40. Lazarus
Lazarus
The nexus center exam room is nothing like I suspected it would be.
While my only reference was that of our clinic downstairs, I assumed a slightly higher-end style room.
Such as I’ve seen in the emergency wards of hospitals on television shows and in the brief experience of taking a beta there when they’ve been injured.
The room Xavier leads us to has what could best be described as mood lighting. In the center of the room, the focal point exam table is more bed shape than anything I’ve seen. There is ample furniture to fit a whole pack of alphas along the side of the room and cupboards along the other.
Honey hesitates at the door. She looks up at me and whispers, “I’m afraid.”
“I will never let anything like what Fox did hurt you again.” I whisper my promise back. Resting my hand on her shoulder, I gently nudge her into the room. “God as my witness, you shall suffer no more for unrighteous behavior.”
“Please, come in, get comfortable, we’ll be here for a while.” Xavier acts as if he hasn’t heard our conversation and gestures broadly to the room while he closes the door behind us.
Promptly, he crosses the room to the large cupboards. Xavier opens them and reveals copious medical supplies and devices.
It seems odd seeing him work, doing something that I would associate with a nurse, but then again, we are not here on the books. He’s likely covering our tracks, limiting the amount of exposure we have to other nexus staff, by doing things himself.
Honey looks around the room, taking it all in. “Are we supposed to be here?”
“I own the nexus.” Xavier explains. “We can be wherever we want. This suite is used for high-profile clients for anonymity purposes. It’s appropriate given the circumstances.”
“Which circumstances would those be?” I narrow my gaze at him.
“Please, like Abraham doesn’t keep me apprised of the happenings of the club?
” Xavier scoffs and pulls another piece of equipment out of the cabinet.
Then he grabs a fluffy, neatly folded robe out of what looks like an oven of some sort.
“Honey, there is a bathroom through that door. If you’d please undress and put this on.
There are multiple ties, those go in the front. ”
“Should I expect a bill?” I sit in one of the tall chairs near the bed, facing Xavier and watching him work. He’s comfortable in his surroundings, no movement wasted as he goes about business.
“No.” He locks eyes with me, and the alpha I see is over a decade softer.
He’s almost, if only for a second, comforting.
“I know I play the family’s game hard. But as much as everyone believes I don’t possess one, I do have a heart and a soft spot for the twins.
If Honey makes them happy, then I’m glad to be able to show care.
Though I will talk them out of letting Grisham do the surgery if it’s within my abilities. They don’t need the heat.”
“I’ve never had the displeasure of meeting Family Baron. From the stories, it would seem that is for the best,” I grumble, reminded of all the family dinners the twins have come home from — deflated, exhausted — and the days it takes for them to bounce back to misbehaving.
The bathroom door opens, and Honey comes out. The robe wrapped around her is tied over, the little bows she made running down the left-hand side of her body, hiding her front and providing modesty.
At Xavier’s request, I help Honey up onto the bed, and she lies on her back. The short breaths she’s drawing are slightly ragged. I pick up her hand and rub the backside with my thumb in slow circles.
“I’ll untie this string.” Xavier indicates the one closest to her hip, “and it’ll expose you a little bit.”
Honey nibbles on her bottom lip, and Xavier waits to see if she has something to say.
God give me —
“Is this going to hurt?” Honey practically whispers.
Xavier shakes his head. “No, none of this will hurt. There is one portion that will be slightly uncomfortable, but I’ll warn you when we come to it. This is minimally invasive, but I will have to use this ultrasound wand inside.”
Honey’s eyes go wide, and she squeezes my hand as tightly as possible.
Xavier fights a small smile, and I wonder if Fox’s sadistic side is actually genetic and Xavier experiences the same joy.
“You’ve gone through estrus with the twins. This will feel a little weird, but it is nowhere near the size of a knot that you take comfortably.”
I’m no longer certain how professional all of this is, but the words he says loosen Honey’s death grip on my fingers. It wasn’t painful. Her slight omega strength was hardly enough to warrant any discomfort at all.
Xavier gets to work, and when he unties the string of her robe, I am drawn to look away.
I saw as she went through something similar the first time.
She deserves privacy this time. Instead, I watch her face and the subtle expressions, various grimaces she tries to hide in stoicism, as Xavier explains what he’s doing.
I glance up at Xavier to see his eyes narrowed on the screen.
“What is it?” I try not to scare Honey, but his stillness worries me.
He shakes his head. “Nothing that wasn’t expected.
I won’t know until we go in for surgery if I fully agree with Fox’s diagnosis.
” He smiles at Honey, not bothering to look at me.
“I believe we may be able to give you the option for children someday. I won’t make any promises, but I believe Fox was too quick to be pessimistic. ”
Honey’s face pales slightly, and her breathing stops entirely. If Xavier notices, he doesn’t draw attention to it. He goes back to looking at the computer.
I give Honey’s hand a light squeeze, and she rolls her head to look up at me. “Outside of the apostle community, the omega gets to decide how many children they have. Even if Xavier is able to restore what was believed to be lost, it is your voice that matters most.”
Tears form at the edge of Honey’s eyes, and my shadow shuffles under my feet, trying to reach for her. I tame him down and, while cupping her chin, catch them with my thumb before they have a chance to fall.
“This is the part that will be uncomfortable. I will untie this next knot and move your legs apart. Please take slow breaths and let me know if the pain is more than general discomfort.” Xavier is so different when caring for an omega from when we’re graced with his presence at the clubhouse.
Outside of the nexus, he’s the brazen non-member of our club but the real behind-the-scenes leader of the revolution to free omegas. He’s a hard-ass focused on the numbers and what can be done immediately.
This delicate side of him is one I rarely get to see but appreciate, nonetheless.
I stroke Honey’s hair, keeping my back turned to Xavier, wanting to give Honey the modesty she deserves. “You’re doing such a good job, sweet girl.”
Sweet girl. The praised name coming so easily from my lips does wonders for Honey. Her eyes stop being scrunched closed, she exhales, and her hand relaxes slightly from where it had been squeezing mine.
Xavier finishes quickly and ties the robe for Honey the second he’s done.
“I accept Fox’s medical opinion that we should do this surgery sooner rather than later to prevent any additional complications.
I can have Honey on the books the day after tomorrow.
” Xavier pauses, adopting a much softer tone as he speaks to Honey.
“We just need your spectrum and blood type.”
Honey blinks slowly. “I don’t know those things.”
Xavier shrugs. “That’s alright, I’ll get a nurse to draw blood, and we’ll move you over to the spectrum lab to run a quick panel. It will take just another half hour.”
“I remember doing one of these tests before,” Honey whispers to me as we sit in the room waiting for the device to read her spectrum to be ready. “It was the only time I was able to glow.”
“That is an interesting development,” Xavier says as he walks through the door with another syringe in hand.
“It could be that as you developed, the growths suppressed your chemistry. If that’s the case, this might not work as well as we would like, but it should give us enough indication of your actual wavelength.
If not, we can approximate based on the twins’ attraction to you.
It would be better to be as accurate as possible, but we’ll adjust as necessary. ”
Xavier is much more cavalier. He injects the catalyst, a chemical designed to make omegas glow, into her arm.
Honey winces as he does, and I let out a low growl of warning at Xavier.
He doesn’t even flinch at the noise. Once done, Xavier tosses it in the sharps container and looks at me. “You can stay here with her, but keep your shadow contained to below her knees. We need an accurate reading.”
My shadow, which sits around my feet, shows no objection. “As long as Honey wants me to, I’ll stay.”
Nodding rapidly, Honey agrees. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“Alright, we’ll be in the lab to read the results, and then we’ll get you out of here.” Xavier promptly leaves, closing the door behind him.
A few seconds later, the lights in the room turn off.
Honey gasps. “Why?”
“Shhh.” I try to comfort her, but it’s hard to do from half a room away. “They need it dark because you’re the light.”
“I hate the dark.” Honey’s voice isn’t strong.
“They sequestered you in the dark?” I bite my tongue, remembering the light switches on the outside of the doors back at the community.
“Yes,” Honey whispers.
A few seconds later, Honey begins to appear.
A beautiful golden glow radiates from the collar of her hospital robe up her neck and down her arms, slowly lighting up each of her features with the bright yellow light.
Honey’s eyes are wide, and she looks over her glowing arms like she’s never seen such a beautiful sight.