Page 97 of I Replaced His Husband
"Wrong tense. Was. It’s not private anymore."
"Piece of shit."
"So, Kay Sanders, huh? I looked him up. Impressive Insta. A few millions of followers? Damn. He’s hot, and he can draw, too! Lucky you, Rainy-day."
"Are you hoping he'll dump me so you get a shot? Isn’t that your usual play?"
"Yep, that’s my move with my dickhead brothers, but not this time. Won’t work. I’ve actually got good news for you."
Trying to ignore the nerves and the little tremble in my hands, I typed back, "Enlighten me. What’s the news?"
"I'm pretty sure he’s your True Mate."
My fingers froze over the screen.
What the hell did he just say?
Before I could respond, another message popped up: "I know you guys always mocked my skills, but I have a real knack for matchmaking. It’s my purple alpha magic!"
Purple alpha magic, my ass. I didn’t even know how to respond. Should I yell at him? Tell him I was already about to find out the truth about the TM thing? Or just ignore him?
I went with the coward’s route and stayed silent. No way I was giving him the satisfaction.
I let out a mild, annoyed huff and slid my phone into my pocket. I was tempted to text back "More like purple alpha delusion," but what if he was right?
We were about to find out. Didn’t mean I wasn’t still pissed at his smug attitude.
The next forty minutes crawled by as I drifted into memories from home. Despite my parents’ best efforts, all of us brothers had totally different personalities, and we clashed a lot. I wasn’t exactly the mellow one either, so yeah, I added to the mess.
My dad always said he was amazed that kids like us—loud, stubborn, hot-headed—came from two people as laid-back as him and Father.
One memory flew through my mind. I was ten, Storm was about eight and a half, and Skye was six. We were fighting over this awesome new toy Uncle Timothy had given us: a Nerf-style BB gun with a mini Gatling setup and suction-cup darts. It made noise, flashed lights, and looked super cool.
Storm snatched it first and wouldn’t give us a turn. We argued, and he yelled, "This is for real pure-blood alphas like me! Not for weaklings!"
"Pure alpha, my ass! You’ve had it forever. It’s our turn!" I shouted.
"Come and get it if you can!" he laughed, bolting across the yard.
Skye and I chased after him, finally catching up near the greenhouse. He was strong, but not fast. His bones were too damn heavy. When I slammed into him, I just bounced right off.
Purple alphas have these bony horns that lie just beneath the purple tissue lines along their limbs. The bones are almost twice as thick as normal human ones, and those horns can rise up through this strange, jelly-like tissue that doesn’t exist inany other species on Earth. It’s alien. The horns can push right through without breaking skin.
Storm cackled when I hit the ground. "What now, weakling? You’ll never be an alpha, just a beta! You’ll see! Little runt!"
"I hate you!" I screamed. Skye tried to kick him in the shin, but yelped and jumped back, cradling his foot.
"Told you, softie! Who’s thepurple kingnow? Who’s the champ?!" Storm roared, unloading a blast of red-orange rubber darts at us.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to shove the memory away.
My childhood was full of crap like that: pointless fights, bruised egos, bruised everything. But I couldn’t dwell on that now. I had bigger things to think about. I needed to stay focused, keep it together.
The next twenty minutes I spent diving into some articles about Malden Pharmaceuticals and their CEO, Blue Lowen. He’d been appointed four years ago and was hailed as a genius for his work in tissue regeneration. In one interview, he talked about an accident in childhood that left him infertile, and later he’d had all his glands removed due to complications. His life’s work was all about regrowing tissue, even entire organs.
I got so wrapped up in reading about him that I only skimmed one piece on student protests against the company.
Apparently, Malden was part of a new government-funded project looking into making betas fertile, called the Beta Activation, and the early trials had raised some serious ethical red flags. The Beta Empowerment movement called it a threat to beta identity, warning that turning all betas into potential omegas could lead to ‘beta erasure’.
