Page 99 of I Replaced His Husband
Now that we had the truth, we had to choose where to go from here. He seemed to have made his choice already.
I just stood there, silent, pain rippling through my chest, stuck in place and waiting for whatever he’d say next.
Before he could, Darren came back with the paperwork.
"Mr. Sanders, here’s your certificate. It’s valid in court. This should clear you."
He handed it to Kay, who took it without a word.
There was one more question I had for Dr. Darren.
"Now that our Bond is going to strengthen, will the waves Kay’s been dealing with finally stop?"
The doctor sighed. "I wish I could say yes, but the waves are his body’s natural reaction to losing a mate. It’s not an illness that can simply be cured by the True Mates Bond. It’s a hormonal response. And since the pregnancy was already two months along when you two met, it may take some time for things to stabilize."
A heavy silence lingered between us. We both looked away.
Dr. Darren glanced at each of us in turn.
"Not what you were expecting?" he asked, raising a brow.
Didn’t take a genius to read the room.
"No, it just confirmed what we already suspected," Kay said sharply, brushing his cheeks with a quick swipe of his hand.
"Okay, well, that's still great news!" Dr. Darren said with a bright smile, but the room stayed heavy with silence. "You can stop taking Seprudin now, if you want!" he added, turning to me with enthusiasm.
"Yeah, about that… how long till my Allure comes back?"
Dr. Darren took a deep breath. "Seprudin 1000 is a strong suppressant. It’s not like a level-one med that clears out in 24 hours. It’s sustained-release formulation. With the dosageyou’ve been on, the effects should fade in about twenty days. A month at the most."
I cleared my throat. "Wow. Much longer than I expected."
"It’s a very effective and reliable product!" Dr. Darren said, sounding more like a salesman than a doctor.
"Don’t you have an antidote or something?"
He hesitated. "Well… there is one method."
"What kind of method?"
"We’re in an advanced testing phase for a drug that can remove the suppression in about three hours. It’ll be available commercially in a few months. If you’d like, I can give it to you now."
A test drug? It sounded like he was looking for a volunteer.
"Hm. Maybe a month’s not that bad after all," I murmured cautiously. "Still, it’s tempting, since I read that Seprudin could compromise me a bit in fighting mode."
Dr. Darren’s smile grew strangely wider. "Well, yeah. Suppressants like this are known to limit the strength an alpha can pull from his body in fighting mode. They can dull your speed, reduce power, and block certain natural responses. It could definitely put you at a disadvantage."
That sounded familiar. I raised an eyebrow. "Right. I’ve fought in fighting mode already, and I didn’t extend my claws."
"Exactly. Without the suppressant, you’d be even stronger, superpowered by your healthy mate glands. Right now, those glands aren’t fully active."
"It’s just twenty or thirty days. Maybe you won’t need it?" Kay muttered, staring at the floor.
"Totally your call," Dr. Darren replied with a tight-lipped nod. "I only brought it up because you came in right after some trouble, am I correct? And Mr. Nolan here had to fight. So… I was thinking there might be another danger on the horizon."
A sense of unease washed over me, he was correct. "If the Dawsons find out they’ve got no case against us… that the True Mate status worked… it could really piss them off," I said quietly, addressing it to Kay, but he stared at the floor.
