"There's something else." I force myself to focus on the medical, not the personal.
"Late presentation. Twenty-eight years old. That's unusual."
She tenses. "Is that bad?"
"Not necessarily. But it's worth understanding why."
I pull up the research on my tablet, show her the relevant studies. "Sometimes severe psychological stress can suppress omega presentation. Trauma. Emotional abuse. The body's protective mechanism—if you're not safe, it won't put you through a heat cycle that would make you vulnerable."
She goes very still. "You're saying... being with Callum..."
"Kept you suppressed. Yes."
"Your body knew you weren't safe. Wasn't going to present until you were away from the threat. It's actually a remarkable example of how omega biology protects itself."
"So I wasn't broken?"
I meet her eyes. "You were surviving."
Six years. And now she's here, and she's an omega, and she's going into heat, and every instinct I have to claim her as mine.
But I can't. Because she's vulnerable and scared and just escaped from a man who controlled her. Because she needs a doctor, not another alpha trying to stake his claim.
Because wanting someone this badly when they're in crisis makes me exactly the kind of alpha I've always hated.
Except I do want her. Have always wanted her. Will probably always want her.
And now she's two miles away in her mother's house, alone, scared, her body preparing for something she doesn't understand, and I'm sitting in my clinic trying to remember why staying away is the right thing to do.
I have to tell my brothers. About her being an omega. About the heat coming. About all of it.
I have to NOT tell Callum.
The two obligations war in my chest. Loyalty to my pack versus loyalty to my oldest friend.
Except Callum lost the right to that loyalty when he made her feel like she couldn't even see a doctor. When he controlled her so completely that she ran from her own wedding in aruined dress. When he dismissed her symptoms and called her dramatic and made her doubt her own body.
Fuck Callum.
I pull out my phone and open the group chat.
Emergency pack meeting. Tonight. 7pm. Don't be late.
Sergio responds first: What's going on?
I stare at the screen. Think about her scared eyes. Her trembling hands. The heat building in her body like a storm about to break.
Jessica came to see me at the clinic. We have a problem.
Three dots appear. Then Carlos: What kind of problem?
I can still smell her. Can still feel the phantom warmth of her skin against my fingers.
I'm so fucked.
The kind that's going to change everything.
I sit down at my desk and drop my head in my hands.
