“Neglect, again?” I’m not sure I’d ever seen Brennan this rumpled in public. He was literally wearing a T-shirt from his university, sweats, and sneakers, hair unbrushed.
Spencer wore a suit, and I’d thrown on the pants and button down I’d planned on wearing in the morning.
“Don’t worry, the advocate they sent to talk to me knows meandMrs. Beekman. I think a lot of this isn’t just Grace being a gamma, but what made her a gamma. Electrical current can fuck up a body’s ability to go into heat,” Evan explained. “I sort of forgot about that.”
“Fuck. I remember what they did to her. She’d come to me in our dreams and cry and tell me about it, while I held her.” I punched my hand. She’d clutch Mr. Hippo and sob into my shoulder.
“She told me that they gave her a fucking heart attack.” Brennan looked like he wanted to rip someone’s head off. Jett gave him a squeeze.
“Yeah, I remember that, too.” My head bowed. The dreams had stopped not long after that–and part of why I thought that shedied.
“I’m guessing that Grace has been having years of really shitty heats without knowing. I don’t know if they got shitty because of heat sickness, or if they’ve always been that way because that’s all her body could accomplish. She thought she was getting bad pre-menstrual cramps and sometimes vomiting and having a fever. But she was really in heat–and no one realized it. Not even her,” Evan told us.
“I wasn’t there.” My hands fisted. “She was all alone, andI wasn’t there.Fuck.”
My poor Peaches. The idea of her suffering, and not knowing what was happening to her, wrecked me. Years and years of being all alone with her heat and no one helping her could fuck her up so bad.
Spencer squeezed my shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault, Wes.”
“I still feel bad. Though I’m surprised with everything that has happened to her, that her body could even go into heat. Not all gammas do.” My brows furrowed.
The three of them looked at me.
“What?” My heart fell.
“She’s mated. It was probably her body’s way of looking for you. Every so often it would go,Where is he?And it would try to call you in the best way it knew how. Well, that’s what we’re guessing,” Evan said softly. “Sometimes it happens. Also, you bonded young, and were very serious from a very young age, which can have ramifications.”
True. They warned us about that in alpha class in school, but I always ignored it, because they were dreams–and she was my soulmate.
“Fuck.” I wanted to punch something as anger at myself coursed through me. Weweremated, and omegas could get sickwhen separated from their mates for too long. Just because she was a gamma, and I’d bonded her in our dreams, didn’t mean it hadn’t affected her.
“Hey.” Evan got up from the couch and wrapped his arms around me.
“What happened this time? She has us now,” Spencer said.
“She does. Grace has us, the right food, and a comfortable home. We saw her body respond well to Evan’s heat. Also, the Center’s been shooting her up with hormones. The hospital did, too,” Brennan added. “We think it was earnestly trying, but given everything, it just… couldn’t.”
“Fuck.” I clung to Evan. My poor Grace.
“What are they doing for her?” Spencer looked around.
“They’re making her comfortable and trying to figure out the best way to fix it. This can’t keep happening to her,” Jett said.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“I want to see her.” Spencer paced the lobby like a feral animal in a cage.
So did I. But I also didn’t want to get kicked out.
Brennan sighed. “They’re making us wait. But maybe now that you’re both here, they’ll let us in.”
“They think we’re neglectful beasts, even though Evan was trying to explain things.” Jett put an arm around Brennan.
I’d failed her. Again.
“Hey, none of that,” Evan said softly.
“But it’s all my fault. I… I bonded with her because I was trying to help her, and all it’s done is cause problems for her.” I winced.
