.”
The gymnasts were idol-chasing again.
“Deciding to train a new vault is between you and Coach Redmond.” Morgan straightened her glasses, the move subtle but final, shifting seamlessly back into doctor mode. “Does anyone have anything medically related to speak with me about? Otherwise, I believe Dr. Carling is waiting for me.”
The girls spooked and scattered, leaving a faint cloud of embarrassment-laden pheromones in their wake.A small smile flickered across Morgan’s face as she observed their retreat before turning and heading in my direction.
“Thought the gymnastics kids got warned off talking shop with you?” I asked as she fell in step beside me.
“They’re just anxious. It’s always hard to build trust with a new coach.” Morgan’s professional armor slipped for a moment, revealing a younger, lighter version of herself. “I’d almost forgotten how different vaults can be for alpha girls, how much extra power they have. How much higher they can fly.”
“And they wanted you to, what—cosign on some big air?”
“Sort of. They want to try a Bazarova.” Morgan’s tone held quiet respect, with a touch of skepticism. “It’s not a conventional vault by any means. The risk of injury is too high. Only its namesake ever performed it in competition, and she was the alpha vault specialist to end all alpha vaulters. I’m not sure a beta has ever attempted it. Omegas won’t touch it. We call it the guillotine.”
I let out a low whistle. “That diabolical, huh?”
“Yeah. You flip off the table and do three somersaults in the air. Mess up, and it’s literally your neck on the line.” Her expression was a perfect, gut-wrenching neutral. No one could blame her for avoiding gymnastics after her accident.
“What do the alpha girls call it?” I asked.
Sly amber eyes slid up to meet mine. Yes, I decided, her eyes were definitely amber.
“ La petite mort .”
The little death. Suggestive yet brilliant. A euphoric buzz danced across my scalp.
I took a deep breath, partly to clear my mind but also to seek out her elusive pheromones. Her neck stiffened, and she picked up the pace, hurrying toward the meeting room.
No wonder she avoided me at the game. I’d been busted trying to scent her. How dreadfully unprofessional.
I followed along at a sedate pace, taking one step for every two of hers. When I entered the room, she was busy lowering the blinds. Then, she took her usual seat—three from the front, with her back facing a pillar between two windows.
Since she was already irked at me, I might as well go for broke, pulling the door partially closed behind me, leaving about six inches of clearance. Proper alpha behavior dictated leaving the door ajar when meeting with an unmated omega privately.
Proper—and a touch old-fashioned. And despite my wishes to the contrary, this wasn’t private.
As I dropped into the chair across from Morgan, I savored her expression—the narrowed gaze fixed on the half-closed door, nose scrunched up ever so slightly, bowed lips pinched in the middle. She made the same adorably peevish expression every time I used a traditional alpha technique in her presence, as if she couldn’t decide whether to be flattered or annoyed when I appealed to her designation.
“We talked about this, Dr. Carling.”
I propped an elbow on the table and rested my chin in my palm, studying her features for any sign of illness. A bit pale with shadows under the eyes. Nothing unusual. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t in a precarious state.
Tilting my head further to the side, I flashed her a lazy grin. “Talked about what?”
Her eyes narrowed even further, promising a sharp retort, when a few of my staff walked in, chatting about an ongoing sensor charging issue. Peering over her glasses, Morgan gave me a pointed look, suggesting we would return to the subject later.
Fine by me.
I had no intention of dropping the traditional alpha niceties around Morgan. If occasionally showing her the respect an omega deserved provoked her enough to reveal her scent—even just once—it’d be worth weathering her irritation.
Pheromones were my business. I analyzed them all day, every day. Was a world-class expert in them. Yet Morgan’s scent was a mystery—one I was determined to solve, regardless of whether I could pursue her romantically.
My ultimate forbidden fruit.
***
“Hold on, Talia,” I said to my deputy administrator, pushing open the door to my office. “Let me grab the lab budget— ”
A pervasive cloud of jasmine alerted me to the presence of an uninvited guest. Anya leaned against my desk, flipping through a budget proposal.
Talia took one look at her and backed away. “I’ll get it tomorrow.”
Anya wore a dark green tunic and matching slim-cut trousers. Her silver hair, intermingled with lingering streaks of her natural black color, was styled in a short, sleek cut. Large square earrings of hammered gold matched the statement ring on her right index finger.
A chic, modern look—all but ruined by the chunky yellow rubber mules on her feet.
Joaquin had taught me enough about color theory to know dark green and canary yellow clashed. But even my pack mother, who loved to gild herself in expensive things—as if she needed a constant reminder that she was Chaz Carling’s only living female mate—was susceptible to creature comforts.
Gently closing the door behind me to avoid alarming Talia—or anyone else—I stepped closer, thumbs hooked in my pockets and unleashed a carefully measured amount of dominance.
“To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure, Dr. Sethi?”
“You received his text?” she asked, setting the proposal back on the pile.
“Obviously. I replied to it.”
“I know, it’s just that we so rarely see you, and your father wanted to—”
“I know what he wants,” I said, cutting her off as I ran a hand through my hair.
She always carried Chaz’s dirty water when it came to me, no matter how little she cared for the task.
“And I need you to specify which role you’re using to speak with me right now—colleague or pack mother.” I took another step closer. “Because we have an agreement.”
“Yes.” Anya placed a hand on the desktop, trying to mask that she needed to grip the edge for support. “I haven’t forgotten. Just consider this a friendly visit from a colleague, checking in on her medical fellow.”
I scoffed. “You don’t need to worry about Morgan.”
Giving her a wide berth, I walked around my desk, waiting for the motion-activated scent-neutralizing spray to hiss before settling in my chair.
“Tell Chaz I’ll be there—and there’d better not be any special guests. Ten omega profiles? Fine.” Leaning forward, I channeled my best Owen impression, imbuing my tone with iron resolve. “But no surprises.”