21
Crawford
“The lab ranthe testsI asked for,” Brad explained. He sat across the desk from them, his hands clasped together over a paper folder. “Most of the things I was testing for came backnormal.”
“So what’s the problem, then?” Crawford asked. Owen shrank down beside him, intimidated. After almost a year spent caring for his submissive, Crawford read Owen’s posture like Owen was an extension of Crawford’s own body. Owen didn’t want to be here, and Crawford needed to be strong for him. “Is it the scartissue?”
“Apart from that small scar, Owen’s reproductive organs are in exceptional health,” Brad said with a shake of his head. “He’ll be able to carry children and conceive without anissue.”
“Then what’s doing this to him?” Crawford demanded. Brad had to haveanswers.
“Well… the lab tested for all the things I requested, but during their testing, they kept coming across something unusual.” Brad unlaced his fingers and opened the folder. “I’ll spare you the long-winded explanation. Basically, there is an additional sex hormone in Owen’s bloodstream that none of us have seen before. Three days isn’t nearly long enough to do extensive testing on it, but preliminary evidence shows that it massively quickens the ripening of ovum, meaning that not only is Owen going into heat more quickly, but that he’s hyper-fertile when he isinheat.”
Hyper-fertile. Crawford set his lips. “So you meanmultiples?”
“That’s the hypothesis,” Brad said. “Without studies, it’ll be hard to verify. It could be one to three ovum mature per heat, or it could be more. I can’t explain the continual presence of this new sex hormone, or why Owen’s heat has vanished for almost a year, but I’m willing to bet that it’s being produced by a mutation inside of the ovaries themselves, hence their enlarged size. If it was some misguided medical experiment that produced these results, I’m of the opinion that his cycles are so irregular because the procedure was flawed or underdeveloped. It wouldn’t surprise me if the man who did this was using Owen as a guinea pig. The black-market omega trade is still popular even here in Aurora, and there are men willing to spend fortunes to have access to omegas in heat. The more often they go into heat, the more money there is tobemade.”
The longer Brad spoke, the more Crawford’s anger built. Owen, small and scared beside him, shrank into himself even more. To think that someone had lured Owen in and turned him into a medical experiment only to leave him to suffer made Crawford want to rip whoever was responsible limbfromlimb.
To think that Owen could have been enslaved and forced into prostitution brought that anger to awhistlingboil.
“Are there other cases like this that you’ve dealt with?” Crawford asked, doing his best to keep his emotions under wraps for Owen’s sake. “Did you catch the manresponsible?”
“I haven’t seen any other cases like this, no.” Brad paused. He slid one of the papers in the folder across to Crawford. On it was a mug shot of a slender man with a haggard face and tired eyes. “Last year, shortly after the bust at The White Lotus brothel, one of my colleagues was arrested for his involvement withthering.”
Crawford lifted the picture, but his hand stilled when Owen gasped. He set the picture down and turned to Owen to find Owen pressed against the back of hischair.
“That’s him,” Owen uttered, terror vivid in his voice. “That’shim.”
“Then you’ll be glad to know he’s already behind bars,” Brad said. “I wish I had better news for you. We plan to continue to run tests on the hormone. There are likely other victims, all of them suffering in similar ways. The more we know, the more wecanhelp.”
“But youcanhelp, right?” Crawford asked. “You can develop something to suppress the hormone, or… or get rid of it. Something to help Owen lead anormallife?”
Brad frowned. “I know you think highly of me, but I’m no pharmaceutical scientist, Crawford. We’re doing the best we can, and I’ll make sure the issue is brought up, but Owen is one case out of billions of people in the world.Priorities—”
No. Crawford would not allow this to happen. He rose suddenly from his chair, fists clenched. “I don’t care about priorities. I’m not letting himsuffer!”
“The quickest way to eliminate his suffering would be to have his reproductive organs removed,” Brad said. “Without ovum to ripen, even if the hormone was still present, nothing wouldhappen.”
Removing Owen’s reproductive organs would mean he’d never go into heat again. He’d never conceive. Crawford tightened his jaw and looked to Owen for guidance, but Owen was silent in his chair, gazedowncast.
“We need time to think,” Crawford said. He did his best to calm himself. “Thank you for your time today, Brad. We really doappreciateit.”
“We’ll be in touch,” Brad promised. “Don’t be shy toreachout.”
“Thank you, Brad,” Owen murmured as he stood. Crawford saw the weakness in Owen’s legs, and he wrapped an arm around Owen and pulled him close for support and comfort. It had been a hell of a day, and he wasn’t going to let Owen feel abandoned or unwanted. Not now. “We’ll seeyousoon.”
“Take care,”Bradsaid.
They said nothing on the car ride home. All Crawford could do was keep Owen tucked close to his chest, a silent promise that he was there, and that he alwayswouldbe.
They were in this together nomatterwhat.
22
Owen
Owen calledin sickfrom work the next day and stayed the night at Crawford’s. He curled beneath the sheets of Crawford’s bed and breathed in the comforting aroma of their scents mixed together—the woodsy, commanding smell of Crawford’s alpha against the sweet, mellow smell of Owen’somega.
