I hold his gaze. My youngest brother has always been the most emotionally transparent of the three of us. Everything he feels lives right behind his eyes. And right now, those hazel eyes are broadcasting confusion and anger and something else—something hungry and guilty and deeply unsettled.
I know that look.
I've been wearing it for days.
"Sit down," I say.
"I don't want to sit down."
"Bane."
He sits. Drops into the leather chair across from my desk like his strings were cut. His knee bounces. Restless energy with nowhere to go.
"Talk to me," I say. Keep my voice even. Controlled. The voice I use when one of my brothers is spiraling and someone needs to be the anchor. "What happened?"
"I was in the library." He runs a hand through his damp hair. Leaves it sticking up at odd angles. "Max was there. Working on something for school. He'd been there a while."
I wait. Patient. Let him get there on his own.
"He fell. Tried to get up from the chair and his hand slipped and I caught him." Bane's jaw works. The muscle jumps beneath stubble. "And when I caught him—when I was close enough to—"
He stops. Looks at me.
"You smelled it," I say.
Not a question.
Something in Bane's expression cracks open. Relief and dread pouring through the fissure in equal measure.
"You already know." His voice is flat. Accusatory.
"I've suspected." I pull the Blanton's from the drawer again. Pour a second glass. Slide it across the desk to him.
"Since when?" he asks, taking the glass. His hand is steady. The rest of him is not.
"The night he collapsed." I take a slow sip. Let the burn settle in my chest. "His scent was—" I pause. Search for words that don't make me sound as far gone as I am. "Present. Unmistakable."
"Unmistakable." Bane laughs. Sharp. Humorless. A sound that has nothing to do with humor. "That's one word for it. I nearly lost my mind in a fucking armchair, Atlas. From residual scent. He wasn't even in the room anymore and I could barely think straight."
"I know the feeling."
"Do you? Because you're sitting there sipping bourbon like you're discussing last quarter's margins, and I just—" He stops. Takes a drink. A long one. Sets the glass down hard enough that bourbon sloshes over the rim. "He's an omega."
The word fills the room. Heavy. Real. No longer a suspicion or a theory or a possibility I can file away for later analysis. A fact. Undeniable.
"Yes," I say.
"How long has he been hiding it?"
"I don't know. Years, presumably." I take a slow sip. Let the burn settle while I think it through. "He has to be on something—some kind of medication that masks his scent. Suppressants, maybe. Whatever it is, it's failing." I think about Max's gaunt face. The weight loss. The fever that nearly cooked him alive. "His body is going through some kind of withdrawal. That's the only thing that explains the collapse."
"Withdrawal." Bane processes this. I can see him turning it over, examining it from different angles the way he does with logistics problems. "So the scent is going to get stronger."
"Yes."
"And his heat—"
"Is coming. Weeks, maybe. Maybe less." I set down my glass. "There's no way to predict the exact timeline."
