I probably look terrible. My eyes are swollen and my face is doing the blotchy, residual thing that happens after a hard cry. Nobody says anything about it.
“She needs a doctor,” Nadia says, directing it at the room. “Not eventually. This week.” Her eyes move between Adrian and Bash, then to Elias. “With a Late presentation, no specialist contact since it started and blockers but no monitored treatment plan… I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but someone in this room needs to make that happen.”
Adrian nods before she finishes the sentence. “I know a clinic,” he says. The answer comes immediately, all traces of his usual easy charm stripped away. “ It’s private practice. They handle dynamic health for people who need discretion. I can call them tonight.”
“How soon?” Nadia asks.
“Tonight,” he says. “If I call now.”
Bash looks at me. “If you’re up for it,” he says.
I nod. “Yeah. I’m up for it.”
Nadia says her goodbyes in the entryway. She hugs me and holds on for a second longer than usual, one hand pressing briefly against the back of my head. When she steps back, the determined edge is gone from her expression, leaving only the softness she saves for moments like this, when she’s stopped trying to get through to me and is just being my friend.
“Text me after the appointment,” she says.
“I will,” I promise.
She glances at the three alphas behind me, and whatever she finds seems to reassure her. She nods once, small and decisive, the way she does when she’s seen enough to make up her mind.
Then she walks out, and her heels disappear down the driveway, and a moment later her car reverses into the street.
* * *
The clinic is exactly what Adrian described. An unremarkable building in a part of the city that favors discretion over visibility. The waiting room is small and well-lit. We arrive just before nine.
The doctor is composed and unhurried, her voice remaining firmly clinical in a way that helps more than I expect.
“When did the symptoms start?”
“About two weeks ago.”
She makes a note. “And the attachment responses?”
Heat crawls up my neck. “They've been getting stronger.”
“Toward specific individuals?”
“Yes,” I admit while avoiding those individuals’ gazes.
She nods as though I've told her something entirely ordinary. “Any changes in scent sensitivity?”
“Yes.”
“Any changes in your sleep?”
“Better recently. Before that, not great.”
“Any disorientation? Difficulty focusing? Periods of heightened emotional response?”
I hesitate before answering. “Yes.” I finally admit.
None of the questions are comfortable. Most of them would have made me want to crawl out of my own skin in a different setting. But she asks them all with the same calm professionalism, taking notes as she goes.
Later, after a small blood draw, she reviews the results on the screen in front of her.
“Your hormone levels are elevated but not outside the range I would expect for a late presentation approaching a first heat.”
