Page 107 of I Replaced His Husband
As soon as we walked into the house, both brothers came over, looking tense and unsure.
"Rain, what’s with your forehead?!" Adam screeched, seeing the cut.
I waved him off.
"Let’s just sit and talk first."
They were about to hear some big news. But I didn’t want to be the one to deliver it, so I glanced at Kay and noticed some subtle changes in his energy when he greeted his brothers, as if he was kinda upset.
"So, how did it go?" Adam asked. "What did the people at Malden say?"
I remained standing, leaning against the windowsill, but Kay dropped onto the couch. His face was a mix of nervousness, exhaustion, and something more serious. "Let’s just say… it was a day full of surprises and plot twists. That’s putting it very mildly."
Adam rolled his eyes and handed him a glass of mineral water. "Just tell us what happened."
Marco’s eyes narrowed on Kay’s face, then shifted to me, as if assessing the situation, the energy between us, but there was not much to read; I felt drained and numb.
"Well, for starters—and I bet you could’ve guessed—some alphas tried to take advantage of me again. Nothing new. Same old, same old."
I blinked. I hadn’t expected him to open with that. He came in hot, his sarcasm feeling a little out of place. But maybe that was his way of coping, turning the pain of it into something easier to swallow, almost a darkly funny ‘story of my life’.
Adam sat down next to him, looking worried and maybe even hurt, like he blamed himself. "Wait. Are you serious? You can’t even leave the house anymore without being harassed?"
Marco scowled. "Exactly! What’s going on? It didn’t use to be this bad. Why are these alphas losing their damn minds?"
Kay looked bitter and worn down. He might’ve already regretted bringing it up, but it was too late now. "Pregnant omega scent drives alphas crazy, we know that. I just wasn’t out in public enough before to really notice how extreme it could get."
I raised my eyebrows, surprised he was downplaying it.
Adam rubbed his temples, but Marco spoke up. "Plenty of omegas are pregnant, but they don’t all get this kind of reaction."
Kay closed his eyes. There was no escaping it.
"Okay, you got me. We all know I was already getting harassed even without the pregnancy scent. The new piece of information is that, according to a doctor we met at Malden, it might have something to do with a condition called Tall Omega Syndrome."
And he gave them a quick rundown of what Dr. Darren had told us and what he’d read about it.
I saw how much it rattled both of them.
"And now," Kay went on, "my pheromones are signaling a threatened pregnancy on top of that. So yeah, double trouble."
His tone was sharp, yet a little defeated. Both betas just stared at him for a few moments.
"That’s… wow. I’ve never even heard of that syndrome before, but it sucks," Adam muttered.
"Yeah. Acursed beauty, I am. For sure. I need to call my friend Jared Ferguson. I’m pretty sure he’s a similar case: tall, beautiful, constantly harassed."
His voice sounded slower than usual, heavier. He even grimaced a little at the end, like talking about it was becoming physically uncomfortable.
The silence was heavy. The facts were just brutal.
Adam and Marco both stared at the carpet, brows furrowed. I had a feeling they were going to suggest keeping Kay inside the house until things settled down, but no one wanted to bring it up because it could make Kay feel even more trapped or helpless. Now, with this new info about his possibly naturally highly-attractive-to-alphas pheromones… it was a lot to take in.
So we moved on.
"Well, now that you’ve led with the dark stuff," Marco said with a sigh, "tell us exactly what happened?"
"Three alphas came at me in a store," Kay said bluntly. "They wanted to have fun with me. But Rain beat them. All of them. I was right at the peak of a wave, so my scent must’ve been intense."
