Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 58808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Eric was the exception, somehow.
Hugh grimaced, thinking about the completely unprofessional way he had conducted himself with the kid. He should have referred him to another doctor the moment Eric had revealed that he could smell him despite Hugh’s suppressants and the physical distance between them—that was a sure sign of high natural compatibility. But he’d decided that it wouldn’t be an issue as long as he kept his professional distance, which was supposed to be easy while he was on suppressants.
Except apparently the kid didn’t need to smell enticingly for Hugh’s protective instincts to kick in. He hadn’t been able to remain impartial. That wide-eyed, awkward boy had tugged at his protective instincts from their very first meeting. Hugh had known that if he referred the kid to someone else, other doctors would not bother with alternative solutions: they’d tell him that mating was the only solution for him, which… The idea of that kid being forced to mate someone he barely knew because of his biology made him angry.
But it was one thing to feel protective of a young patient under his care. Allowing said patient to scent his wrist was another matter entirely. It had been Hugh’s first professional transgression. As far as professional transgressions went, it was a small one. But allowing his patient to scent his throat while he got himself off was… Fuck, he could have his license revoked if anyone found out. Eric was a vulnerable young omega suffering from Type 3 hypersexuality disorder; he wasn’t responsible for his actions. Hugh didn’t have that excuse.
Although, strictly speaking, nothing had happened between them and Hugh genuinely didn’t see his patient that way—Eric was a barely legal, inexperienced kid, and that was a big no for him. Anything less than strictly professional conduct was prohibited in the clinic, for a good reason.
Eric had seemed to get the impression that Hugh was angry with him for lack of progress on his research. That wasn’t what made Hugh angry. It wasn’t the kid’s fault that the experiment had failed. It was his own. He was the one who’d messed up. The frustrating part was, Hugh was still sure that his theory was correct, and in other circumstances, he could have proven that bottled alpha pheromones were effective for tricking omegas’ mating instincts. The problem was, the test results were contaminated.
Omegas tended to imprint. Young omegas imprinted like baby ducklings on alphas who showed them kindness, allowed them to scent them, and made them feel good. As an AO specialist, Hugh knew that better than anyone, and yet… He’d allowed Eric to scent his wrist, he’d given him his own clothes, he’d allowed him to use him to get himself off, and he’d treated him with kindness. Of course the kid had imprinted on him. And of course other alphas’ pheromones would no longer be effective while Eric had an imprint on an alpha. The experiment’s results were worthless, because the experiment was contaminated by the kid’s imprint on him.
Hugh sighed, leaning back in his seat and staring at the surface of his desk unseeingly.
The right course of action now would be to put some distance between them for a while to allow the imprint to wear off. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the time. Eric’s next heat was in a few days, and Hugh couldn’t in good conscience just leave him on his own and hope for the best. Heats could be very dangerous for omegas with hypersexuality disorder. There had been precedents of such omegas’ heats not ending when the moon waned, which made the omegas lose their minds. Eric’s youth, the recent stress he’d been through, and him being away from his pack—and away from the alpha he’d imprinted on—made the risk of continuous acyclic heat very high.
Eric couldn’t spend his heat alone: that was out of the question. Beyond that, things got… murky. There was always the option of employing specialized alpha services to help Eric through his heat. Those services were very discreet, but there was a significant chance that it wouldn’t work because of Eric’s imprint on him. There were also Eric’s trust issues when it came to strange alphas.
Fuck, poor kid. He had the worst sort of luck. It pissed Hugh off that there hadn’t been any alpha close to Eric’s own age who’d been kind enough to Eric for the kid to imprint on them. Eric was clearly starved for affection and acceptance if he latched onto the first alpha who’d been kind to him, an alpha fifteen years his senior, an alpha who was the worst possible choice for an imprint. As Eric’s doctor, Hugh couldn’t help him through his heat, even if he wanted to, which he didn’t. Even if Hugh wanted to do it and it weren’t forbidden, fucking the omega would only make the imprint stronger, so it wasn’t an option.