Page 2 of The Mating Game
“No, no,” Dr.Carter assures me with a laugh as she reaches to tuck one honeyed tendril of her hair behind her ear. “Nothing so sudden as that. You will, however, feel the urge to shift in the near future. I have all sorts of pamphlets I can give you that are chock-full of information about what your body is going through. Although, I’ve never seen a case with such a late presentation asyours…so I can’t guarantee your experiences will be exactly the same.”
“I just…don’t see how this could happen.”
“It’s basically a little hiccup in your genes,” she says with a shrug. “It will be an adjustment, but I can promise you your life won’t be turned upside down entirely.”
Easy for her to say.
“Any other surprises I have to look forward to?” I know I sound petulant, but I think it’s allowed after the day I’ve had. “Am I going to start craving more red meat and sniffing strangers?”
Her smile is a little tighter, and I realize I’m being slightly offensive.
“Sorry,” I amend quietly. “This is just a lot.”
“I get it,” she says. “It’s funny, my mate eats his steaks practically rare. I’m always teasing him about it. I can tell youI’venever had any special feelings about red meat, and as for sniffing strangers…youwillstart to experience a sharpened sense of smell. Every shifter has a particular scent, and unless they elect to use suppressants—which is usually only the case in certain professions or environments—you are going to pick up on those. It might cause headaches at first, but with time you will become more acclimated to the sensation.”
“Great,” I mumble dejectedly. “Just great.”
“If I’m being candid,” Dr.Carter goes on, “I have other suspicions about your lab results.”
I stifle a groan. What else could possibly be going on with my body? “What?”
“It’s only…” She holds out her chart, indicating a sloping graph that makes no sense to me. “Your particular levels of these hormones are indicative of a secondary designation.”
“A secondary designation?”
“It’s rare—incredibly rare, even—but then again, so is your situation as a whole. So it wouldn’t be all that surprising at this point.”
“I’m not following.”
“I think you might be an omega, Ms.Covington.”
I’m blinking dumbly again. “What?”
“Like I said, it’s very rare, and in this day and age…it really isn’t all that different from being a shifter.”
“I know what an omega is,” I say absently. “I have a friend who—” I swallow thickly. “How can you be so sure?”
“Well,” she laughs. “Iamone, for starters.”
Fuck.Foot in mouth. Again. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I am not usually this much of an asshole.”
“It’s fine. Really. I can’t imagine what it must be like to face this so suddenly.”
“If you’re an omega as well, can you tell me what I can expect? If that’s the case?”
I could always ask my friend Ada, but I haven’t even figured out how I’m going to tell her, or anyone else for that matter.
“Like I said, it really isn’t all that different in most cases. If you start googling, you’re likely to go down some undesirable Reddit rabbit holes that are mostly nonsense, but you can just ignore those. All it means is that your heats might be a little more frequent. Possibly more intense as well.”
“Myheats?”
Oh God. That absolutely hadn’t crossed my mind yet.
“Yes,” Dr.Carter explains calmly. “Usually, a shifter going through puberty will experience less intense heats—we call them ‘juvenile heats,’ to be exact—meaning they won’t last the full ovulation cycle and won’t have the same level of, ah, need.”
“Need?”
“Need to, um…copulate.”
