12. Chapter 12

Waverly didn’t listen to Jeremy. Sitting on the loveseat upholstered in an elegant black bonded leather featuring a padded back and angled arms, meant to draw immediate attention with its unique contemporary design, the omega patiently waits in the ever-expansive living room of Nicole’s mansion; occasionally swirling the untouched glass of red wine placed precariously into her hand.

Said auburn-haired alpha had remained rigidly quiet, having brought a glass of Chateau Petrus Pomerol from the wine cellar and serving it without so much as a single word before disappearing up the stairs. It has been close to fifteen minutes since they arrived, and Waverly is starting to fidget in her seat. There’s only so many times a person can casually swirl and take a sip from their glass before it becomes predictable and boring. Before the full-bodied taste of concentrated blackberries is no longer flavorful and leaves a near tar-like substance on her tongue, bitter and repugnant. Before she unlocks her phone and throws herself into a mind-numbing stupor of scrolling through the internet, monotonously swiping the pad of her thumb up and down the screen until every single line of text, image and or audio, blurs into one amorphous blob and she goes blind.

Each second that ticks away only furthers the prickling sensation running up and down her spine in maddening succession. Like a masochist, she takes another sip. Scrunching up her nose in absolute revulsion. The damning taste is thick and syrupy down her throat, every fiber of her being that makes the omega a bonafide hard drinking Earp cries out for the harshness of bourbon, the scorching heat of a shot of whiskey.

And true to her ancestry, Waverly would certainly prefer to burn out the back wall of her throat than to continue damaging the bristles of her tongue. But, despite her appearance and the fact that her surname is practically synonymous with liver poisoning, she doesn’t stop.

Earps are no quitters.

Grandpa Edwin once drank three forty ounces of fire whiskey and still managed to up earth the homestead’s front porch from scratch, coughing up of fireballs and spitting embers like a dragon. And her great-granddaddy, Wyatt, drank an entire bar under the table, rounded seven criminals in three hours and had enough time left in the night to build a fence around their land. Sure, every descendant that followed inherited the same devil may care attitude only seen in the most hardened of beer-swilling individuals—for some reason or another, Wynonna and Willa are trying their hardest to replicate—there is still a deep-rooted sense of good values embedded into their bones. A strong work ethic, loyalty, and a never say die attitude that has led to more arrests than is legally possible.

Waverly ought to blame her family for this. Anyone in their right mind would have turned the other cheek and cast a blind eye over everything that had transpired; why would she care about anything beyond fulfilling her end of the contract and getting paid for it? It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, something that would have her, years from now, looking back and wondering if it was all just a feverish hallucination waiting for her to come down from the high. Or a long comatose dream and all she needs to do is wake up for it be over.

She takes another sip, finishing the glass and leaning forward to refill it. The bottle and its shiny red foil still hanging around the neck is too real to be fake.

The soft leather of the loveseat underneath is too real, the engraving of the Haught Family’s royal coat of arms into the wall above the fireplace is too real for this to just be an elaborate fantasy.

Her concern for Nicole is just too damn—

“Meow.”

Setting the bottle, worth upwards of three-thousand dollars, gently back down on the coffee table, Waverly looks up to see a small orange and black thing peeking around the corner of the sofa.

It has ears and big green eyes and the brunette almost didn’t recognize it, until it moves a tiny bit forward to reveal itself. Calamity Jane stares at her curiously, those usually sharp and intense green eyes are now undemanding. Lax. Fearful. For a furry beast that once took egregious pride in holding Waverly’s attention hostage, is nothing more than a timid kitten.

The shy toyger inches closer tentatively, a paw kept in midair when she stops and tilts her head to the side. Ears rotating at the sound of something Waverly obviously can’t hear. She knows it isn’t normal for CJ to do a complete 180 and suddenly be afraid of the brunette on her own. Body close to the wood finished floor, resembling an insignificant speck—a far cry from the striped animal that stole her bracelet without so much as a care in the world.

Waverly sighs and pats the space next to her thigh.

At this, CJ’s ears perk up high into the air before springing forward and hopping onto the couch. The cat lays down, resting its chin on the omega’s lap. Immediately, Waverly runs her nails through the CJ’s fur to remind the cat that she shouldn’t be afraid of her.

She figured that this would be enough. But then she hears a strange whimpering sound, upon closer inspection she realizes that it's coming from Calamity Jane. An endless stuttering whimper that is halfway towards a sob. But the cat is stone cold in her grief, expressionless and quiet. Yet, the tears that brim at the corner of those emerald green eyes say a thousand words and Waverly instinctively picks up the toyger into her arms where it curls against her chest. Head hiding in the crook of Waverly’s neck, and if the brunette wasn’t so set on comforting the distressed cat, she’d make a crack at how CJ will need to cut back on her food. Nevertheless, she keeps quiet and rocks Calamity Jane in her arms until she’s sure the cat is close to falling asleep.

Waverly can only guess that the reason as to why CJ is so uncharacteristically upset is because she sensed their anguish. She wonders if there was ever another time where CJ did this, curl up in Shae’s arms for comfort whenever Nicole was off being… confusing. Or if she ever hissed at Victor whenever he showed up to the mansion looking to cause trouble. Nevertheless, she holds the cat close.

It’s been thirty-five minutes since they arrived and Waverly wonders if Nicole will ever come back down.

The drive back to Remus Pointe had been suffocatingly quiet. From when Jeremy bid them a quick goodbye to escape the impending fallout and they hastily drove off in the Lamborghini, to when they unfortunately had to pull up behind a horrid army green colored Bugatti Chiron at the security checkpoint by the gates, to the entire ride on the highway. Eyes flitting between fiddling with her fingers in her lap, to the dark tinted windows where she traces the peaks of the passing evergreens and the faraway mountain tops in the horizon.

Her omega, stricken with the incessant need to tend to the alpha five inches away from her. Nudging the side of her knee, nipping at the skin of her calf and pulling the hem of her dress.

The alpha tensely tapping her fingers against the carbon fiber steering wheel, alternating between punching out a rhythm and clutching the wheel in an iron grip until her knuckles burned white-hot. For a moment, Waverly intended to reach out and talk to Nicole. Appeal to her with soft words and inane chit chat about things like ‘how did the meeting go?’, ‘Jeremy told me a funny story about you guys,’ to ‘today was a nice day.’ She isn’t above making small talk about the goddamn weather for fuck’s sake. Anything really. She just wants to get to the bottom of this.

Before she loses her nerve and regrets everything.

The Pomerol is full of rich berries, smokiness and a hint of spice for that extra kick to tickle the back of her throat with every sip—resulting in an acidic, tar-like substance sticking to the walls of her esophagus until comes a time where she’ll no longer be able to breathe. Ears ringing with the constant tap tap tap of Nicole’s fingers on the steering wheel and the cold clicks of her heels on the cobblestone driveway as the alpha hastily makes her way towards the front door.

Waverly doesn’t know what she should be expecting and no matter what close assumptions she can make or far-fetched ideas she hatches in the back of her mind, the brunette is still coasting along a lose-lose trajectory that will only continue spiraling downward. Her omega rests at her feet, paws tucked beneath its chin, in absolute silence. Perking up, tail wagging happily when Nicole suddenly reappears.

There isn’t much of a change in the alpha’s demeanor since they arrived, stoic and silent, refusing to give away anything that remotely resembles an emotion. Instead, she stands over the coffee table and places the orange pill bottles Waverly remembers from the back of the medicine cabinet during ten minutes of sleuthing. The white labels, each one, facing the brunette directly. Nicole takes in one of the loveseats, runs a hand through her hair, clearly upset despite trying very hard not to show it.

“The two bottles on the left are lithium and carbamazepine; mood stabilizers, and the other three are olanzapine quetiapine and risperidone; atypical antipsychotics—I am to take one of each, every single day, for the rest of my life.” Nicole leans back, fingers tapping against the leather of the armrests. “But you already knew that, didn’t you Waverly?”

She narrows her eyes, a brow quirking up in question. “H-How did you—”

“You forget: I’m not only an alpha, I’m a purebred; to save you any of the asinine vitriol that my grandfather would have happily killed to hear me say, biologically I am built to be as close to peak human conditioning as possible. As such, I smelled your scent in my room and in the bathroom.”

Waverly puts Calamity Jane down on the couch beside her.

“So, to start, you can’t high road me on this even if though you have every right to.”

She nods her head.

Nicole rolls her shoulders back and clears her throat, fingers still tapping against the armrest. A probable tick serving as a coping mechanism, Waverly thinks. “Well, I guess the only way to start this is, what do you know of sanguinism?”

“Not much,” Waverly says, searching her mind several years back to her ninth-grade biology class, and to her physiology course from her second semester. “Just that it’s a genetic disorder.”

“It’s an inherited genetic disorder exclusive to purebreds.” Nicole reaches forward to pour herself a glass before starting, “For the human race to survive, for society to be normal, the gene pool needs to be diversified. Otherwise, we’d all be sick invalids with a whole host of disorders and diseases.”

“The basics of evolutionary biology.”

“Unlike inbreeding, which leads to offspring with genetic disabilities because the genes inherited from both parents are the same, selective breeding ensures that the desirable traits are not only inherited but fortified without complication.”

Waverly tilts her head to the side, catching on. “So, genetically, a child born from two people of the same breed is much more favorable than if they were born mixed?”

Nicole nods. “It’s an idea that has built, decimated and empowered royal families for centuries, Waverly. Especially in regard to bloodlines and heirs. History is rife with crowns changing hands because a monarch couldn’t produce a healthy alpha heir.”

“Unlike yours, fortunately.”

“The Haughts, and a few others, took selective breeding seriously. Making sure the kings and queens of France were married off to an alpha of almost-equal stature, by god they had it down to a science; which shows through seven hundred years of good documentation.” The older woman takes a rather large sip of Pomerol and makes a face, all this talk of royalty is far from being her favorite discussion. “And while it’s great that a piece of history from the pre-modern era can be traced back cleanly and accurately, no one ever thinks of the repercussions that follow.”

“And sanguinism is one of them?”

Nicole shakes her head. “Sanguinism, as far as I’m concerned, is the only one.”

Waverly stops petting CJ’s head. Nicole continues, “Seven hundred years of good, and crystal clear documentation does more than serve as evidence to legitimize my claim to the French throne; after so many years of selectively breeding—at first, for children with heightened desirable traits to rule a country, and then, simply because bigotry took hold with bullshit ideas of superiority—everything that separates alphas, separates me from everyone else, is heightened tenfold.”

“So, you’re stronger, faster, and have stronger senses than the majority of the population,” The brunette says. “You’re like a regular Captain America.”

A small smile graces the alpha’s lips before disappearing beneath the shadow of her hand running through her hair.

“The blood test of a normal human being will show that they are close to bearing an even split among the three breeds. A diversified genetic fingerprint.”

“But as an alpha purebred, yours would lean heavily on the alpha side than the average person,” Waverly adds, doing the math in her head, yet still wanting to hear it. “How much?”

“Eighty percent.”

She widens her eyes in shock. “T-That’s not—”

“Natural? Believe me, nothing about this,” Nicole’s eyes shift and are suddenly a bright red, “is natural.” She raises a hand and her nails have lengthened into claws, “There are some evolutionary theories that suggest we evolved, not from apes, but from wolves , and that humanity will eventually evolve into werewolves.”

“If you look at Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the creation story is basically the same: Adam and Eve, made from the earth with no identification, birthed three sets of twins; male and female, the first were a pair of alphas, followed by a pair of betas, before ending with a pair of omegas.”

“Don’t forget the fringe groups that worship the moon and believe that the idea of humans having breeds is a modern, socialist invention meant to divide the race. That it doesn’t exist.”

“Or the whack jobs claiming that the classification of alphas, betas and omega, aren’t based in scientific fact, but in the idea we live in a world ruled by a class-system based on biology and an omega can simply become an alpha by rising through the ranks.”

“No matter how you spin it, everything sounds crazy.” Nicole scratches the back of her head, “Sanguinism, is basically the nicest term a person can use to describe a ticking time bomb; while the symptoms varies depending on the breed of the afflicted—extreme depression in omegas, delusional paranoia in betas, and dangerous aggression in alphas—it is a continual downward spiral.”

Waverly stands abruptly, and Calamity Jane, with a questioning glance shoots up in turn. The brunette, if she could read minds, could hear the cat saying are you going to leave? Those big green eyes marred with unease.

But to CJ’s delight and both Nicole and Waverly’s own surprise, she stays. Walking around the couch until she stands behind it and rests her weight against it. She stares at her phone in question, trying to rifle through the various sections of her memory for everything and anything that could aid the discussion. To the times she spent sitting behind a desk with a spiral notebook taking notes from a smartboard during her science courses, the few times she went out of her comfort zone and watched documentaries on life, and the number of case studies she read up on during that one time she begrudgingly enrolled herself into that bare boned Psychology 101 class.

She knows next nothing about the specifics of this disorder besides remembering the passage she read in an old textbook dating back to the early fifties that describes it as ‘a relatively new disorder’. Still in its infancy at the time, and without sufficient research or funding, (and a severe lack of suitable patients fitting the criteria) the disorder and those who were at the forefront of its discovery were forced into spending the next twenty years undergoing rewrites, changes and complete omissions until 1971 when the American Psychiatric Association finally accepted it.

There’s more information on sociopathy and psychopathy, and even that is still a heavily debated topic.

“Okay, sanguinism is a disorder that only afflicts purebreds, essentially people with a blood purity of over seventy percent for either of the three breeds. An extremely rare occurrence that would require several generations of a family strictly sticking with the ‘keep it within the breed’ ideology.”

Nicole nods her head, suddenly falling behind Waverly’s lightning fast thinking.

“Alphas are known, stereotypically, to be far more aggressive and powerful than a beta or an omega; and with everything that you’ve told me, the pills aren’t to keep you under control, but to keep you from getting worse.” The brunette finds herself wavering, doused with a cold realization, she stares at Nicole intently. Eyes still red. “Jeremy said Perry lost his tattoo in a wolf attack up in the mountains, but you said he lost it in a car accident.”

The alpha crosses her legs over the other. “So, which is it, Nicole? Or better yet, neither story is true and something else happened to him. And you know it.”

“Can’t get anything past you, apparently.” Nicole swirls her glass. “Chrissy said you were valedictorian of your high school class, Jeremy looked over your grades and was pleased to report that you’re expected to graduate at the top of your class again.”

Nicole keeps talking: “Of course, I should have taken measures with making sure everyone around me kept to the same story, but I didn’t think it would matter.”

Three days ago, she would have never expected this. Sitting here, listening and learning, essentially understanding Nicole’s position in this perfect mess of a world. The role she plays in everything. Most of all the long-held secret their family has kept close to themselves from the public eye. And now, she, an outsider, is privy it all.

“It’s my fault, really, but you continue to surprise me at every turn.”

“What happened to Perry, Nicole?” Waverly asks. “What happened to him?”

The older woman sighs, fingers back on the armrest and tapping against the bonded leather in quick rhythmical succession. Tap tap tap.

“I can only tell you what I know, there are… some black spots in my memory. I’ve tried multiple times to remember all the details, but they still escape me.”

Nicole licks her lips tentatively.

“This isn’t how I wanted today to go,” the auburn-haired alpha is stalling, “fucking hell, I had plans for us. The country club, dinner—”

“Nicole.”

“Alright, alright.”

The story starts and end the same way: an abrupt changing of scenes with no warning or foreshadowing. Nicole remembers being twenty-three, the weatherman on channel ten had reported the next several days to sit at a sunny eighty-degree temperature with not a cloudless sky and a nice breeze. The kind of day meant to be spent outside, filling your lungs with the fresh air and bathing in the warm sunlight. But instead, the alpha had preferred to stay inside for the next five days. Shae had been contacted by her mother to be a guest lecturer at the University of Toronto for a few days on some of the progress she’s been making with her practice and the advancements made within the medical community. It had been a while since the beta had seen her parents and Nicole certainly encouraged her to take the time off to be with them.

“Send Baron and Brigitte my love,” she had told Shae before Dolls came around to take her to the airport.

Shae smiled back before being driven down the road and out of sight. Nicole retires to the mansion, keen on taking care of her impending rut. Leaning back comfortably against the back of her computer chair, unbuckling her belt, pulling her jeans down until she’s freed herself, a video loaded up on screen waiting for her to press play.

For the first few hours, everything proceeds as normal—not a single thing out place that would have indicated anything being amiss—she masturbated, did some work with Jeremy over the phone, and lastly invited Perry over for drinks. Apparently, there was a Chateau Haut Brion Blanc Pessac bottle just waiting for them to open after close to a century of being on the shelf. Nicole had brought the one-thousand-dollar white peace and tangerine flavored, full-bodied wine from the cellar to the kitchen table; that’s all she remembers before reaching the first black spot in her memory.

From there, the details of what happened next is a little fuzzy. Like a strobe light, she had fallen in and out of consciousness, retaining only the bare minimum even after all this time. Things that still, to this day, don’t add up despite knowing the full extent of what happened.

Broken glass, the metallic taste of blood on her tongue, followed by the feeling of leather wrapped tightly around her limbs and sharp sting of something piercing her skin. It’s only a week later, waking up to the intense fluorescent light burning her retinas that her memory picks up again. But she isn’t home. Instead, she’s on a hospital bed, strapped down with heavy belts wrapped around her waist, chest, arms and legs; the only freedom given to her is the ability to move her head and neck from side to side. The walls are painted in a pleasing cream-colored shade of beige matched perfectly by white moldings that give a non-immediate pop to the senses. The floor itself is made of tiles with a dark wooden finish meant to resemble oak or mahogany, the room is marked with an upholstered dark brown faux leather with a great amount of foam padding, a loveseat sitting two people atop of chrome legs. Accompanied by a beautifully crafted cocktail table made from solid wood with a warm pomegranate finish boasting a cathedral cherry and avodire veneer, complemented by an intricately done herringbone inlay and classically-influenced embellishments. Craning her neck, Nicole can see the bathroom from the space lent by the door being slightly ajar, there’s a shower, but no curtains and the sink is just a marble bowl with faucets, propped upon a thick pipe coming out of the floor. The only mirror to account for is outside and in full view of the partition that separates the room and the hallway of passerby doctors in their white coats.

There’s a sliding door on the other side of the room leading to a balcony where figure stands against the railing. Nicole struggles with her restraints until they rattle loudly, drawing the figure’s attention. In comes a woman with short, shoulder-length blonde hair and dark blue eyes, a look of worry permanently etched into her features.

“Mom? Mom!” Nicole continues to struggle with the restraints, but Isabelle Haught, calms her down.

“Shh, baby, calm down and stop pulling or you’ll break them again.” The older alpha strokes her hair. “I don’t want to see the orderlies sedate you again.”

“Where’s Shae?”

“She’s outside speaking with the doctor.”

Nicole is kept this way for hours, forced to stare at the ceiling and rest her neck before the belts holding her down to the bed are removed in a bid to get her to eat. But nothing works, Shae pulls up a chair beside the bed and stays there until it gets dark and has to be convinced, after thirty minutes of arguing with her mother-in-law, to go home and rest. Tomorrow’s another day and staying at Nicole’s side will only prove to hinder the alpha’s recovery.

In the meantime, Victor stays in her place, alternating between texting on his phone, drinking water from the bathroom faucet, and recounting all different memories of their past. Always starting his trip down memory lane with, ‘do remember that time…’ or ‘remember when we…’ Stories of her as a happy and curious child, of her as a rowdy teenager who refused to listen to the rules, the adult who redeemed herself all of that teenaged angst and tomfoolery that drove her parents up a wall by growing up—everything before this week.

And as such, tomorrow comes and goes quickly with the alpha drifting in and out of consciousness. The blackspots marring her memory grow roots, entangling and knotting themselves into place, even across the few moments of clarity she’s able to save. The door to her room is a never-ending revolving door of bodies filing in and out, doctors in long lab coats strolling in to ask her questions, orderlies handing tiny plastic cups with colorful pills at the bottom, and on a few occasions, she’s seen the janitor mop the floor while listening to music. While Nicole is quietly getting acquainted with the staff—to the point where she knows everyone on the floor by name and the ones who routinely escort her to the on-site psychiatrist, by first names, interest and even a few details of their family life—she’s visited daily by Shae and Victor.

As luxurious as the treatment center is, there’s no clock in the room. There’s nothing to indicate a passage of time save for the different outfits worn each day by her visitors.

Then it’s back with the asinine chatter she’s heard before. Every day. Shae holding her hand and keeping her up to date with as much information as possible, although the details of her release are suspiciously absent from the conversation. Jeremy comes by and is quick to recount everything that has happened in her absence at work; the more scandalous tales being the first he shares. Her parents come by as well, dutifully asking questions and speaking to each other in French whenever they want to make a sly comment but would rather not have the object of their disparaging remarks be aware of it. Usually choosing the doctors and nurses as their targets, their lack of competence is always an aspect they attack with fervor.

But there’s one person she hasn’t seen in a while…

Like before, Victor stays during the nights, although Nicole barely registers the man’s presence half the time. Tuning him out whenever he opens his mouth and starts to talk about work, politics, he spent two days trying to give relationship advice and Nicole sent him home within the hour of his visitation. Now, he sits at the desk in the middle of the room with the DSM-5 splayed open in his hands, flipping through the pages.

“Narcissistic Personality Disorder,” he reads before picking up his head, smiling, “okay, now this I could have.”

Nicole makes a face.

“Oh, come on, it was just a joke.”

She rolls her eyes. “Where’s Perry, Dad?”

At this, Victor’s face pales. “He’s uh, he’s recovering… he suffered two broken ribs, a sprained wrist, a dislocated shoulder and a substantial amount of blood loss.”

“Did I…?”

“Yes sweetheart, but it’s okay! Perry doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body. He forgives you!”

But the words fall on deaf ears. Immediately, Nicole pulls at the machines hooked up to her skin, monitoring her heartbeat and blood pressure levels among other things the alpha could care less about. Victor, to his credit tries to calm her down but without that magical touch, that gentle bedside manner like Isabelle had shown before, he’s unable to keep Nicole from shooting out of bed and marching towards the front door. He’s yelling, they’re both yelling, barking at each other until a group of orderlies and several of the overnight doctors come rushing in trying to pull them apart. One even comes in with a syringe with some clear liquid inside, ready, and from beneath the hold of the guards, Victor is trying to talk some sense into them. Reminding them that his daughter is still coherent and sedating her wouldn’t be necessary.

Eventually the room clears, and Nicole is back on the bed instead of the floor, the threat of sedation hanging thickly in the air. They settle back into the quiet, although Nicole is far more aware and questioning of her surroundings now. Clearing his throat, Victor tries for small talk again.

“I tried calling Charlize, but you know how it is with your sister,” Nicole makes a face. “But! I got a hold of Alexei and he said he’ll come by the mansion after he picks up Evan, okay?”

“Why am I here, Dad?” She starts.

He sighs, a deep aggrieved moan. “Cole… do you remember that day, when we went to visit your grandfather in Nova Scotia? Do you remember why he was there?”

It takes a moment for Nicole to think back and remember, seventeen years old and watching the trees and passing foliage melt into one continuous green blur marred only by the breaks in the vegetation, until finally arriving at a large colonial house just outside of Lawrencetown. A large sign sits on the curb reading the words ‘Ledgehill Treatment and Recovery Centre’.

Pulling forwards towards the present, Nicole shakes her head in disbelief before it falls into her hands. She then runs them through her hair, pulling away instantly with a wince when she feels the harsh, and still tender, indentations of what were claw marks embedded into her scalp. Staring at her nails in a heady mix of confusion and shock, a perfect fit against the sharp grooves lining down the length of her skull.

“Good news is, the doctor says that since we caught wind of this early, we’ll be better prepared.”

He raises his plastic cup in cheer to the younger alpha. “Are you fucking kidding me? No, t-this is bullshit. Why me? I’m a good person, a good fucking person? Why should I have to suffer? Charlize is an alpha too, she turns twenty-one, is given complete access to her inheritance and runs off to god knows where on the other end of the world, not giving a flying fuck that she’s made all of us sick with worry—but I’m the one stuck with the inevitability of turning into Silas.”

“Nicole, you know that’s not true.”

“Do I? Do you? Sangunism doesn’t have a cure, just plans and treatment aimed for preventing an even bigger catastrophe! You put grandpa in Ledgehill because he tried to bite someone’s ear off! And judging from how the centre was watching him far more closely than any of the other patients, I’m pretty sure he succeeded.”

“Christ, your grandfather did not bite anyone’s ear off, okay? He—”

“What, Dad?” Nicole cuts in. “Only bit off a piece? Just a little off the tip, is that it?” She laughs, “After all these years old man, you’re still trying to keep up this idea that we’re just a normal fucking family. Fuck off.”

“I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be, but right now we need to think about recovery.”

“Fuck you.”

Victor lets out a frustrated sigh, crushing the plastic cup in his hand. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that I actually want what’s best for you?”

“Because everything you’ve ever done for me was solely to fast track me to CEO. Get me to grow up as quickly as possible so I’d take over the company as soon as I was legally able to.”

“I was thinking of your future, Cole. That’s not fair.”

“I’m right where you always wanted me to be. Making all the money you didn’t at my age, running Cerberus Enterprises into a new era, we’ve dipped into almost every market imaginable, and what’s there to show for it? I’m in a psychiatric hospital, I’m under constant threat by one of these trigger-happy orderlies looking to fit me into a straitjacket or sedate me—I just want to go home to my wife, but I’m being kept here as a prisoner!”

“Step out of your head for second and realize why you’re here; you blacked out and, not only made a mess of the mansion, but tried to kill yourself and your friend.” He reasons. Exasperated, within seconds he’s already aged several years.

Nicole crosses her arms over her chest and turns over in bed, back towards her father.

Waverly is stunned silent. The wine glass in her hands long forgotten, as is her cell phone lighting up with three unread text messages. As is Calamity Jane, the striped cat curled up into a ball at the corner of the couch, head laying on the armrest but still attentively staring at the omega. Nicole, on the other hand, her red eyes shift back to their natural honey-golden color, is fixated on the brunette. Searching for an answer as a means to prepare herself for what is to come next.

She takes a deep breath. Holding it, thinking that maybe if she held it long enough, the burning of her lungs and the voice inside her head screaming for her to exhale would give her an answer. Which may be the one she wants. Or the one she needs. Either way, it’s something to point her in the right direction and make the decision that will come to define the next course of action to take in regard to this contract. Each day that passes there something new, something that makes what was supposed to be a simple business arrangement far more complex and convoluted than what she signed up for.

“Why don’t you just take the pills and be done with it?”

“I tried to kill myself while I was blacked out, two of the pills can result in suicidal ideation. There isn’t much of a difference, not to mention I’d be plagued with other symptoms that will impede me from functioning properly.”

“And you think doing nothing is the best course of action?”

“It’s like cancer—”

Waverly interrupts, “There is literally no proof of that.”

But Nicole isn’t deterred. “—there’s no cure as of now, but I can still beat it. Just takes willpower and discipline.”

“Have you ever blacked out in the same way since?”

“No, and it will never happen again. I promise.”

“Jesus, you can’t promise something you’re not even sure you’ll be able to keep.” Waverly says, shooing away her omega from her side. The poor thing nudging its snout against her knee.

“I wouldn’t lie to you.”

Jesus. “Do you know how much you’re risking, putting someone in the line of fire like this?”

She can’t change Nicole’s mind. They could sit here for hours on end arguing over the merits of whether the alpha is blindly refusing to accept or believe that this is a disease that can’t be cured. Can’t be beaten. She can’t go into remission, complete or partial, and continue to live her life symptom free despite still having traces of it lingering inside her body. With the lack of academic and scientific research, at most, sanguinism is on par with something like dementia. Sure, there are preventative measures, but time will pass, and the affliction will only worsen.

“Look, it may not be the best thing in the world but I’m trying okay?” Nicole reasons, “I’m trying to give back, do something good.”

“The world won’t reward you for intentionally doing right by others just for your own selfish gain. Karma doesn’t work that way.”

She’s too stubborn.

They’ve reached a stalemate and Waverly sighs. “I-I don’t know what to do, Nicole. I really don’t.”

“Don’t leave.” The alpha starts, eyes soft and pleading. “We can finish the week, complete the contract, I’ll stay honest from here on out… Just don’t leave.” Me.