Rooming With My Ex-Mate's Hockey Star Brother

SADIE

”What...what do you mean?”

They’re the only word I have left in this hospital room where more and more things about me keep being revealed. My world is shattering piece by piece, taking with it everything I thought I knew about myself.

”Every werewolf is born with the essence of their wolf already there,” she explains. ”Alpha, Beta, Delta, Omega, whatever their natural rank is, it’s present from birth. But it doesn’t fully manifest in infancy. The connection develops as the child grows, and until then, most of what we see are just early markers of what the wolf will become.”

”So the tests I took as a kid—”

”Were measuring markers. Not the finished thing.” She waits until I nod before continuing. ”If that development gets interfered with early enough, the wolf can be suppressed before it ever properly manifests. It doesn’t change what she was born as. But if the suppression is severe enough, the body stops expressing most of the natural rank at all.”

My gaze drops to my hands.

Twenty-one years of being an Omega. The injections. The scorn. I’ve had doctors treat me as one and strangers judge me for being one.

”But my tests said I was an Omega,” I manage.

”Your tests measured what your wolf was capable of expressing at the time.” Dr. Ngozi turns the laptop slightly, although the numbers on the screen mean nothing to me. ”They didn’t reach inside you and ask what she was born as. And right now, your activity index is far too high for what I’d expect from a dormant Omega. It’s high enough that if I saw this result without your medical history attached, I’d think I was looking at an Alpha.”

The word seems to hang there.

Alpha?

I almost laugh, except Dr. Ngozi isn’t smiling.

”That doesn’t mean you are one,” she adds. ”Trey’s suppressant is still the most obvious explanation for why your levels are behaving strangely, and one blood test isn’t enough for me to start rewriting your rank. But it does mean I don’t want to assume you’re an Omega simply because that’s what you’ve always been told. There’s a lot of inconsistencies with your blood work.”

I’ve had bloodwork done before.

More than once, actually. Nobody ever found anything strange enough to sit me down and tell me I might not be the rank I’ve spent my entire life believing I am.

So why now?

Was it Trey’s suppressant? Did taking it somehow bring all of this to the surface? The green eyes, the strength, my wolf suddenly stirring after years of almost nothing. And if the suppressant caused those things, what does that mean about everything Dr. Ngozi just found in my blood?

My throat feels tight.

There are too many questions flitting through my head at once, each one seeming to lead to three more until I start feeling slightly dizzy trying to follow any of them.

My mother. The orphanage. My wolf. Years of suppression.

”Dr. Ngozi, why do you think someone would do this to me?” My voice catches halfway through, and I have to swallow before I can keep going. ”Are you sure you’re not wrong? Maybe I really am just an Omega and all of this is... I don’t know, some strange reaction to Trey’s suppressant. Is that possible?”

”That’s not...”

”Because I think I’d rather that be true.”

At least then, everything I’ve lived through would just be my life. Not something somebody chose for me.

”I wish I could give you the answers you need, Sadie. I really do.” Dr. Ngozi responds. ”But right now, I’d only be guessing, and I don’t want to do that to you.”

The chair in the corner shifts as Trey gets to his feet, and I look up at him.

Maybe it’s his face. There’s anger in it, plain enough that I don’t have to guess for once and something heavier under that.

It makes holding myself together harder, not easier. I bite the inside of my lip and look away. My chest hurts, my throat burns, and sitting here is starting to feel like torture.

”If someone did this to her, then the orphanage is where we start,” Trey says, towering over me. ”Somebody brought her there. Her childhood has to be accounted for.”

”Trey’s right.” Dr. Ngozi chimes in. ”The orphanage is the best place to start. If this was done before you were brought there, there may still be something in your intake records. Medical notes or anything that seemed insignificant at the time.”

Funny. Insignificant is exactly what my whole life is starting to feel like.

Sixteen years in that orphanage meant I got very good at watching other children leave. Even the ones who came after me eventually disappeared through those doors with a new family, while I stayed long enough to watch the next child arrive.

The matron never lied to me about why. I was small for my age. I barely spoke. I’d learned to crawl later than the other babies, and every scrape or bruise seemed to take forever to disappear. There was a whole stretch of my childhood where I wasn’t allowed outside during playtime because one fall could mean another trip to the clinic, so I’d sit by the window and watch everyone else run around until they were called back inside.

I always thought that was just what being me looked like. Or being an Omega, anyway.

Except now I’m sitting here being told that maybe none of it was supposed to happen. And I can’t stop wondering how much that one word has already taken from me.

A family? A normal childhood? My education?

How many times have I lost something because I was an Omega? How many times have I accepted it because that was simply what I was?

Again and again, things have been taken from me, and every time I find a way to live with it. I tell myself it happened, it hurts, but I’ll survive it.

But this? What am I supposed to do with the possibility that I might never have been an Omega at all?

”Sadie?”

Dr. Ngozi’s voice cuts through everything, and I realize she’s watching me.

”Are you okay?”

”Yeah.” I nod quickly. ”I’m fine.”

I push myself out of the chair, mostly because sitting here suddenly feels unbearable, but the room tilts almost as soon as I’m on my feet. I stagger sideways, and Trey catches me, his hands closing around my shoulders, steadying me.

I look up at him.

”You okay?” he asks, his face much closer than I expected.

I force a smile even though my head is still swimming.

”I’m good.”

He doesn’t look convinced, and his hands stay on my shoulders for another second before I ease back.

”Sit for a little longer,” Dr. Ngozi says. ”I’m going to prescribe something to help clear the suppressant from your system faster. It should also help reverse some of the disruption it’s caused while your body settles.”

I nod, but the thought of sitting here while she writes a prescription, with Trey beside me and that screen still holding numbers that have somehow put my entire life into question, makes my chest feel even tighter.

”You can give the prescription to Trey.” I run a hand through my hair. ”I just need a moment.”

Neither of them says anything before I turn for the door, and I’m grateful for it. I don’t think I have enough control over my voice to explain myself without embarrassing all three of us.

I step into the hallway and carefully pull the door shut behind me.

It’s quiet out here. Cold, too, with plain walls and closed doors stretching in either direction. There’s nothing particularly comforting about it, but at least there’s nobody looking at me.

I suck in a hard breath and lean back against the wall.

My lips start trembling before I can stop them.

I press them together, trying to hold myself still, but the first tear slips down my cheek anyway, followed almost immediately by another. Then another.

Within seconds, they’re streaming down my face.