Chapter 26 #2
She leans slightly forward, elbows on her knees.
“You had instincts before you presented,” she says.
“I watched you. You knew which days were going to go wrong before they went wrong. You noticed moods and patterns in people before they showed them. You were always paying attention to things everyone else walked past.” She pauses for a beat.
“And you were watching those three men on set long before your body gave you a reason to. You think I didn’t see that?
You knew where Elias was in every room before this started.
You tracked Adrian’s posture when he was off, you covered for Bash’s scheduling conflicts before he even knew he had them.
Maya.” She holds my gaze. “That wasn’t new.
The biology just made it impossible to deny. ”
The words land deeper than I want them to. I can feel them settling into places I’ve been trying not to examine.
“What you’re doing when you call it ‘the omega thing,’” she says, “is trying to keep yourself from having to own what you actually want. Because if it’s only instinct, it’s not a choice.
It’s just happening to you and you’re coping with it.
But if you admit that you already cared about them — the way you clearly already do — then you have to sit with that. And that’s much more frightening.”
My throat is tight in a way that has nothing to do with the tears I just shed.
“I built a career in this industry,” Nadia says.
She says it plainly, not like a victory speech.
Just fact. “I navigate contracts and press and alpha producers and award season politics and public scrutiny. I do all of that while openly presenting as an omega, unbonded, and as someone men in this industry regularly underestimate. I built a life and a career and a sense of myself that doesn’t fall apart because of my designation.
It’s harder sometimes. I’m not pretending otherwise.
But it is possible. And it’s possible for you too. ”
“Those three men out there,” she says. “You know what they’re doing right now?
They’re not sitting in that room waiting for the omega they’ve become responsible for.
They’re waiting for you. The same woman who ran their production for months and kept everything running, and never once asked for recognition.
They knew you before any of this happened.
The designation didn’t manufacture what’s between you.
” She holds my gaze until I can’t look away.
“And I think if you’re honest with yourself, it didn’t manufacture it for you either. ”
Something loosens in my chest that has been pulled tight for days. Not completely. But enough that the next breath comes easier than the one before it.
I sit with that for a long moment.
“I don’t know how to stop being scared,” I say finally.
“That’s okay,” she says. “Scared and moving forward aren’t mutually exclusive.
” She tilts her head. “But you do need to see a doctor. A real one. A specialist. This week, Maya. Late presentations can become genuinely dangerous if they’re not managed properly, and you have been white-knuckling this on blockers and sheer stubbornness for long enough. ”
I almost laugh but don’t quite manage it. “Okay,” I say.
“Not maybe?” She questions.
“Okay,” I say again. “I hear you.”
She studies my face for another moment, then nods, accepting what she finds there.
We sit in silence for a bit. The house makes small sounds around us — the faint movement of the heating system, something shifting in the other room.
I feel wrung out in a way that’s almost physical, like I’ve been carrying a weight that was slightly too heavy for me for so long that setting it down hurts too.
When we come back into the main room, Adrian is on his feet before we’re fully through the door. Bash stands from the couch a beat later. Elias doesn’t move from his seat, but the set of his shoulders changes. The tension in his posture eases the moment his eyes find mine.
I probably look terrible. My eyes are swollen and my face is doing the blotchy, residual thing that happens after a hard cry. Nobody says anything about it.
“She needs a doctor,” Nadia says, directing it at the room.
“Not eventually. This week.” Her eyes move between Adrian and Bash, then to Elias.
“With a Late presentation, no specialist contact since it started and blockers but no monitored treatment plan… I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but someone in this room needs to make that happen. ”
Adrian nods before she finishes the sentence. “I know a clinic,” he says. The answer comes immediately, all traces of his usual easy charm stripped away. “ It’s private practice. They handle dynamic health for people who need discretion. I can call them tonight.”
“How soon?” Nadia asks.
“Tonight,” he says. “If I call now.”
Bash looks at me. “If you’re up for it,” he says.
I nod. “Yeah. I’m up for it.”
Nadia says her goodbyes in the entryway.
She hugs me and holds on for a second longer than usual, one hand pressing briefly against the back of my head.
When she steps back, the determined edge is gone from her expression, leaving only the softness she saves for moments like this, when she’s stopped trying to get through to me and is just being my friend.
“Text me after the appointment,” she says.
“I will,” I promise.
She glances at the three alphas behind me, and whatever she finds seems to reassure her. She nods once, small and decisive, the way she does when she’s seen enough to make up her mind.
Then she walks out, and her heels disappear down the driveway, and a moment later her car reverses into the street.
* * *
The clinic is exactly what Adrian described. An unremarkable building in a part of the city that favors discretion over visibility. The waiting room is small and well-lit. We arrive just before nine.
The doctor is composed and unhurried, her voice remaining firmly clinical in a way that helps more than I expect.
“When did the symptoms start?”
“About two weeks ago.”
She makes a note. “And the attachment responses?”
Heat crawls up my neck. “They've been getting stronger.”
“Toward specific individuals?”
“Yes,” I admit while avoiding those individuals’ gazes.
She nods as though I've told her something entirely ordinary. “Any changes in scent sensitivity?”
“Yes.”
“Any changes in your sleep?”
“Better recently. Before that, not great.”
“Any disorientation? Difficulty focusing? Periods of heightened emotional response?”
I hesitate before answering. “Yes.” I finally admit.
None of the questions are comfortable. Most of them would have made me want to crawl out of my own skin in a different setting. But she asks them all with the same calm professionalism, taking notes as she goes.
Later, after a small blood draw, she reviews the results on the screen in front of her.
“Your hormone levels are elevated but not outside the range I would expect for a late presentation approaching a first heat.”
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
“Your symptoms are consistent with what you've described so far. Nothing here suggests a complication.”