“Anyway.” The doctor gets back to business. “The reason I prescribed the shower is because you physically need to smell them. You’re suffering from scent sickness.”
“Scent sickness?”
She nods. “A rare biological backlash. When an omega is separated from her scent matches, sometimes her body registers it as a loss, a rejection. It causes severe phantom itching, aches, nausea, even fainting. The treatment is simple, though: close proximity to your scent matches for at least a week.”
I blink. “A week?”
“At least,” she confirms. “Which means you’ll unfortunately have to leave Serenity Ridge. The owner didn’t take kindly to your alphas. I doubt he’d let them stay, even on my prescription.”
“What if they left me an item with their scents?” I ask.
“I’m afraid that’s no real substitute to the real thing,” she says.
I let my head fall back against the pillow.
My expensive, peaceful, yoga retreat.Ruined. Over. Done. Because of my own body. Of course. Of course it would be me who wrecked it.Perfect.Just perfect... and does that mean—
“Doctor,” I say slowly, picking at the paper under me. “This scent sickness thing. Does that mean I can never be away from them for long? Like, ever?”
The doctor tilts her head, and something almost puzzled crosses her face. “Why would you want to be away from them?” she asks. “They’re your scent matches. You’re meant to be together.”
She says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And maybe, for most omegas, it’s supposed to be that simple.
“It’s just—” I start, then stop. How do I even begin to unpack this for a stranger? “The thing is, we just met. Like, days ago. And I live eight hours from them by car.” I pick at the paper faster. “And I, um. I just got out of a relationship. A bad one.”
You’ll be lost without me. You know that. You ruin everything you touch.
No.I shove Derek’s voice back down before it can dig in. Not here. Not now.
“And I like them,” I push on. “I do. I just—I don’t reallyknowthem yet. And based on my track record, my judgment about this stuff is... bad. I tend to mess things up.” I pause. “So I guess what I’m actually asking is... if it doesn’t work out with them. If I screw it up, will I ever be able to live a normal life again? Or am I just—stuck like this now?”
The doctor goes quiet for a moment, considering me.
“It’s hard to say,” she finally admits. “Every omega reacts to scent sickness differently. Some never experience it at all. Others get it, but only at the very beginning, right when they’ve met their matches, the way you have now. And in the rare cases where things genuinely don’t work out...” She lifts a shoulder. “Well, let’s just say most are perfectly fine after a period ofadjustment. How long that period lasts depends on the omega. Could be a few days. Could be longer.”
“Could be,” I echo, because I can hear the rest of it sitting there, unsaid. “And for the rare cases?”
“A very small number of omegas never fully adjust to being apart from their scent matches,” she winces.
My stomach drops.
“So I could be one of those,” I say, my voice going thin. “I could end up never able to—”
“I have to emphasize, this isextremelyrare,” she says. “Vanishingly rare. And rarer still is true scent matches falling apart in the first place.” She steps closer, resting that warm hand back on my shoulder. “My advice? For now, follow the prescription. One week. Use it to actually get to know them. Nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand, you’ll take to this pack like they’ve always been yours. I’m sure it won’t even take you the full week to feel it.”
I swallow. “What if I’m the one out of a thousand?”
She smiles, soft. “Don’t worry about being an edge case. We’ve all dated the wrong people, you know. Every single one of us. That doesn’t make any of us fundamentally broken.” Her eyes hold mine, steady. “And it doesn’t make you broken either. So don’t be scared. All right?”
I nod, and look up at the ceiling tile.
Perfect.Just perfect.
“Now.” She gives my shoulder one last pat and straightens, scooping her tablet back off the counter. “I’ll let you rest. I’ll come fetch you the moment your alphas are cleared andshowered. The shower’s on my prescription by the way, so you can smell them.”
The door clicks shut behind her.
And then it’s just me, the paper crinkling under me, and the wreckage of the time I came here for. My expensive retreat... theone that was supposed to get me back to work in perfect shape... And beyond that lies a question I can’t quite shake despite the doctor’s reassurances.What if I’m the edge case?
