34. Ollie
Ollie’s heart raced like he was crossing the finish line of a two-hundred meter sprint and not lying on an—admittedly comfortable—medical table. To Veritas’s credit, they had attempted to make the small ultrasound room look less sterile and clinical than the rest of the facility. The walls were a soothing taupe color, and there was a large natural wood cabinet housing their ultrasound gel, towels, and sheets. There were even a couple of fake plants scattered around to finish off the illusion.
But there was nothing they could do to hide the large ultrasound machine with its cables and wands or the fact that the table had stirrups. Beyond that, there were two things that stood out that drove home they weren’t in any average obstetrician’s office. One was the flat screen television mounted to the wall in front of him. The other was the two rows of theater seats set up beside the bed.
Ollie itched to ask what they were for but dreaded the answer. For the first time in his life, knowing wouldn’t make him feel better.
Win had shrugged on her white lab coat as they all filed into the large suite about ten minutes ago. Maybe she was trying to remind them all she was an actual medical doctor and not a tour director. Whatever her motives, the only thing it accomplished was ratcheting Ollie’s anxiety to a thousand, which wasn’t good for the baby.
The baby.
Ollie’s stomach churned at the thought. Deke was equally as panicked; Ollie didn’t need their mating mark to know that. The alpha was doing that thing he did where he chewed on his inner cheek thinking nobody noticed. But Ollie noticed. Ollie noticed everything about Deke.
“What’re those for?” Binnie asked, giving voice to Ollie’s own question as he warily eyed the row of seats.
Win gave him a tight-lipped smile. “We often host researchers and physicians from outside facilities when we’re performing ultrasounds on patients.”
“You mean test subjects,” Deke spat. “The people you experiment on.”
How many other people knew about Deke’s existence? Or of the enigma’s existence, for that matter? Ollie had assumed that employees at Veritas were made to sign NDAs and that everyone else was on some kind of need-to-know basis. But that didn’t seem to be the case at all if Win was to be believed. How many others might want to use Deke for their own interests?
People like Dresden?
Maybe even people like Hearst.
No matter how kind they were being, the pack couldn’t afford to let their guard down. Not for Win or Bas. Too much was at stake.
Win’s smile faded. “Sharing data is the backbone of good medicine. Yes, our patients are also research subjects, but there are no surprises. They all sign informed consents. Everything we do here at Veritas is above board. The people who come to us want help. We help them. They know the risks going in. We don’t sugarcoat things.”
Loch looked at the boxes they’d gotten moments ago. “Why would anyone put themselves through all this?”
“Infertility is heartbreaking,” Win said, her expression darkening momentarily. “Especially in those who suffer from any kind of gender dysphoria. No matter how successful we are at making an alpha into an omega, we haven’t been able to master triggering the body to create the proper organs needed to sustain a pregnancy. But we’re close. We just want to find a way to help people be their true selves. But that involves experimentation…research. It also involves far more failures than successes. Like I said, everyone knows the risks going in. They’re not surprised by pregnancy like Ollie was.”
When it looked like Deke might argue, Ollie placed a hand on his arm, softly shaking his head.
The alpha deflated, returning to staring anxiously at Ollie, like he was afraid an alien was going to burst from his stomach and perform a dance routine. That oddly specific scenario had come straight from Ollie’s nightmares. During the day, he could keep his fears at bay, but once his subconscious took over, it was a new horror show each night.
Win gestured for the others to take their seats in the comfy theater chairs. When they were all seated—Binnie and Loch flanking Fen—she nodded towards the television. “You’ll be able to see everything I see on that screen right up there.”
They all nodded. Ollie could smell Binnie’s excitement, Loch’s trepidation, and Fen’s…something. Win did a few things on the machine, then picked up the remote and clicked on the large screen. It remained black. For some reason, that made Ollie’s stomach swoop painfully. It felt fitting. There might as well have been a giant white question mark up there.
What would they find when they went to look at the life growing inside him? What if there was something really wrong with it—her—them? What would he do then? How disappointed would they all be? How disappointed would he be? Would he be disappointed if he couldn’t continue the pregnancy?
Worry gnawed away at Ollie’s insides. He missed the person he was six months ago. It wasn’t that he wished he hadn’t mated with Deke. He didn’t even wish he wasn’t pregnant. He just missed being the level-headed one. The planner. The researcher. Deke hadn’t just activated dormant organs within Ollie, he’d altered his brain chemistry. He had all these fears now, these worries. Emotions he couldn’t quell with a plan.
He used to think every problem had a solution, that most answers were just a few keystrokes away. Knowledge was power, after all. But this was uncharted territory. Win had implied that she’d be the best fit as his doctor because she was an altered beta. But Ollie couldn’t shake the feeling it was more than that. How many experiments had they performed on altered alphas, altered omegas. What were the outcomes?
There was a maternity ward at Veritas. They were standing in it. Was that just for testing fertility drugs, or were their other studies—secret ones—that convinced Win she was the best person for the job? How many pregnancies had occurred within altered genders? What were the outcomes? Had any of them survived to term?
He would ask, but why bother? He wouldn’t trust her, anyway. Ollie wanted facts, assurances. He wanted to see the data. But how much data could there be? Most of the drugs on those shelves were only now just out of phase three clinical trials.
Which meant they were about to flood the market. Veritas claimed they’d been created successfully with synthetic alpha blood, but could they be believed? If, somehow, each of those meds required actual enigma blood, they’d drain Deke dry before it was over.
“I just need your pants down under your belly,” Win said.
She flipped a switch and, suddenly, the screen in front of him looked like a staticky television. Ollie flushed as he lifted his shirt and shimmied his pants down to his hips. Why did he feel so exposed?
“Perfect. I’m just going to take some measurements, listen to the heartbeat, make sure everything is as it should be,” she said cheerily.
Ollie found Deke’s hand and squeezed it as he watched Win squirt blue jelly over a flat wand-like apparatus.
“It’s warmed,” she said a moment before the gel made contact with his skin.
He flinched anyway, not from the sticky substance but from the sudden image on the screen. It was hard to discern what he was looking at—blobs of white on a snowy gray background. He was expecting to see a tiny bean-shaped object with a fluttering little light as the heartbeat. But she just kept moving the wand over him. It felt like it went on for hours, but it was likely only a minute or two at most.
“There we are,” she said, pleased. “It took a little longer to find them. The baby’s implanted higher in the uterus than normal. That doesn’t mean there’s a problem, but we should monitor it closely.”
Ollie nodded even though she wasn’t looking at him. She held the wand in place while she typed some letters that formed on the large screen, mostly noting left or right, but also some abbreviations he didn’t understand.
“Okay, now, let’s see if your little star is ready for their big debut,” she teased, tittering at her own lame joke.
Ollie couldn’t stop the way his breath hitched when something that could only be the side profile of his baby appeared on the screen. Binnie and Fen also gasped. When Ollie risked a glance at Deke, he looked moments away from blacking out.
The fetus was still slightly bean-shaped where it lay, but there was no missing that there was a head, a body, the side of one long leg. He squeezed Deke’s hand harder to keep from hyperventilating. That was a real baby in there. Their baby. He tried to take it all in, but the baby kept moving around, making Win have to move the wand to readjust the image.
“You’ve got a real wiggle worm in there,” she said. “Look, they’re sucking their thumb.”
Ollie’s heart did something complicated with her words. There was a choked noise from over near the rest of the pack. Was someone crying? Probably Binnie. He was the softest alpha Ollie had ever known. Deke was breathing heavily beside him, smelling like a dozen different emotions. Fear. Pride. Love. Awe. Ollie felt all that and more. This was crazy. How were they going to be parents?
“How far along did you say you were?” Win asked, marking the length of the baby’s femur on the screen in front of them.
She was attempting to keep her voice neutral, but there was an edge to it that cut through Ollie’s already fragile grip on his calm facade.
“Um, around eight or nine weeks, I think,” he said, licking his suddenly dry lips. “Why?”
“Are you sure of that?” she asked, moving the wand around and typing away.
“That’s when Deke presented,” Ollie answered. “That’s when I got pregnant. Why?” he asked again, this time not bothering to hide his anxiety.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” she assured him. “Your baby’s measuring a few weeks ahead of schedule—nothing concerning, but we’ll want to monitor their growth pattern over the next few weeks to make sure we don’t have to worry about an early birth.” She pushed a button. “Let’s listen to the heartbeat.”
A few weeks ahead wasn’t concerning? Before he could spiral, a rapid lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub filled the room.
“It’s so fast,” Fen said, sounding a little alarmed. “Is that normal?”
“Perfectly,” Win said. “Their heartbeat is perfect.”
“Can you tell the gender?” Binnie blurted.
Nobody was more excited about this baby than Binnie. Even the parents.
“Normally, the fetus is too small to get a good look, but since your little overachiever is measuring ahead, I can try.” She looked down at Deke and Ollie. “Do you want to know the sex?”
Ollie looked at Deke, who shrugged. “Kinda, but it’s up to you.”
Ollie liked being able to plan ahead. “Yeah, if you can tell us today, we’d like to know.”
“If we can’t tell right now, I can do a fingerstick and have the blood test results in about a day,” Win said.
Ollie took a few deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth, trying to sooth the omega pacing within him. The others could smell his emotions just like he could smell theirs. He wasn’t fooling anyone, but he needed to do something to slow his heartbeat before he passed out.
The others started to laugh as the baby did gymnastics in his belly in an attempt to outrun the wand trying to get a good look between their legs.
“They’re shy,” Win said around a laugh. After another few minutes passed, she paused, snapping a pic on the screen. “Victory,” she cried.
“You got it?” Loch asked, something akin to hope creeping into his voice for the first time since they’d entered the facility.
“Yes,” she said, giving a smile that seemed genuine. Ollie wanted her to just blurt it out, but she seemed to draw it out for dramatic effect, like she was announcing the winner of a game show. “Now, it’s early, so I would still like to confirm with a blood test, but it looks like you’re having a little girl.” She squealed the last part like she couldn’t help her excitement.
“I knew it,” Binnie said.
Ollie felt like the air had been punched out of him. “A girl…”
“I’m gonna have a…daughter?” Deke asked, his astonishment making Ollie smile. “God, if my father wasn’t dead, this would have killed him.”
“Too bad he missed it,” Fen murmured.
“Bas is also going to be so sorry he missed this,” Win said wistfully. She looked at Deke. “Do I have your permission to tell him? Or do you want to tell him yourself? You could come to dinner this weekend?”
Deke narrowed his eyes at her. “No thanks. As for telling him, it’s not like I have a choice. He can just look up Ollie’s file any time he wants anyway, right?”
Win shook her head. “That’s not true. I know you don’t trust us and that’s fine, but Bas doesn’t have access to any one person’s medical file, even yours. He might see the final data, but he’s not a scientist or a researcher. We tend to dumb it down for the administrative folks. I won’t share anything you don’t want me to. But I know he’d be happy to hear he’s going to have a niece.”
Ollie watched Deke out of his periphery. When he didn’t answer, Ollie said, “It’s fine to share the gender. But I don’t want anyone else having access to my chart. Even your scientists. If that’s part of the deal of you being my doctor, I’ll take my chances on the outside.”
Win gave an exasperated sigh. “Of course not. I just want to help you have the safest pregnancy possible. I don’t work for the lab. I’m only here today to give you a tour and because I wanted to be the first to see my niece. I’m at the hospital far more than I’m here. My biggest concern is keeping you and your baby safe. There are a few things I noted on your ultrasound that we should keep a close watch on.”
“Other than the baby being bigger than usual?” Fen asked, getting to his feet with the others to hover around the table.
She nodded. “The placenta is highly vascularized. Again, while this might be nothing, it can mean that your body is working harder than usual to sustain this pregnancy. It’s not a cause for alarm, just something we should keep a close eye on.”
Ollie’s stomach churned. So, the baby might still be in danger. His body might still betray him. He couldn’t relax. He wouldn’t be able to relax until the baby—his daughter—was born. And even then, a whole new list of fears would come with it.
Win seemed to think Ollie’s silence meant he didn’t believe her.
“If you don’t trust me, I can give you the names of several top OBs in DC.”
“And what about Deke?” Ollie asked, accepting a small towel when Win offered it so he could wipe his belly off before righting his clothes.
“What about him?” Win asked.
Ollie sat up, swinging his legs over the side. “Is his compliance with your requests a condition of you treating me?”
“No. You’re my brother-in-law. I’m going to take care of you regardless.” She looked at Deke. “But I do want to give you one last pitch before you refuse us outright.”
Deke sighed, leaning against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. “Okay. Go ahead.”
“We have achieved amazing things with our breakthroughs in secondary gender science. Using controlled infusions of alpha blood, we’ve had an almost eighty percent success rate in triggering secondary gender shifts. Betas have become full omegas, recessive alphas have unlocked their dominant traits. and even cases of unnatural shifts have stabilized.”
“Why do I feel like there’s a but coming,” Binnie muttered.
“Because there is,” Win said. “Synthetic enigma blood has a less than fifteen percent success rate. Previous trials have shown the effects to be unstable, temporary, and, in some cases, even fatal.”
How long had this research been happening? How many people had died?
“We’ve perfected our other drugs—the heat inducers, the rut amplifiers, the pheromone suppressants—but there’s one thing missing. One that makes them truly stable. Your blood.”
“You said these drugs were about to go on the market,” Fen gasped, looking down at the boxes in his hands.
“The drugs we’ve developed—like those—are fundamentally sound. We can trigger natural biological responses in alphas and omegas. But the problem is that these responses are still only as good as the subject’s own genetic limits.”
“What does that even mean?” Loch asked, crossing his arms to mirror Deke’s stance.
“Without the epigenetic flexibility of enigma blood, we can’t push any further. A normal omega, even with their heat inducer, will only reach their natural peak fertility. A normal alpha in rut will only experience heightened aggression within expected boundaries. But with your blood,” she continued, “we’re no longer bound by biology. We can help omegas go beyond standard fertility thresholds. We can push alphas past their rut limitations. And, theoretically, we could even allow betas to function as fully reproductive alphas and omegas without all the unstable side effects.”
“But…why?” Binnie asked.
“What do you mean, why?” Win countered. “I just told you how many of our patients come to us with fertility issues.”
“Right, but why would you need an alpha to be overly aggressive? Why would you want that?” Binnie asked. “Unless you’re attempting to create some kind of super-soldier like Dresden.”
Win was shaking her head before Binnie even finished. “I’m only telling you what’s capable with Deke’s help, not what we plan on doing with it. I just want you to understand why your blood is so important.”
“This sounds like some kind of Island of Dr. Moreau shit,” Loch said.
“More like Brave New World ,” Fen muttered.
“The success of the enigma blood trials made us believe that we could replicate the effects in the lab. But enigma blood isn’t just an extension of alpha traits, it’s something entirely new,” Win explained. “Something we still haven’t been able to fully decode. Synthetic enigma blood is fundamentally flawed. Whenever we think we’ve stabilized it, a new problem occurs.”
“Maybe that’s because you shouldn’t be doing it,” Deke said.
Win sighed. “I can’t debate you on the ethics part. Everyone has to be guided by their own moral compass. But I can tell you that the only time we’ve ever seen a real, stable, permanent secondary gender shift is when they happen organically, like with Ollie. Like with Loch. We need to understand how you do it. How your pheromones interact with the genetic material in ways we haven’t been able to replicate.”
“That sounds like more than a blood test,” Ollie said, hand fluttering to his belly.
“We don’t want to take your blood forever. We just need enough to keep working to create a stable replication process. One that doesn’t collapse in a week or so. One that won’t have disastrous side effects.”
“This sounds—” Ollie started.
“In return, we can help you control it,” Win said, cutting him off.
“What?” Deke echoed.
“Right now, you’re unpredictable. Your abilities just flare up without warning. But our research shows that previous enigmas were able to control it. We can give you full control over your pheromones. No more uncertainty. No more accidental secondary gender shifts.”
“If you don’t understand how it works, how are you going to teach him how to control it?” Ollie asked.
“We have years of anecdotal evidence that tells us how his gifts work. We haven’t been able to put them to the test because we didn’t have a living, breathing enigma to help us close the gaps in our research. We can explain everything to you. We can help you control it. Just help us improve our patient outcomes in return.”
“It just feels like there’s a catch of some kind,” Fen said. “Like you’re not telling us something.”
Win shook her head. “That’s not true. I’m offering full transparency.” To Deke, she added, “Think about Ollie. Think about your pack’s future children. What happens if you accidentally change one of them again?”
“Don’t guilt him,” Loch said.
“I’m not,” Win promised. “But you’re the catalyst. Every time one of your pack mates is in contact with you, there’s a stronger chance of alteration. It’s not just blood or saliva or semen that can cause a shift. Even exposure to your pheromones can cause a shift in their genetics, just like how you altered Loch.”
The color drained from Deke’s face. “You’re saying I’m a danger to my pack.”
“Yes,” Win said. “If you don’t learn to control your gifts, someone else could inevitably be altered in some way.”
“Deke—” Ollie said, leaning into him.
Win continued, sounding like some zealot at a tent revival. “If we can perfect this, we can ensure safer pregnancies, better survival rates, stronger future generations. Deke, you’ve already seen how unstable things can be when betas become omegas. We can make that process safer, smoother…just overall…better. We just need your help.”
“I—” Deke cut himself off with a huff. “I’ll think about it. That’s the best I can do right now.”
Win grinned, showing off her expensive veneers. “I’ll take it.”
“We should get going,” Loch said. “We’ve kept San alone with Seth and Saint for too long. Saint will be in full rut soon.”
“Oh, wait. Before you go,” Win cut in.
They watched as she pushed a button and nine small photos erupted from the side of the machine. She put them in Ollie’s hand, then reached down and detached something, placing it on top of the photos. A thumb drive.
“What’s this?” Ollie asked.
“It’s the video of your ultrasound. I’m sure the others would want to hear her little heartbeat and see her sucking her thumb.”
Right. Should he have known that? “Oh, thanks.”
When he made for the door, Win put a hand on his arm to stop him. “You should also start taking a prenatal vitamin. I can prescribe?—”
“No,” Deke interrupted. “We’ll get the over the counter ones.”
Win gave a stilted nod. “Sure. Just please start taking them right away. They’re important for the baby’s brain development.”
Ollie nodded.
Win walked them to the front desk where they handed over their visitor badges.
“Please, think about what I said,” Win pleaded. When Deke reluctantly nodded, she gave a little wave. “Drive careful.”
They were almost back to the car when Binnie wrapped his arms around Ollie and Deke. “Congratulations!” he cried, then blinked rapidly like he might actually cry. God, Ollie hoped he didn’t cry. He didn’t have the emotional bandwidth for that. “We’re gonna have a girl in our pack.”
“I bet she comes out looking just like Ollie,” Loch predicted, unlocking the doors.
“Let’s go home and celebrate properly,” Fen suggested, hopping into the passenger seat. “It feels weird to do this without the others.”
Ollie nodded, following Deke into the backseat. The moment the doors were closed, Deke dropped his head to Ollie’s shoulder.
“A girl…” he whispered almost to himself. “We’re having a baby girl.”