He Hid His Changing, Then His Doctor Became His Mate novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Midsummer Address
In front of the whole pack Cavan's scent turns omega in the middle of his address, and his father closes the hall. That night the Queen takes him to a doctor in the lower town, and Fenny's hands on his stomach make the change happen again.
At noon on the longest day of the year, four hundred wolves stood in the hall to hear their Prime speak.
Cavan Felix stood at the top of the dais steps with his speech in his hand.
His stepbrother had caught him in the corridor a minute earlier and pressed something into his palm.
"Grandmother's luck," his stepbrother said, smiling. "She wore it to her own address. Go on, put it on."
It was a gold disc on a leather cord, etched with a sunburst, warm from his stepbrother's pocket.
Cavan slid it over his head and tucked it inside his collar.
"Thank you," he said, and meant it.
Roddy squeezed his shoulder. "You'll be wonderful, brother."
Cavan looked out at the packed hall and began.
"Wolves of Goldridge. This has been a good year."
His voice carried. His scent carried with it, as clean and strong as pine smoke, and the front rows lifted their chins to take it in.
He had gotten through three weeks without a change.
He let himself think the worst was over.
"And in the year ahead..."
Heat rolled up his spine.
It was the wrong kind of heat, low and slow, and it settled behind his navel.
Cavan gripped the lectern.
Not here, he told himself. Not now.
The sunburst against his chest went hot.
His scent shifted.
He felt it go. The pine smoke thinned and turned sweet, honey and warm skin, and a murmur ran across the hall.
An old councillor in the front row frowned and sniffed the air.
Someone near the back said, "Is that an omega?"
His voice came out of his mouth too high.
"In the year ahead," he said, and stopped.
His father was beside him before the next breath.
King Alex put one broad hand on Cavan's back and spoke to the hall in his slow, steady voice.
"The Prime is unwell. The heat has been hard on him. We close the address here. Go in peace."
Four hundred wolves stared as Alex walked his son out through the side door.
Cavan did not remember the corridor.
He remembered the lock of his bedroom door, and the cold floor under his knees, and the mirror in the washroom showing a flushed face he did not want to see.
By dark the change had gone back and forth four times.
He was an alpha, hot with rut, tearing the sheets off the bed.
Then he was an omega, slick and shaking, curled around a pillow, hating the sound his own body made.
His mother sat on the end of the bed the fifth time he came back to himself.
Queen Miranda had not slept either. Her hair was pinned straight and her hands were not steady.
"I have found someone," she said. "A doctor. He has this same thing, Cavan. He has kept it down for years."
"I don't want a doctor."
"You nearly lost the pack in front of four hundred of them today."
She was right.
He lay still a moment, looking at the ceiling, and thought of the old councillor's frown.
So Cavan went.
The clinic was a stone house at the bottom of the town, with one lamp lit in the back.
The doctor who opened the door was younger than Cavan had expected, lean, with russet hair tied back and round wire glasses.
"Fenny Fox," he said, and looked the three of them over. "Back room. I do the exam in the bathroom, where the tub is. It's private, and it's easy to clean."
Miranda stepped forward, putting an envelope on his table. "Please. Whatever you need."
Fenny did not touch the money.
He turned and took Cavan by the elbow, and his fingers were cool through the sleeve.
In the bathroom he shut the door and said, "Shirt off. Sit on the rim."
Cavan sat.
Fenny knelt in front of him and laid one hand flat against his stomach.
Cavan stopped breathing.
The charm went hot at his throat. A sweet shiver rushed from the touch down through his hips, and between one breath and the next the pine smoke was gone.
Honey filled the little room.
Fenny's head came up. His eyes had gone wide behind the glasses.
He snatched his hand away, stood, and pulled a small tin from his coat.
He swallowed a pill dry.
"That's not a slow disorder," he said, and his voice was rough. "It's racing. Weeks, maybe, before you can't hold either shape."
He opened the door.
Miranda was waiting there, and the king behind her.
"He'll need treatment every day, in person," Fenny said. "Not in a clinic. In the palace."
"Then you'll move in," the Queen said. "And you will marry him."
Fenny stared at her.
"Your Majesty," he said, "I told you I'd examine him."
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