Page 162 of Altius
He gestured toward the spare bedroom off the kitchen, where their old couch sat, surrounded by empty cardboard boxes and rolls of paper towels.
I plopped down on the lumpy couch. “What’s up?”
Alijah glanced over his shoulder before stepping inside, then carefully closed the door behind him. “I think Morgan might have the wrong idea about why Dr. McEwen dismissed her early, and I don’t know how to tell her.”
“What do you mean?”
“She—she…” He wrung the neck of the spray bottle, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Her pheromones. They were horrible. Not rusty, but more like…withered. It was different from before, after her seizure. Imagine that fear was a flower growing in a swamp of grief.”
Alijah’s vivid description added another sickening layer to the footage he’d captured.
Not only had Garvey attacked her, but he’d also forced her to relive part of the trauma caused by her accident—an omega athlete with a concussion, who’d been left vulnerable by a system more focused on results than safety.
Sure, she’d fought through it, maybe even healed a bit from the experience, but that didn’t mean her pheromones had been on the same wavelength as her logical mind.
I ran a hand through my hair for the hundredth time today. “She took it as Dr. McEwen turning his back on her, as a physician, rather than wanting to get her to a safe place?”
“Yeah. She was…” Alijah’s voice wavered, eyes dropping to the floor as he picked at the label on the bottle. “She’s so strong, Cal. Before, during, after—I… I’m just so in awe of her, and I can’t tell her because she won’t believe me. I saw some of hertexts with Reyhan last night. She thinks she didn’t do enough for Amir. And…”
While Alijah tried to find the right words to continue, my phone buzzed in my hand. It was a text from Joaquin.
Owen’s phone just rang. He answered it. Sounded like someone from Redwing. Talking in his suite now.
My stomach sank. Owen rarely answered phone calls.
“Are you still checking Morgan’s hormones?” Alijah asked gingerly.
“Not for a few days. Why?”
“I think her pheromones get weird when she’s apart from Wyatt for too long. The same goes for him. Wyatt was fine when he left for his away meet, but he stank when he got back. Ask Joaquin if you don’t believe me.” Furrows dug into Alijah’s forehead. “Morgan was fine at the start of the week, but she had a few hiccups on Thursday and Friday, and then by the time we got on the plane…”
When I opened the hormone-tracking software on my phone, I received a nasty surprise. Morgan had been just shy of entering a heat spike last night.
“You’re right.” Glancing at the anxious beta, I forced out a smile of appreciation, despite the serious ramifications for Morgan’s health. “Good catch.”
Alijah’s head dropped forward, squeezing the neck of the bottle. “But it’s not good news for them, is it? Wyatt told us he has waning syndrome.”
Tapping the side of my phone, I leveled with him. “I don’t know. Morgan didn’t have a heat for a long time, so it could be that she needs to have a few more before things even out. But yes, Morgan might have it, too. We won’t know until we run some more tests.”
He gave a half-hearted nod. “I just want her to be healthy.”
“She will be. We’ll make sure of it.”
“Okay.” Alijah’s head snapped to the side, nose wrinkling in disgust. “Owen’s coming this way. He smells pissed, and I’m not sticking around to find out why.”
He opened the door and fled to the safety of the laundry room across the hall.
Rapid steps, echoing with vexation, preceded Owen’s entrance. After closing the door, he marched over and sat next to me. He crossed his legs and stared at the ceiling. Nostrils flared, mouth pinched, his breathing intentionally deep and even—the Owen version of a temper tantrum.
“Everything all right?” I asked.
“No.” One tap of his pointer finger was followed by a second…then a third.
God damn it.
“Morgan was right,” he said, taking off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. “San Diego media overheard Garvey’s outburst about the pheromone bombing. After last night’s fiasco, they contacted Redwing PR for comment.”
Owen fixed me with a steely gaze, even colder without the protective shield of his lenses.
