Page 53 of Chosen Beta

“That’s kind of strange,” Shadow murmurs. “I’ve never heard of a pack letting one of their members be with someone outside of their group.”

“She’s still fated for us.”

“Well, yeah. She is. What if she’s also fated for that Omega? How would that even work?”

“It would be complicated.”

He runs a hand through his hair, and then shrugs as he picks up his shirt.

“What do we care if she has a thing with another Omega? We all have each other, and we’ve been together for years. She might thinkthat’scomplicated.”

“Huh,” I murmur as I get out of bed.

He’s not wrong, and when I think about it, I wouldn’t care one little bit if Lana needed to be with the other Omega as well as us, as long as that other Omega was treating her right.

He looks at me as I head toward the bathroom door.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Uh, taking a shower before I head back to work?”

He might get a little possessive and demanding at times, but Shadow would never expect me to go to work covered in his scent. It would only create havoc on the wards and make me look unprofessional to my bosses. In this case, I seriously doubt he wants me to get in trouble with the woman we’re about to attempt to court.

“How long do you have, exactly?” he asks.

“I’m guessing I’m already pretty late,” I admit.

“Well, take your shower, but I’m making you eat something before you go back to work. My slick doesn’t count. You need to take care of yourself properly, and if you’re not doing that, I will.”

“There’s some stuff in the fridge. I would have grabbed something.”

“Sure, sure. I’ll make you something decent while you shower.”

He moves out of the room, and I head into the bathroom.

I’m a little sad that I need to shower so soon after we’ve been together.

Spending days doused in his scent is a luxury I haven’t allowed myself to indulge in for a very long time. It’s not smart to walk around in public smelling like an Omega, in general.

The aphrodisiac qualities of an Omega’s perfume are highly unpredictable.

It’s extra potent to his mates, of course, but other people can be affected by it and that’s where things can get dicey. I’ve no interest in riling up my coworkers, and we have way too many vulnerable patients who don’t need their senses to be spiked by the doctor who’s supposed to be helping them recover from terrible ordeals.

So, I run the water, and I do some stretches while I wait for it to heat up.

I take my time cleaning up once the water is warm, and I sit down to a meal with my mate in a T-shirt and shorts with towel-dried hair and a bigger appetite than I expected.

Thankfully, Shadow went into full Omega mate mode and cooked a bit of everything that was in the fridge for me, alongside pressing fresh oranges for juice.

It’s not something I would have made for myself, but it’s perfect.

“That was delicious,” I tell him, as I put the fork down on the empty plate.

He smiles, putting his own cutlery down at the same time. “I’m glad you liked it.”

It’s only now that we’re looking at each other from across the table that I realize I’m about to leave the Omega who broke the rules to come out to the city and visit me all alone in a suite he’llbe bored of within minutes once he has nothing to do and no one to do it with.

He gets to his feet and clears the plates.