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She’s having an attack—a bad one. Her temperature, the spasms, the scent—all of it is happening too fast. She must’ve been having symptoms for days. No matter how minor, she was likely dismissing them. Or maybe all the time spent with us was distracting her, making her think she was stronger than she was.
But that’s not the worst of it.
For her symptoms to be this bad this fast, it’s likely she isn’t on any medication to regulate it, which is bad. Very bad. Without the medication, attacks can become lethalfast. I want to throttle her for not taking better care of herself and hold her close and tell her I’ll be the one to do it so she doesn’t have to anymore. My body bristling and scorching all at once with the war of swirling emotions inside.
I’m such an idiot. I should have known. I should have realized this when we met, but I let my anger cloud my senses. I could have taken her to the clinic, put her on a stabilizing treatment, and above all, prevented this agonizing pain she is experiencing. All if I’d just opened my damn eyes.
“Riley, stay awake, now,” I order as she closes her eyes again. She opens them, a vee appearing on her forehead as she frowns at me.
“Wanna sleep,” she mumbles, trying to pull her hand from mine. “Hurts too much. So hard to… stay awake. Let me sleep, Thane.”
“No sleeping,” I say, imbuing my voice with the Alpha command. Her eyes fly open. “You’re going to stay awake with me. I’ve got you, and I’ve got this all handled. Just stay with me.”
The hospital appears up ahead, and I’m fucking shocked we made it in one piece. My thoughts are too jumbled, and I barely remember actually paying attention to the road. I pull up at the curb, slamming on the brakes and leaving the keys in the ignition. The valet service can figure it out. They know my car.
I dash around to grab Riley, gently roll her from her seat into my arms, cradling her scalding body against mine as I pick her up, and run through the sliding glass doors to the emergency department. I ignore the crowded waiting room full of sick people and go right into the department itself, swiping my hospital badge to get through the locked door. “Dr. Miller!” I yell, seeing one of the doctors on rotation. “Please. I have a patient with a severe cervus attack. We need to get her stabilized. Presenting symptoms are fever, spasms, lethargy, and probably a few more if we can get her to talk.”
“Dr. Woods?” He frowns at me, probably confused that I’m here without my uniform.With an Omega.But a moment’s hesitation is all he allows before his critical instincts have kicked in and he’s paging for help.
“Bring her in here.” He takes me to a private exam room, and I lay Riley on the sparsely made bed. Her eyes are closed now. Shit.
“Riley, baby, wake up,” I say, snapping my fingers by her ears, and then tapping on her cheek. Nothing.
More people crowd into the room. Someone mutters, “Patient is unresponsive,” and I. Lose. My. Goddamn. Mind.
Red fog takes over my vision. I growl and swipe at a nurse coming toward my Riley, and she curses under her breath, something about an uncontrolled Alpha and calling security. I don’t know who she’s even talking about. What Alpha? Riley is mine.Mine mine mine mine mine—
“All right, son,” a familiar voice says, breaking through the chaos in my brain like a lighthouse in the fog. “It’s time to let them do their job.”
I blink once, twice, and realize I’m huddled over Riley’s body, growling at an entire room of doctors and nurses. Dad is holding my arm, a no-nonsense expression on his face. He tugs once, and somehow I let go of Riley, wincing as an entire medical team surrounds her on the bed. I catch Papa’s face among the other doctors, and he gives me a solemn nod before returning to Riley. He’s not even scheduled to be in the ER today, and yet in the past few minutes, he came in and suited up in his scrubs.
Dad leads me into an empty examination room instead of going back to the waiting room. He motions for me to sit on the bed while he sits on the wheeled stool meant for the attending doctor.
“Breathe, Thane,” he says. “If you don’t calm down, they’ll sedate you. Hell, I’ll sedate you. I’ve done it to a lot of Alphas, and I have no problem sedating my own son.”
I huff out a laugh, but it sounds crazed. “She has cervus, Dad. She has cervus. I didn’t know. I didn’tknow.”
“I guessed as much,” he says, folding his hands in his lap. He looks down at the floor. “I thought I scented it right when we came in, but you know how different it presents in each case. I’m surprised you didn’t pick up on it sooner.”
I begin to protest, but he holds up a hand. “It doesn’t matter. You need to tell me the truth, and you need to start from the beginning. If not as your father, then tell me as Riley’s doctor. I’ll do what I can to help her but I need all the facts.”
I take a deep breath, and everything from the past few weeks spills out. I tell him how Miles found Riley in the first place, and how she was on illegal suppressants and scent blockers. How she had run away from her Alpha fathers because they didn’t protect her. I tell him about Riley’s strange scent, but that I wasn’t thinking clearly and never put the clues together. And of course, I tell him about how Levi, Miles, and Fox are absolute goners for her.
“And what about you?” he asks when I finally stop talking. “Are you, as you said, ‘a goner’ for her?”
“I don’t know,” I say on an exhale. “Yes? But I,” I feel my voice about to break and clam up before it can, swallowing to cover the ache in my throat before I can speak again, “I don’t want to hurt. I don’t want to watch her die. Ican’twatch her die.”
He nods again, still staring at the floor, his forehead wrinkled in thought. Finally, he lets out a long sigh and meets my gaze. His eyes are so much like my own that it’s unnerving.
“We have a lot to talk about. You, me, your papa, and your mom. I’m disappointed in you. I’m disappointed in a lot of things that you’ve done, and I’m disappointed that you thought you had to fake your relationship with Riley as your Omega because you thought that was how to make us happy.” He rubs at his temple and flinches. “But I have a feeling you’re disappointed in us, too.”
My jaw drops. I’ve never, ever heard my father sound vulnerable, and now that he is showing the smallest bit of humility, I don’t know what to say. I want to end the conversation, go back to Riley, but I can’t. I just sit there, stunned, unable to say a damn word.
“That’s something we’ll need to address. We never meant to make you feel pushed into anything you didn’t want. We thought… anyway, it doesn’t matter now. We’re going to table that talk,” he continues. “Right now, we need to figure out Riley’s treatment plan. It’s not going to be easy, you know that, right? From the look of it this was a massive attack, and she’ll be lucky if she doesn’t sustain any brain damage from her fever. It was over 109 if the first check was correct before I needed to haul you out of there.”
109?
My head spins, and I bend over my knees, barely able to breathe.
