“Itoldyou I was fine. I gave you all a video call! How much more proof do you need to understand that I’m safe?” Ottis was standing taller than he had since Doc brought him home. Hiseyes flashed gold, his chest heaved, and he trembled with a rage that seemed to run deeper than a simple misunderstanding.
He was really fucking hot like this.
Crush narrowed his eyes. “Seriously? All you showed us was a snapshot of you naked in someone’s bed—”
Ottis rolled his eyes so hard, his head rolled along with it. “All you saw were my shoulders.”
“You didn’t even tell us whose bed it was.”
“Yeah, and you’d want to see a picture of him too, won’t you?” Ottis snapped. “You’d want to see me knotted with Doc—”
Crush turned faintly green. “No, we don’t—”
“—you wouldn’t even believe he was inside me; you’d want video evidence of me stretched around his—”
Crush stuck his fingers in his ears, horrified. “I’m not listening! I don’t want to know!”
“I would consent to that video,” Doc said to Ottis. “Purely for research purposes.”
Ottis glanced at him, some of his fury melting away. “Yeah? Would you let me send it to my pack?”
“Why not?” Doc grinned, his scars pulling around his lips. “I would be honored to knot a beautiful omega like you. In fact, I would spread evidence of that claim far and wide. Make it wet and messy so they know exactly what I’ve claimed you with.”
Ottis hummed, sounding pleased. “I would let you do it.”
Warmth slid through Doc’s body. “We can make that video when we get home.”
Crush made terrible dying sounds.
Ottis kicked his brother’s shin. “You deserved that.”
Crush’s omega Killian pushed their cart into the aisle, looking exasperated. “Crush, when you said you were going to look for something, you meant Ottis?”
Crush huffed. “Ottis doesn’t have a good track record with alphas. You can imagine our panic when he said he had found himself another one.”
That, Doc had not known. His instincts snarled beneath his skin. “Multiple alphas have hurt you, sweetheart?”
Ottis squirmed and couldn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
That just made everything worse.
Crush’s eyebrows shot up. “‘Sweetheart’? How long have you two known each other? ‘Cuz last I heard, Ottis didn’t have an alpha. He returned to the pack to get away from his previous one.”
Ottis cringed, shrinking into himself.
There was something so wrong with his reaction that Doc growled. “When was this?”
“Couple months ago,” Crush said.
“I could’ve been chatting with Doc for two months,” Ottis muttered.
“Except you looked beaten down that entire time, and now you don’t,” Crush said, glancing at Doc. “Are you serious about the courtship?”
“Yes,” Doc said.
Crush raised an eyebrow. “After a day?”
“He’s funny. I like him.” Doc leaned in to rub his nose against the top of Ottis’ head. He couldn’t smell much of Ottis through the masks, but last night... Last night, Ottis had smelled warm and earthy, like the forest. “He smells good.”
