The withdrawal symptoms were worse than she’d imagined, worse than anything she’d experienced during her years of forced addiction.
Dr.
Jameson gave her medication to help with the nausea, but it barely helped.
She could not take much of it due to the state of her organs.
Every muscle in her emaciated body twitched and ached, her sweat-slick skin burning one moment and freezing the next as her overtaxed nervous system struggled to recalibrate itself without the drugs that had been forcibly pumped into her bloodstream for years.
“Fucking hell,” Cait rasped to herself, the words scraping against her raw throat as she watched the hallucinatory patterns dance across the ceiling.
She knew that none of it was real, that the bizarre visual distortions were just her brain misfiring as it adjusted to functioning without the cocktail of drugs ‘Benjamin Agneau’ had been administering since she was thirteen.
But knowing something wasn’t real didn’t make the experience any less terrifying when your own mind turned against you.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the unnerving sights, only for the darkness behind her eyelids to twist into new nightmares.
She sobbed and gagged.
‘Little bitch, you think you’re better than me?’ Her mother’s voice echoed through her mind, sharp with that particular blend of alcohol-fueled venom Cait remembered all too well from her childhood.
‘Stay out of sight, and you’ll eat tonight.’ The words were crisp and clear despite having been spoken over a decade ago—one of the few clear memories she had from before Benjamin took her.
“Not real,” Cait whispered hoarsely to herself, her cracked lips sticking together painfully.
But the whispering shadows at the edges of her vision clung like cobwebs, their voices threading through the morphine fog the doctors had given her to ease the worst of the withdrawal.
‘Little vile omie slut,’ they hissed in her mother’s voice.
Then another familiar voice joined the chorus, colder and more clinical: ‘You want to end up getting beaten by them.
Do not wave to me in front of the guys!’ Benjamin yelled in her head.
‘Stay still you little bitch.’ Benjamin hissed and echoed in her mind, her eyes watered and her pulse thudded in her ear like a drum.
‘Cal, snap the fuck out of it.’ her mother’s voice echoed, she heard the smack and her own crying.
‘What did you do to him?
You little freak!
Undo it.’ the sounds of slapping and her own confused crying filled her own mind.
Cait hyperventilated.
Her eyes flashed open.
Sweat ran down her forehead.
“Holy fuck.” Cait rasped as her hands wiped her brow.
‘You are going to die.
Just like me.
Give up, you, big cunted Omie.’ She heard her mothers voice.
“Shut up!” she hissed to her own hallucination.
She was so thin that every visible bone stood in sharp relief beneath her paper-thin skin, her joints protruding like knots in a dying tree.
She gagged and swallowed.
She had eaten way too much.
The nurses had stopped whispering about ‘The rare narcotic suppressant toxicity’ around her after Kieran arrived with the genetic scans that confirmed what had been done to her.
Now that they had to respect her, they just stared with a mixture of pity and morbid fascination.
It felt as if she might dissolve into nothing right there in the fancy bio-bed that cost more credits than most citizens earned in a year up in the domes.
‘Just go to your room and stay there,’ her mother’s phantom voice continued its relentless assault.
‘Mommy hates you now.’ The audio hallucinations were somehow worse than the visual ones.
At least the twisting ceiling patterns didn’t sound exactly like memories she’d spent years trying to forget and forgive.
‘Why did he have to come in here and talk about Mother?’ she thought.
‘Now I am thinking about her.
He got to know a stranger.’
“Gods,” Cait gasped, turning her head weakly to press her feverish cheek against the cold pillow.
Hot tears rolled down her face, following the sharp contours of her sunken cheeks before soaking into the sterile fabric.
“Thank the gods, I’m finally alone.” The words came out as a broken whisper, barely audible even to herself.
The sobs that followed shook her skeletal frame with enough violence to make the monitoring equipment beep a warning.
It was from her heart rate rising and her blood oxygen levels falling from the sobbing.
She hadn’t grown up with much love—what little she’d received had been given reluctantly or with strings attached.
Every scrap of affection had been hoarded like treasure, examined for hidden traps before being tentatively accepted.
Maria was the only person from her past who hadn’t betrayed her in some way—Maria and the brother she hadn’t known existed until recently.
Henry had dumped her on the day she ended up in hospital, proving that teenage love wasn’t strong enough to withstand organized crime.
What hurt most—what made her angry even through the haze of withdrawal—was her mother.
She remembered seeing that ‘The Silver Rose’ film years ago, with Maria, and again with Henry when she was bored one time—her, that woman seemed like an actress compared to her mother.
She was smiling, which was a rare thing for her mother.
That is why it took so long for her clue in that her mother was the woman on the screen and just did not bear a resemblance.
She had changed things.
Dyed her hair a sandy blonde apparently.
It hurt her, hearing her mother talk about how much she wanted a child, how she dreamed of raising a daughter among the flowers she loved so much.
That child had been Cait.
That home had been promised to Cait.
But her mother had walked away from the ‘Lord’ of the underground tunnel system—a man who loved her so desperately he made an entire film begging her to return after she stabbed him—for Benjamin.
A man who barely acknowledged her existence, who only visited their tiny apartment once a month if Cait was lucky.
A man who cared so little for either of them that he’d drugged Cait since childhood without her mother ever noticing or caring enough to intervene.
“My life was a lie. She hated me because I am an omega,” She sobbed quietly, the sound muffled against the pillow as her fingers scrabbled weakly against the sheets.
The mask covering her nose and mouth pumped artificially scented oxygen into her lungs—salty and metallic with an underlying tang of disinfectant that made her gag.
It was like breathing in the air by a street vent.
Benjamin’s face loomed behind her eyelids whenever she blinked—that cold, calculated smile that never reached his eyes when he spoke to her.
‘Monthly extractions of her pheromonal glands,’ the doctors had called it when reviewing her medical records, as if that explained anything.
Whatever pheromone glands were, Benjamin had been harvesting them from her since childhood—another resource to be exploited, like the way he’d sold her clothes and toys when she got too old for them.
The cardiac monitor stuttered erratically as Cait pressed her feverish face harder against the cold pillow, trying to ground herself against the hallucinations twisting into ever more grotesque shapes.
Nausea built up, she swallowed repeatedly.
‘Albert Rose,’ she thought, testing the name like a stolen jewel rolled carefully between shaking fingers.
Her real father.
The words ‘father,’ ‘love,’ ‘brother,’ and ‘home’ tasted foreign on her tongue—bitter and cloying all at once, like medicine disguised as candy.
Dangerous concepts that might summon Benjamin from whatever shadowed corner of the Traverse he’d fled to—either to steal her away again or finish what he’d started.
Outside the hospital room, the dome’s atmospheric shields hummed with their usual low-frequency vibration, a sound normally drowned out by the chatter of Omega workers going about their business.
But tonight, the entire ward was preternaturally quiet, as if the medical staff were holding their collective breath.
Waiting for her to either break completely or finally wake up from the nightmare her life had become.
The holo-display above her bed flickered erratically—its projected timeline of her medical stats momentarily replaced by a single name: ‘Caitrona Rose’.
She traced the holographic letters with exhausted eyes, struggling to reconcile that legacy with her own memories—of starving in the dark, flinching at raised voices, counting every calorie like a prayer for deliverance.
The cardiac monitor let out a soft warning chime—its first alert threshold tripped by her racing pulse.
A nurse outside stirred at their station but didn’t enter the room.
They all knew.
Had seen the way Kieran’s pupils dilated when he leaned over her bed earlier.
Had noticed how Owen’ s fingers lingered too long on her wrist when he comforted her.
She traced the edge of the blanket with trembling fingers—still mussed from when Owen last visited.
His scent lingered in the fabric, tangled inextricably with her own.
Gardenia and chamomile.
Omega and Alpha.
It should have been suffocating—should have sent her into another panic—but instead it settled something deep in her chest, unraveling a knot of tension she hadn’t realized was there.
The holo-display flickered again—a new notification scrolling across its surface: ‘Lab results pending 12/15.’
Cait exhaled sharply through her nose, bracing for yet another round of tests and prodding from gloved, clinical hands.
But Owen had looked at her earlier like she was already whole—like she wasn’t broken beyond repair.
And maybe that was the most terrifying realization of all—that someone might see her as worth saving when she wasn’t sure she saw that value in herself.
She gripped the sheets tightly.
Outside, the dome’s atmospheric shields continued their endless hum.
She willed herself to keep it down, to get through this.
But it was hard, so hard.
Meanwhile, three floors below in the hospital’s private lounge, Albert Rose gripped his whiskey glass hard enough for the crystal to creak ominously under the pressure.
“You expect me to accept this so easily?” His voice was low and dangerous, the kind of tone that preceded purges in the old Traverse wars.
Across the table, Owen didn’t flinch—just lifted his own glass with deliberate calm, the amber liquid inside catching the light like trapped fire.
“Yes.” Owen said simply—as if that settled everything.
“She ‘chose me.Your opinion doesn’t change that fact.”
Kieran’s fingers tightened around his tumbler until his knuckles stood out white against his skin.
“Father.”
Albert cut him off with a sharp gesture—whiskey sloshing over the rim of his glass as he moved.
“Eight years,” he hissed, his pheromones spiking with enough force to make the overhead lights flicker.
“Eight years I spent thinking you abandoned us for that capitalistic swine’s spawn, and now you’re telling me you want to share my daughter with him?”
Owen’ s answering smile was all teeth, predatory and cold.
“How funny,” he murmured, setting his glass down with deliberate precision.
“Seems like it’s not your choice again, phony lord.” Owen leaned forward, his grin unshaken—just enough to emphasize the difference in their sizes.
“Your family was one hundred and fifty-sixth in line for the crown and barely related to pre-virus royalty by marriage. Don’t you ever speak ill of my station or family again.”
Kieran smirked.
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on, heavy with almost a decade of resentment and barely suppressed violence.
Kieran exhaled sharply through his nose—his own pheromones spiking in response to his father’s frustration and grief mingling uncomfortably in the confined space.
“She’s not your bargaining chip,” Kieran said finally—his voice rough with emotion.
“She’s queen now.
And if she wants him,” he jerked his chin toward Owen, “then he stays.
Whether you like it or not.
Respect him or lose Cait forever.”
Albert’s glass shattered explosively in his grip—whiskey and crystal shards scattering across the table like liquid amber and broken promises.
“Gods, Albert.
How Noble.” Owen said with a smirk, “Who is the boar now?”
Albert’s knuckles whitened around one jagged piece of glass still clutched in his palm, blood welling up between his fingers but not quite dripping yet.
“You think you’re entitled to her just because you sniffed her first?” His voice dripped venom—the words cutting deeper than any blade could.
Owen didn’t react beyond a slight tightening of his jaw—his pheromones remaining tightly controlled despite the provocation.
“No,” he said quietly—his deep voice resonating through the small room.
“I think I’m entitled to her because she chose me—same as you were entitled to your ‘Yvette’, until you drove her away.”
Kieran winced at the low blow—his eyes darting between the two men as the tension in the room ratcheted higher.
“Owen—”
“No,” Owen interrupted—his gaze never leaving Albert’ face.
“He needs to hear this. His daughter was poisoned, experimented on, and starved for years while he wallowed in self-pity instead of looking for her. And now he’s acting like he has any right to dictate who she lives?”
Albert surged to his feet—his chair toppling backward with a crash as he slammed both palms down on the table.
“You—”
The intercom crackled to life before he could finish his threat—a disembodied voice cutting through the tension like a knife: “Code blue, west wing. Omega Rose, repeat, code blue—”
Owen was moving before the announcement finished—his chair skidding backward violently as he vaulted over the table in a single fluid motion that sent glasses and paperwork flying.
Kieran barely had time to blink before Owen was already halfway to the door—moving with the terrifying speed of an Alpha in distress.
“Fucking hell,” Kieran swore, fumbling his own chair backward as he scrambled to follow.
He’d patrolled with Owen through some of the worst sectors of the Traverse in North America.
He had seen him fight through ambushes and riots, but this new speed was something else entirely.
This was an instinctual movement toward his mate in distress—nothing would slow him down short of a bullet to the brain.
They called in ‘primal’ behaviours.
Left over from their ancient ‘relatives’.
Owen didn’t pause when he reached the west wing doors—just kicked them open with enough force to shear one hinge completely loose.
The scent hit them before they even crossed the threshold—gardenia and bile thick enough to coat the back of Kieran’s throat.
Inside, Dr.Jameson was already in action, bent over Cait’s convulsing form.
He frustratedly pulled at the mask.
His fingers worked frantically at the oxygen mask’s straps as Cait choked against the plastic.
“I can’t get this thing off,” he shouted.
Vomit had pooled in the mask’s concave curve, sealing it against her face like some grotesque second skin.
Owen didn’t hesitate—just shoved past the cluster of shocked nurses with a grunt—his hands replacing Jameson’s with a precision that shouldn’t have been possible for someone moving that fast.
“Hold her head—” Jameson started—but Owen was already cradling Cait’s skull in one massive palm while the other ripped the mask free with a wet, sucking sound that turned Kieran’s stomach.
Owen’s fingers dug the rest out without caring about the splatter.
“Get me suction, I need her airway cleared.” Dr.
Jameson shouted.
The room scrambled in to shocked order.
Finally a suction tube was in his hands.
Owen’s giant hand still cradled her head.
He felt a jumble of chaos.
A panic maelstrom wall punched him in the head as she wheezed and coughed.
He felt relieved seeing her breath.
His hand flew to his temple, violet vomit smearing messily on his face.
“She’s seizing.” Dr.
Jameson warned.
“Midazolam now!”
“Hgnnnh.” Cait gasped—her spine arching painfully off the bed as her body spasmed uncontrollably.
A nurse hit the panel and typed in the code for the medication.
A double chime rang as it administered a tailored dosage based on her weight and vitals.
Owen rolled her onto her side with practiced ease, his forearm braced along her trembling back to keep her stable.
“I got you, you’ll be okay” he gently said as she spasmed briefly—his voice pleading—his emotions overriding any bedside manner.
Albert watched, his heart in his throat.
His children had always had a clear bill of health, other than getting into fist fights and scrapes they were all healthy boys.
He could not watch her die.
He left the room.
Owen stared at the mess on Cait, “What are you standing there for, can I have a wet towel or two?” A nurse disappeared into the hallway and reappeared with the supplies.
Kieran watched—transfixed—as Owen wiped Cait’s chin clean with a wet towel—his expression never changing even as the fabric soaked up the mess.
His shirt was splattered with her bile.
The monitor behind them screamed its alarm—a jagged line of panic scrolling across its display—but Owen didn’t so much as glance at it.
Just pressed his forehead to Cait’s damp temple and murmured something too low for anyone else to catch—his fingers curled around her wrist in a grip that was more territorial than medical.
“That was a withdrawal seizure, I had hoped she would not develop them, they are rare.” Jameson explained tightly—snapping on fresh gloves as she grabbed the suction tool from the wall unit.
“Her body’s not responding to the antidote, we can stabilize her but..”
Kieran barely heard him—his attention fixed on the way Owen’ s massive frame blocked Cait from the rest of the room—his body angled like a shield between her and any perceived threat.
He must already be in love, but he did not even know it yet.
Owen didn’t move—not even when Cait’s fingers scrabbled weakly against his forearm—her limbs twisting at unnatural angles as the seizure wracked her emaciated frame.
“But? What’s next?” His voice was deceptively calm—the kind of tone that meant violence simmered just beneath the surface.
Jameson hesitated—his gaze flicking to Kieran before settling back on Owen.
“We sedate her. Again. Let her withdraw more unconsciously.We feed her paternally, we perform dialysis to assist her struggling system clear the poison and build up waste. She needs Doctor Dubois”
Kieran’s stomach dropped.
More sedation meant more chemicals in her already poisoned system—more time lost to unconsciousness while her body tore itself apart trying to recalibrate.
Owen exhaled sharply through his nose—his free hand brushing Cait’s sweat-slick hair back from her forehead with surprising gentleness.
“Fine.Do what is necessary.” His gaze lifted—locking onto Kieran’s with frightening intensity.
“Get Albert,” he ordered—voice rough with suppressed emotion.
“He’s conveniently missing. We need to move quickly.”
Kieran didn’t move.
He couldn’t, not when Cait’s fingers were clutching at Owen’ sleeve like he was the only thing keeping her from drowning.
Not when Owen looked at him like that—like he’d already lost everything once and wouldn’t survive losing her too.
“Now.” Owen’ s voice cracked like a whip—leaving no room for argument.
Kieran snapped out of his terror.His pulse pounding in his ears as he sprinted down the corridor—he knew that Owen was not angry.
His fathers timeline of wanting her to receive treatment from Remy as soon as possible would be met.
It was about to get infinitely more complicated.
“How long does this aggressive treatment give her instead of the conservative detox.” Owen asked.
Dr.
Jameson rolled a syringe between his fingers—the liquid silver inside catching the sterile overhead light.
“One or two years without the healer, in hospital.” he said—voice clinical despite the gravity of the situation.
“She won’t live without extensive treatment. Her family seems confident. But she will need a lot of resources.”
Owen nodded, “Don’t worry about money. We planned to return with her home. How long will she be out?” he asked.
“Two or three days. For now, her nervous system needs time to rest. Sedation stabilizes the cascade—otherwise she’ll metabolize her own muscle tissue just to keep functioning..”
Owen’s jaw tightened—his thumb tracing the too-prominent ridge of Cait’s collarbone where the skin stretched thin over bone.
“Can you do something about her weight?” he asked.
“We’ll tube feed her OmegaPlex through a nasal-gastric line, a lot of it,” Dr.Jameson said—his gaze flicking to the biometrics scrolling across the holo-screen.
“We’ve added pheromonal concentrates to her oxygen mixture. She’s…” He hesitated—glancing at Owen’ s stormy expression before continuing carefully.
”
Dr.
Jameson ran a hand over his face, frustration evident in his demeanor.
“Owen,” he said, focusing on the screen again, “this omega wing wasn’t equipped with pheromone blowers like the others. Maintenance is struggling to reroute the air to this suite properly. She’s showered, and even her skin was always coated in Traverse pheromal concentrate. Which we lack. She’s probably suffocating slightly because of the lack of pheromones from the tunnels.”
Owen clenched his jaw, the weight of Jameson’s words hitting him hard.
“What do you need me to do?” he asked, already bracing himself.
“If you are willing to,” Jameson met his gaze, his voice lowering.
“circulate with her—skin to skin. Your pheromones might help stabilize her. It’s a long shot, but it might just make a difference until the vent is hooked up.”
Owen nodded grimly—already pressing his wrist gland against Cait’s neck—his chamomile-honey scent spiking with stress pheromones as the room began to smell distinctly of lemons.
“I’ll circulate with her then,” he said—voice rough with emotion.
“She really can’t wait on the ventilation upgrades—I’ll pay whatever overtime they want, upgrade costs, fines from the union. Just let them know how important this is to me, and to just bill me. Whatever it costs. Bill for the door as well. The Thorne family always takes responsibility for their actions.”
Albert hovered in the doorway—his palms pressed flat against the frame as if he might collapse without its support.
Kieran watched him—something bitter rising in his throat at the sight of his father’s ashen face.
“You didn’t run,” he observed—voice flat.
Albert flinched—his fingers twisting in the fabric of his sleeves.
“I—” His voice cracked.
“I panicked. I have bad memories.”
“He kept a clear head, and acted.” Kieran exhaled sharply—his own scent spiking with frustration.
“Stop being an ass to Owen,” he muttered—lowering his voice so only Albert could hear.
“He’s a good man—maybe the only one who can help her through this.”
Owen’ spine straightened—his shoulders squaring like a soldier preparing for a suicide mission.
“Thanks,” he said—voice strangely calm despite the pallor of his face.
His hands never stopped moving—gentle strokes through Cait’s hair, steady pressure on her pulse points—as if he could pour his own strength into her through touch alone.
“Albert, can you contact him? We leave as soon as she is stabilized, by the external line.” Owen conceded.
The last time he had seen Remy Dubois in person, it had ended in violence.
He felt horrible about how it ended, and aggravated at the same time.
He’d beg him if need be.
He did not think it would come to that.
Remy was Michael’s cohabitation partner after all.
Albert nodded his head, “Sure, no problem. I was planning on asking him regardless.” Albert said.
He was still tense about the new relationship.
He heard his father snort when he retorted.
Remy Dubois’s help was something that Cait desperately needed.
It would take some time unless the addition of her pheromones amplified his powers, like it seemed to do with Owen.
He knew the passive aggression would probably ease from his father.
He gave Albert a pointed look.
Albert cleared his throat, “I have sent the guard to investigate and clear out her apartment,” he said.
He was curious how his daughter lived as a Beta anyway.
This would give him insight into his daughter’s life.
“Good. Keep me apprised of what you find.” The cardiac monitor stuttered—then steadied—its rhythm smoothing out as Cait’s breathing deepened.
Albert looked solemnly at Owen, then to Kieran.
“They should be arriving shortly. Do you want to go watch the footage?” he asked.
Kieran nodded, Owen shook his head.
He would stay and slowly circulate with her.
The room fell silent as the two men left./
Owen exhaled—long and slow—his forehead pressing against Cait’s damp temple as he murmured words too soft for anyone else to hear.
“I will have to accept reality for your own good,” he softly said as he kissed her temple.