I whirl to face my dad, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. “Jett is a fucking idiot. You have to see that. She’s been in heat for two fucking weeks, Dad. Two whole weeks!”
My dad just purses his lips, narrowing his gaze on Jett. His fingers drum against his wooden desk, but he remains silent.
Jett shrugs, but his lips quirk up into an infuriating smirk. I want nothing more than to drive my fist through his face.
“We’ll just have to stop it the natural way, right, Doc?”
Dr. Stetson stands awkwardly by the door, his knuckles white around the handle of his briefcase.
“If you truly don’t have any of the drug the facility used, then yes. I have no way of even trying to replicate it with the resources I have,” he says hesitantly.
Jett opens his mouth, probably to do something as fucking twisted as volunteering.
“You’re not getting anywhere near her,” I snarl. “Omega biology 101. The last thing an omega needs while she’s in heat isstress. And I think it goes without saying that you stress her the fuck out.”
The last thing an omega needs, period, is stress, but I’m not going to argue that right now. Not when we have a pressing issue at hand.
I’ve waited helplessly outside her cell door, waiting for her heat to break, waiting for her to stop sobbing in pain. For weeks. Sleepless night after fucking sleepless night.
I haven’t been allowed in. Jett is the only one with the fucking key.
The only thing I can do is pray she passes out from the pain. She’s been doing that more frequently, too. Probably because her body is so weak from being in heat twice the length of a long heat.
“You can fuck right off with that,” Jett snaps back. “It’s not like you can help her at all. You’re just abeta.”
There Jett goes again, spitting out any other designation other than alpha like a slur.
“Rowan is right,” Dr. Stetson adds, straightening his shoulders as he meets Jett’s cutting glare. “Having a partner she doesn’t trust helping her through a heat as damaging, both physically, hormonally, and psychologically as this one could break her. This level of stress can kill omegas.”
Kill.
The word cracks through the room like a gunshot.
Mirabelle coulddie.
I could lose her. We could lose her.
It feels like all the progress the alpha fighters have made has been slipping through my fingers the longer Mirabelle is gone.
The longer they know Mirabelle is being tortured, suffering alone in a cold concrete cell, bound to a fucking bare mattress, the more of themselves they seem to lose.
It doesn’t help that I haven’t been able to transport them to the practice barn nearly as much to burn off their excess energy since I’ve been glued to thedoor of Mirabelle’s cell.
“I hope you’re making progress with synthesizing Mirabelle’s blood into a makeshift booster drug, Doctor,” Dad says, cutting his gaze to Dr. Stetson.
“I’m making progress, but it is a complicated process and an even more complicated formula. Rest assured that I’ll be able to make do with the amount of blood that’s already been... collected.”
“We’re on a tight timeframe, Doctor. I hope you understand that.”
“I do. It just goes against my regular scope of practice?—“
“You have a hefty reward waiting for you when you succeed. And a punishment if you don’t. I’m sure you won’t disappoint. You’ve been very loyal to the family.”
Dr. Stetson gives my dad a serious nod.
“So then,” my dad says slowly, turning to me. “What exactly were you thinking, Rowan? Your brother has a point. There’s no way a beta can help her through her heat at this stage, no matter how... close you two may be.”
My pounding heart stutters in my chest. This is it. My opportunity to help Mirabelle.
