Page 55 of Frenzy
“This is Stacey. She is a doctor,” Courtland explained.
“And genius,” the kid on the floor added proudly.
Courtland raised an eyebrow. “That’s her Alpha.”
Well, I guess that was cute.
“I noticed that she had an imbalance of proteins in her gamma-aminobutyric acid receptor A—”
“In English, Stace. We aren’t all doctors,” Bohdie said softly.
“Or geniuses,” I added, smiling so she knew I wasn’t being an asshole.
“Uh, okay,” the girl—Stacey, I guess—started. “So the brain chemicals that increase during anaesthesia, or like, when you get blackout drunk, were elevated in Bonnie, which is what is causing her to sleep. This can be reversed fairly easily with a cocktail of drugs, in the same way you’d reverse a medically induced coma.”
My heart skipped and I stepped toward her. “Then do it?”
She frowned at me like I was an idiot. “The body just doesn’t shut itself down like that for no reason. Prematurely waking her up could cause her indescribable pain or damage. So I searched for a reason why the body would take such a drastic measure.”
She handed me a clipboard. On it were three columns of abbreviations and numbers I didn’t understand. I handed it to Courtland, who frowned down at it too.
“You’re going to have to spell this out like we’re idiots.”
Stacey huffed and got a pen. She pointed to the first column. “So this column here is the hormone levels and other bloodwork that Doc did on Naja. I believe that's your sister?” she said to Courtland, who nodded. Then she pointed to the third column. “This is the bloodwork I did on a mated female Beta, for a baseline, while we were treating her daughter who’d collapsed.” She flicked her pen with a flourish, like she’d just delivered a smoking gun.
“Still confused, kid,” I grumbled, and she frowned at me.
“The middle column is obviously Bonnie, which I drew yesterday. Which other column does her bloodwork most resemble?” she asked slowly, like we were first graders.
I looked between the numbers, matching them up, and then sucked in a breath. Courtland went totally stiff beside me.
Pryce made a whining noise beside Bonnie’s bed. “What is it?”
I looked at Courtland, my eyes so wide they would pop out of my head if I so much as sneezed.
“Bonnie is turning into an Omega.”
The girl—this smart, amazing doctor—was shaking her head. “No, not turning into an Omega. Sheisan Omega.”
Holy fuck.
31
Courtland
My brain kept banging up against the idea that Bonnie, my Bonnie, was now an Omega. It made sense, I guess. The change in her scent, the change in how Pryce responded to her—hell, how we all responded to her.
My Beast howled with happiness, but I wasn’t quite so quick to celebrate. The man knew there had to be more to it than this.
“How is that even possible?”
Stacey shrugged. “The Manix are a bit of a biological anomaly in general. There are certain species in nature that can change their gender due to social or environmental factors, and given that the projection for the complete extinction of your race was sitting at”—she paused like she was doing the math in her head, which apparently she was—“fifty-six years until functional extinction of your species as it is now, then I’d say the environmental factors were quite compelling.”
“We aren’t talking fish and frogs here, Stacey,” Doc protested, though he looked just as shocked as the rest of us. And tired. The old Manix looked exhausted.
“It was just a small alteration of equipment already possessed by the female Betas. This is not such a huge scientific leap. Has there been a change in the general makeup of the Pack?”
I nodded. “I came into power and the old Alpha General was executed.”
