Chapter 26: Royce - Marked By Love

Mid-morning light peered in through the glass blocks along the ceiling. The scent of antiseptic mixed with the general aroma of pets. The first day he’d sat in the vet clinic while Theo worked, the stench had bothered his sensitive nose. By now he was used to it.

Today Royce wasn’t going to complain about a damn thing. He’d spent the night sleeping curled around his mate. He thought it couldn’t get any better than that until he’d awoken this morning to Theodore straddling him in the haze of his heat, seating himself atop Royce’s morning wood. The omega had bounced and bucked atop Royce’s knot for hours despite them going at it twice in the middle of the night. Not that Royce was complaining.

“Hey, Gerald,” Theodore said, hunched over a microscope. Royce had no idea how he could focus on his work in the middle of his heat, but Theo seemed determined to make all of his appointments that day. “Can you grab your friend real fast? I want to show her something.”

“Sure thing, Doc.” Gerald snagged his friend, Courtney, from the front where Margarette was showing her something else.

The little omega scurried to Theodore’s side where he made her look through the microscope. Royce was amused watching the three different clinic members drag Courtney back and forth to show her various things. They were almost more enthusiastic about her shadowing than she was.

“You see that to the left? It’s yeast.”

“I’m guessing that shouldn’t be there,” Courtney said.

“Correct. Ear infections aren’t common in cats, but this particular patient has FIV, making her more susceptible to yeast or bacteria. Prescription ear drops and cleaner are going to be needed instead of an antibiotic or a simple saline flush to remove debris.”

“When would a saline flush be preferred?”

Theodore continued with his lesson before writing a prescription and moving to the last appointment of the morning. Royce was content sitting in the back kennel while he worked. Now that he was a regular at the clinic, Mutt insisted Royce sit next to her on the floor while she lay her head in his lap. Mutt’s cat friend liked to walk up and randomly smash his head into Royce’s arm. After the fourth time, he realized this meant the cat wanted pats.

Today Mutt was fast asleep in his lap, Big Poppa curled up by Mutt’s stomach while Royce rested his head against the wall. He was surprised how calm he felt being in the back room while Theo worked. Everything he’d heard of the alpha ‘mating frenzy’ had him prepared—and worried—to become a raging, horny, alpha-asshole, unable and unwilling to have Theo out of his sight for five seconds.

Yes, Royce was exceptionally protective of his omega. Yes, he was uneasy at the lack of their mate marks. But he was in control. He was satisfied knowing Theo was happily doing his job in the next room. If Royce had been forced to go days on end without seeing Theo’s beautiful face, then he would get agitated, but it was nothing near the levels he’d heard rumor of.

Royce was starting to think the ‘mating frenzy’ was a nonsense term alphas used when they refused to take accountability and control their damn selves.

Even when Theo was unconscious and Royce was sleeping on the floor by his sickbed, while he was undeniably distraught and suffering insomnia and anxiety, Royce was in control of himself. If anything, the worry that he wouldn’t be had been one of the worst parts.

Now that he really sat and thought about it, that must be how Theo felt when his heats came on. No control over your own actions, terrified of what that might make you do or the situations that might put you in. Royce had only one clear instance of that in his life, the rut. From the slew of other symptoms he’d witnessed Theo enduring, the rut had been nothing in comparison.

“Okay, that wasn’t that bad.” Theodore came into the kennel. “The way they described it over the phone, I thought that poor guinea pig was on death’s door.”

He stretched his arms over his head before removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes. Dark circles had settled into his skin during his heat. His movements were slow and sluggish. When he bent any of his joints, it was accompanied by a grimace. Thankfully Theo’s heat was almost over, then he would be able to rest properly.

“Hey, Mutt, you sleepy girl.” Theodore knelt on the floor in front of Royce and his snuggle buddies. “You ready for your stretches? Maybe we can try walking a little further today?”

Theodore threaded his fingers through Mutt’s curly fur. She had a semi-curly coat, soft to the touch and low maintenance, which was good given her current predicament. She had floppy black ears while her body was a mix of gray, black, and white.

Her droopy eyes opened and her tail raised in a limp wag when she woke up to Theodore’s pets. With her cast still in place, Mutt had a hard time getting from laying to standing, her cast slipping on the blankets and tile floor. Royce steadied her until she was upright.

While Mutt and Theodore worked, Big Poppa sat up, his squinting eyes tracking their every movement. Out of nowhere, the cat turned its gaze to Royce, then slammed his head into his forearm.

“Jeesh, what’s your problem?” Royce scratched the cat’s head between the ears. Big Poppa started to purr, rolling his head into Royce’s hand, and making biscuits.

He caught Theodore watching him and the cat, smirking.

“Why are you a vet?” Royce asked, to keep the topic from the cat now laying on his legs demanding his full attention.

“I like animals,” Theodore answered without skipping a beat. “Sometimes I think I like them better than people. Don’t tell their owners that.”

“I already pegged you as anti-social and mean.” Royce snorted. “But now, with your situation. Why did you keep working as a vet? I’m sure there were other gigs you could do that would require less illegal paperwork.”

Theodore pursed his lips.

“What? Did you just not know what else to do?” Royce asked.

“No,” Theodore huffed. “I figured if I was going to be fighting to live, I might as well live for something. What’s the point in me keeping myself alive if I can’t keep healing?”

That brought a warm smile to Royce’s face, yet it was chased by a deep melancholy. He was beyond proud of Theodore for finding a purpose in his life and fiercely sticking to it. On the other, he loathed that he’d been in a situation to consider his untimely demise.

His wolf growled.

“Removing Gage’s head with rusty head clippers is not good enough. We shall put him on a post and let the birds eat his innards. It shall be a slow death befitting his evil deeds.”

Royce wanted to disagree with his wolf, but in a perverse way he liked the idea of inflicting as much pain onto Prescot as possible. It wasn’t just Theo he’d hurt, there were countless other omegas who hadn’t had the chance to realize their dreams and callings because of that monster.

“Theo,” Royce said. “I don’t want you to—”

“Hey, Doc, we’re going to skip on that lunch invite.” Gerald and Courtney came into the back room. “We’re going to finish Courtney’s school registration.”

“You decided to do it?” Theodore asked.

Courtney nodded. “The closest omega college is more than a twenty-hour drive away, so I applied to the alpha college that’s next to Elk Cove.”

“What?”

“North Pacific Coast University has a new program. They’re testing having omega students enroll with the alphas and betas.”

“Is that safe?”

Courtney nodded. “I did a weekend stay with them a bit ago. My friend and I kinda lied and told our parents we were having a spa weekend. But the university seems really nice, and they made an omega-only dorm that needs a keycard for entry, and they have online options for classes and assignments for when we go into heat. They also have campus security. Even before they opened up the omega program, they had options for you to call for an escort to and from late-night classes and such.”

Theodore had gone pale, and his lips smashed into a grimace.

“That sounds great,” Royce offered when Theo didn’t respond.

“Thanks, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared, but someone has to be the first to try something new, right?”

“What program are you applying for?”

“They have a vet tech program. I’m hoping for that, but it shares a lot of overlapping classes with the wildlife rehab program they offer too. At least the first year of classes overlap. I might look into that one too.”

“Sandy and Evea would be ecstatic to add another person to the wildlife management team.”

“Good luck on the registration,” Theodore said. “I’m sorry I need to take Mutt out now. I’ll see you both tomorrow.”

With that, Theodore disappeared out the back door with a limping Mutt. Royce got up and smiled at the other omegas before following him.

“You gonna tell me what that was about?”

Theodore stood with his back to Royce, staring up at Mount Rainier.

“It’s not safe,” he said. “Omegas aren’t safe when we’re isolated from alphas; we’re not safe mixed in with them either. We’re never safe.”

Royce’s heart shattered as Theodore’s voice broke. He watched Theo watching the mountains. Turmoil plain on every line of his round face, his eyes wet behind his glasses.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Royce said. “But maybe, if we work with Argus to stop this trafficking ring, if we bring everything forward and make people aware of it, really aware, things will change. People can’t change if they don’t know there’s an issue.”

“I know you want me to give that flash drive to Argus, I just can’t though. How can I know he’s trustworthy? How do I know he isn’t complacent with it? Do you know how many head alphas have shares in ‘legal’ breeding clinics?”

“No, I don’t,” Royce admitted. “And that’s exactly the problem. No one knows.”

“You’re wrong,” Theodore countered. “Some of them know because they’re active participants in it, because they’re complacent.”

“Yeah, some of them are, but some people aren’t given the chance to be against it.”

Turning from the mountainscape, Theodore studied Royce’s face.

“I won’t force you,” Royce said. “But you need to understand, nothing will get better unless someone finally takes a stand. Courtney’s taking her stand by going to an alpha college.

“You’ve already put in so much effort to keep yourself alive, to keep your dad’s flash drive. Let it be used to help other omegas.”

Knitting his brow, Theo turned back to the horizon. He was quiet as he watched the clouds roll by, thick and gray. The wind whistled as they obstructed the once clear blue skies. Somewhere over the mountains, thunder rolled.

“How much did you look at on the flash drive? Did you see the videos?”

“Yes.”

“So you know everything,” Theodore said. “You know it’s my fault. They killed my mother and threatened to kill me to keep my father in line. After I moved from Seerinoga, my father kept canceling on me whenever I was supposed to come visit. I couldn’t understand why.”

Tears flowed down Theo’s face, but he kept talking. Royce had an inkling he’d never said any of this aloud to another soul before.

“Everyone was nothing but a tool in their sick manipulation. My parents, and then me, we were nothing but pawns in their game. Mom died when I was so young, she was so young. And now those recordings are all I have left of my father.

“I know it doesn’t make any sense, but part of me wants to keep those videos to myself from shame. But also because it’s the only piece of him I have left. It’s perverse and illogical. I know this is so much bigger than me and my family, but they feel like mine, like he left them for me.

“It’s also my biggest disgrace. I know it’s selfish, to make it all about me, but I feel responsible. Every omega in those files, the pain my father endured, the suffering of all those families. It feels like it’s all my fault and I don’t want anyone else to know the depths of my shame.”

“Theo … You have to know that none of this was your fault. How could it be?”

“Of course I know that,” Theo snapped. “But logic doesn’t always take center stage when emotions are involved. But even disregarding that … I don’t know what to do from here. I don’t know who to trust.”

“You can trust me, Theo. If no one else, you’ll always have me.”

Theo turned his tear-stained face to Royce, studying him.

“I will, won’t I?” he asked before turning back to gaze at the sky. He was quiet for a long time as the tears continued to roll down his face. Royce stayed steady and silent at his side, waiting.

“A copy,” Theo said at last. “You can make a copy, the original stays with me.”