Page 56 of Evan and the Alpha

Evan uses his free hand to flick the end of my snout, a thing he does when he thinks I’m being ridiculous. “First off, Min is a she. And second, she’s just taking samples. She’s going to check my blood and make sure I’m healthy.”

I frown. “Check your blood,” I murmur. “Is this possible?”

Evan nods, and I wonder what blood can tell them. I think of divination, but I somehow don’t think that’s what the humans believe it is. I have no other words for it, though.

I frown again. “What is a she?” I ask finally.

“Huh?” Evan glances up at me, confused. “Oh. Right. Uh, well, in humans we have male and female, right? Instead of alpha and omega, and no betas. So we have different words to identify people. Usually, males are he, and females are she, but not all the time. It depends on if someone thinks of themself as a man or a woman or …”

He must be able to tell I’m more confused than before because he trails off. “Anyway, it doesn’t really matter, other than Min wants us to call her ‘she’ when we’re talking about her in the third person.”

“Yes please,” Min says with a smile and a twinkle in those dark eyes.

“She,” I try. “You’re a she.”

Min nods, then lets Evan’s blood gush into little clear vials.Shethen pulls the little needles out of Evan’s arm and presses a lump of white cotton to the crook of his arm. Thenshetakes the blood away while Evan leans back on the platform, sighing. “Little dizzy,” he says, glancing up at me. “Blood loss.”

I growl. “She should not have taken so much then!”

Evan laughs. “It’s—Sobek, it’s okay. They just had to do a lot of testing. I’m three months pregnant and haven’t had any tests done yet. So there’s a lot. It’s fine. She didn’t take that much blood.”

“Nope,” Min agrees from across the lab. “He’s got lots, especially since he’s pregnant! He’ll be just fine.”

I glance between them, then look at Evan. “I like her,” I say, and Evan smiles, nods.

I scowl. “I don’t like your family.”

Evan’s brow clouds. “Huh? What—”

Just then, the doors slide open and in strides Scott, like I summoned him. This only confirms my suspicion that he is a bad spirit of some sort.

“How’s my favorite baby brother?” Scott asks as he approaches the bed. He hesitates, glancing at the tablets with their various information. Evan’s heartbeat spikes, followed by the baby’s.

They don’t like Scott either.

“Pretty good,” Evan says, and I wonder why he’s bluffing like this. Why not just tell Scott to pack up and go back to the other realm, where he belongs?

“Uh-huh,” Scott says, then looks back at Evan. “You really are…”

Evan frowns. “Yeah,” he says. “I am.”

Scott shrugs a little. “Guess we don’t need to do the psych eval then,” he mutters, leaning against the wall.

“I’d still recommend it,” Min says as she returns to our area. She unhooks Evan from the various machines that were pressed up against his skin. The tablets fade to black. “Just because the body’s healthy doesn’t mean the mind is.”

“I feel fine,” Evan protests, and Min gives him this little smile, almost sad.

Sun spirits—humans—do a lot of silent communication, it seems. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard for me to understand Evan sometimes.

“Protocol says,” Min offers with a cheery smile, then picks up her clipboard. “How’s your sleep?”

“Pretty good.” Evan glances up at me, then shifts a bit. “Uh—can we … do this not in front of an audience?”

I frown, but Min nods. She smiles up at me. “Patient confidentiality and all,” she says, and I am fairly certain my eyes cross. The words make little sense, but I nod. Scott waits for me, then exits the room behind me.

Our footsteps echo down the empty corridor. I wonder if everything in the realm of the sun spirits is so hollow and echoing. So bright and shiny and utterly empty.

“So, uh,” Scott says, and I pause. He doesn’t step up with me; he lingers behind. “Sobek, was it?”