After what had to be the longest five minutes of my life Zhao finally signed whatever he’d been reading and put it to the side and looked up at me. Despite his suit and fancy office the man looked tired and I had a feeling that I had a lot to do with that.
“So, Mr. Sawyer—”
“You can just call me Link.” I cut in, I hated being called Mr. Sawyer by people who weren’t my clients.
Zhao didn’t look pleased at having been interrupted, “Fine, Link, the reason that I agreed to meet with you today was so that you could tell us your side of the shitstorm that you caused with our omega.”
Oookay. Where to even start?
“I fucked up.” There, that pretty much summed it all up.
“I’ll say.” The giant man standing in the corner scoffed, “But we’re looking for details, beta.”
I clasped my hands in front of me, my thumbs coming together and separating before coming together again—a nervous tick that I thought I’d grown out of years ago.
“I came to get Eloise when she was eighteen. I was going to school at Stanford university and I’d gotten an apartment and everything. I was always going to come back for her.”
Zhao leaned forward, “So then what the hell happened?”
“The chairwoman pulled me aside and basically told me that there was no way that I could take care of an omega on my own. She showed me the statistics about early omega deaths and a bunch of other shit. I was twenty years old and scared shitless that I was going to be the reason that something bad happened to her… so I just left. I told myself that I’d come back eventually when she found a pack and see if there was a place for me but I guess time got away from me and it was just easier that way.”
Zhao cursed under his breath, “That damn academy. I swear they think they are helping when they just make things worse.”
I was confused, “What do you mean?”
“The academy was right about you not being able to handle an omega on your own—there is a reason for the alpha-omega dynamic after all. But they fucked up just about everything else in this situation. By not letting you even see Eloise they basically signed her death certificate themselves. She refused to even consider a pack and was convinced you’d come back for her.”
He reached into his desk and withdrew a manila envelope, “I’m only showing you this because I think it’s important.” He said and tossed it towards me. I caught it and opened it, pulling out the short stack of papers inside.
My eyes immediately caught on to the words ‘heat monitoring’.
‘TAYLOR, ELOISE. At age 24, none of the heat suppressants that are currently FDA approved currently take any effect any longer. Ms. Taylor has been on heat suppressants since her first heat at age fifteen and most omegas only remain on them for 3-5 years. This year marks the 9th year for Ms. Taylor on heat suppressants.
This last heat lasted for more than two weeks, the first week we were unaware it was even happening until Tabitha Sinclair, Ms. Taylor’s roommate alerted us to her condition. Ms. Taylor was completely dehydrated and was exhibiting seizure-like symptoms. Add in a low blood pressure and dramatic weight loss and we were unsure if her body could survive the heat.
We kept her under twenty-four hour surveillance for seven days until we felt that her condition had stabilized.
The medical team is recommending that Ms. Taylor either finds a pack containing an alpha or the academy hires an alpha service for her next heat. We are unsure whether or not her body can hold up under the next heat if she chooses to go it alone.’
What. The. Fuck. Bile rose in my throat and I shot up from my seat and lunged for the trashcan next to the door and held it up to my face as I emptied the contents of my stomach.
“What the fuck?” I asked out loud this time and spit the taste of vomit out of my mouth and into the trash can. I sat for a moment, willing my stomach to calm before shakily pushing the trashcan away from myself.
Zhao sighed and stood, coming around his desk and took the trash can from me, placing it just outside of his office door, “Alexa, can you call custodial to come and pick this up? Thanks.” Before closing the door again.
“So all of that time that I thought Eloise was safe and thriving at the academy she was suffering?” I couldn’t believe it. This had to be some kind of a nightmare and I was going to wake up at any moment now and it would just be business as usual: go to work and then go home. But no matter how many times I blinked, Eric Zhao and Gage Larson were still looking at me with mixed expressions of sympathy and anger.
“Yep. Turns out at least one of you held onto that damn childhood promise of yours. Eloise refused to even consider an alpha pack because she was waiting for you all this time. It wasn’t until they basically forced us together that she even considered us and now you showing back up has screwed us all over.”
“Do you still love her?” Larson asked and I got the feeling he didn’t speak much. His voice was gravelly from disuse.
“I never stopped loving her.” I confessed, “It’s different now that we’re adults, I’m sure, but Eloise has always been a huge part of my life.”
“And do you want that to change?” Zhao asked. I shook my head. “Well, then I guess we’re going to have to fix this shit then now won’t we?”
31
“I’m not sure about this Dom.” Eloise sounded nervous as I pulled her onto the smooth floor of the skating rink. This was the first night that I’d managed to get her away from the house. She’d spent the entirety of yesterday holed up in her nest or watching movies with Owen and Leon. Things had changed when they came back from the drive that Leon had taken her on. He’d begun to touch her more, his fingers brushing her shoulder or hand while they were watching movies or playing with her hair. I couldn’t shake the feeling I was falling behind. So I needed to get a move on or Eloise would leave me in the dust.
