Chapter 5 #3
I turn back to the counter. Grip it hard enough that my knuckles go white. Breathe through my nose until the urge to close the distance between us fades to something manageable.
"I need to take blood," I say to the wall because I can't look at her right now. "Check your hormone levels. Make sure nothing dangerous is happening."
"Okay."
I grab the supplies. Turn back to her. She's watching me with those big hazel eyes, and there's something in her expression I can't quite read. Trust, maybe. Or hope. Or just exhaustion.
Whatever it is, it makes my chest ache.
I tie the tourniquet around her upper arm. Find the vein. Slide the needle in with practiced efficiency. Watch her blood flow into the vial, dark and rich, and try not to think about how intimate this is. How I'm literally holding her life in my hands right now.
She doesn't flinch. Doesn't look away.
"You're good at this," she says softly.
"I've had practice."
"I bet you have." A pause. "Do you remember when I cut my hand at the packhouse? Slicing tomatoes?"
My hands still. Just for a second. But she notices.
"I remember."
How could I forget? She'd been wearing a yellow sundress with white flowers. The sun had been streaming through the kitchen window, turning her blonde hair to gold. She'd been laughing at something Sergio said, not paying attention to what she was doing, and then there was blood.
I'd been on her in seconds. Holding her wrist. Examining the cut. Telling her it was fine even though the sight of her blood had made something primal and protective roar to life in my chest.
My hands had lingered. Longer than they needed to. And when I'd looked up at her through my glasses, I'd seen it. The way her pupils dilated. The way her breathing changed. The way she looked at me like maybe, just maybe, she felt it too.
And then Callum had walked in, and I'd dropped her hand like it burned me.
"You were so gentle," she says now, and there's something in her voice. Something soft and wondering. "I remember thinking you didn't seem like the grumpy doctor everyone said you were. You seemed... kind."
I don't know what to say to that. Don't know how to tell her that I'm only gentle with her. That everyone else gets the grumpy bastard but she's always gotten something else.
So I say nothing. Just finish taking the blood and press a cotton ball to the puncture site.
"Hold that," I tell her.
Her fingers brush mine as she takes over, and the contact sends heat racing up my arm. I pull back quickly. Too quickly.
She notices. Of course she notices.
I move back to the counter. Put distance between us. Start filling out her chart even though my handwriting is barely legible because my hands won't stop shaking.
"Your body is playing catch-up," I tell her, keeping my eyes on the paper. "All the omega development that should have happened gradually over years is happening now, all at once. That's why everything feels so intense."
"Is it dangerous?"
Now I look at her. She's still holding the cotton ball to her arm, still sitting on that exam table with her feet dangling, looking at me with trust and hope and fear all mixed together.
"Not if we monitor it carefully." I pause. This is the part I've been dreading. "But you need to know something else.”
Her eyes search my face. Worried. Trusting.
That trust guts me.
"You're going into heat. Your first real heat. Based on your hormone levels, I'd estimate it will hit within the next two weeks. Maybe sooner."
The color drains from her face.
"Heat." The word comes out barely above a whisper.
"Yes."
"But I've never..." She stops. Swallows. Tries again. "I don't know how to... I mean, I've read about it, but I've never..."
"I know."
Her hands are shaking now. She clutches them together in her lap, and I can see the fear radiating off her in waves.
"What do I do?"
What she should do is find a safe place with alphas she trusts. What she should do is let someone take care of her through the most intense physical experience of her life. What she should do is not spend her first heat alone, confused, overwhelmed, possibly in danger.
What I want to tell her is that she should come to the packhouse. That we would take care of her.
But I don't say any of that. Because she's Callum's ex-fiancée. Because we agreed to stay away. Because telling her the truth would blow up everything.
"We'll figure it out," I say. "I'll prescribe some medication to help with the symptoms. Suppressants won't work anymore, but there are other options. Heat blockers. Hormone regulators. And I want to see you again in three days to check your levels."
She nods. Still pale. Still scared. And I hate that I'm the one making her feel this way.
"Pedro?"
"Yeah?"
"Does Callum know? About the omega thing?"
The question is so quiet I almost miss it. But I don't. And the fact that she's asking, the fear in her voice when she says his name, tells me everything I need to know about why she ran.
"I don't know. Did you tell him?"
"No." She wraps her arms around herself, and the defensive gesture makes my chest tight. "I found out three weeks ago and I never told him. I was scared of how he'd react. Of what he'd do with that information."
Good instinct. Callum would have used it. Twisted it. Made her feel like she owed him something because of her biology. Would have held it over her like a weapon.
The thought makes my jaw clench so hard I hear my teeth grind.
"Your medical information is confidential," I say carefully, forcing the words out through my clenched jaw. "I'm not going to tell anyone anything without your permission. Not even Callum."
Relief floods her face, and something in my chest loosens at the sight of it.
"Thank you."
"But Jessica..." I hesitate. This is important. "You should tell someone. Your mom. A friend. Someone who can be there for you when the heat hits. You shouldn't go through that alone."
"I know." She slides off the exam table, and her borrowed jeans slip down her hips. She tugs them up with a frustrated sigh that makes her breasts move under that too-tight sweater, and I have to physically look away. "I'm still figuring out who I can trust."
She looks at me when she says it. Really looks. And for a moment I think she's going to say something.
The air between us feels charged. Heavy. Like the moment before a storm breaks.
But she doesn't. She just picks up her purse and moves toward the door.
"Jessica."
She stops. Turns. And the way she looks at me, with those hazel eyes full of exhaustion and hope.
"Welcome back to Largo Waters."
That sad smile again. Small and fragile and devastating. "Thanks, Pedro. It's good to see you. Even if the circumstances are..." She gestures vaguely at herself, the exam room, the whole mess of her life.
"I know."
She leaves. The door closes behind her with a soft click. And I stand there for a long moment, breathing in the fading traces of her scent, trying to get my head straight.
Her sweet omega scent lingers in the exam room. On my clothes. On my hands where I touched her pulse, her arm, her neck.
I press my palms against the counter and drop my head, breathing hard like I just ran a marathon.
"There's something else." I force myself to focus on the medical, not the personal.
"Late presentation. Twenty-eight years old. That's unusual."
She tenses. "Is that bad?"
"Not necessarily. But it's worth understanding why."
I pull up the research on my tablet, show her the relevant studies. "Sometimes severe psychological stress can suppress omega presentation. Trauma. Emotional abuse. The body's protective mechanism—if you're not safe, it won't put you through a heat cycle that would make you vulnerable."
She goes very still. "You're saying... being with Callum..."
"Kept you suppressed. Yes."
"Your body knew you weren't safe. Wasn't going to present until you were away from the threat. It's actually a remarkable example of how omega biology protects itself."
"So I wasn't broken?"
I meet her eyes. "You were surviving."
Six years. And now she's here, and she's an omega, and she's going into heat, and every instinct I have to claim her as mine.
But I can't. Because she's vulnerable and scared and just escaped from a man who controlled her. Because she needs a doctor, not another alpha trying to stake his claim.
Because wanting someone this badly when they're in crisis makes me exactly the kind of alpha I've always hated.
Except I do want her. Have always wanted her. Will probably always want her.
And now she's two miles away in her mother's house, alone, scared, her body preparing for something she doesn't understand, and I'm sitting in my clinic trying to remember why staying away is the right thing to do.
I have to tell my brothers. About her being an omega. About the heat coming. About all of it.
I have to NOT tell Callum.
The two obligations war in my chest. Loyalty to my pack versus loyalty to my oldest friend.
Except Callum lost the right to that loyalty when he made her feel like she couldn't even see a doctor. When he controlled her so completely that she ran from her own wedding in a ruined dress. When he dismissed her symptoms and called her dramatic and made her doubt her own body.
Fuck Callum.
I pull out my phone and open the group chat.
Emergency pack meeting. Tonight. 7pm. Don't be late.
Sergio responds first: What's going on?
I stare at the screen. Think about her scared eyes. Her trembling hands. The heat building in her body like a storm about to break.
Jessica came to see me at the clinic. We have a problem.
Three dots appear. Then Carlos: What kind of problem?
I can still smell her. Can still feel the phantom warmth of her skin against my fingers.
I'm so fucked.
The kind that's going to change everything.
I sit down at my desk and drop my head in my hands.
Jessica Delacroix is an omega, and is going into heat.
Jessica Delacroix looked at me with trust in her eyes and asked me what to do, and every fiber of my being wanted to tell her the truth: Come home. Come to us. Let us take care of you the way we should have six years ago.
But I didn't. Because I'm a professional. Because she's vulnerable. Because wanting someone this badly when they're in crisis makes me exactly the kind of alpha I've always hated.
My phone buzzes. Another text from the group chat.
Nacho: We'll be there.
I lean back in my chair and close my eyes.
Tonight I'll tell my brothers. Tomorrow I'll see her again for her follow-up. And in two weeks or less, she'll go into heat.
And I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do about any of it.
But I know one thing for certain: watching Jessica Delacroix walk out of my clinic awas the hardest thing I've done in years.
And I'm not sure I can do it again.