Eric cleared his throat a little, his eyes darting around the room. “Eh, good news?”
“The good news is, you don’t have any malignant growth in your reproductive organs. They’re perfectly healthy for an omega of your age.” Dr. Randall looked back at the chart. “The bad news is, your bloodwork indicates that your hormones are all over the place. Coupled with your other symptoms, I’m confident that you have hypersexual disorder, Type 3.”
Eric wet his lips with his tongue. Hypersexuality. He’d had an inkling it was something along those lines, so he wasn’t all that surprised. “Type 3?” he said.
Dr. Randall met his eyes, his expression still grim and unamused. If Eric didn’t know better, he’d think the doctor was disgusted by the situation. “Yes. It’s a hypersexual disorder that can happen only to omegas, usually as a response to a highly stressful situation. It happens rarely, and there are no confirmed triggers for it. The exact same trauma may not trigger the same response in two different omegas. It’s theorized that the type of trauma and psychological background play a part, but it’s all guesswork. We still don’t know why some omegas’ biology responds to a traumatic situation this way.”
“What way? Why is wanting sex a biological response to a stressful situation? It seems weird.”
“Strictly speaking, it’s not sex your biology craves. It’s the security of having an alpha. That’s why you are unable to achieve orgasm on your own. Sex with a beta or an omega will similarly not work. Your body needs certain pheromones produced only by alphas.”
Great. Fucking fantastic.
Eric clenched his hands on his knee. “Right. So how is this disorder treated?”
“There are two options that are normally advised in a situation like this,” Dr. Randall said. “The conservative medical option consists of a strict regimen of six drugs you’ll have to take for the duration of four months.”
“I’ll take that option,” Eric said quickly.
Dr. Randall gave him a flat look that clearly conveyed how unimpressed he was by his rash decision. “The problem with that option is that the drugs do very substantial damage to your liver and kidneys, and besides, they aren’t recommended for unmated people without children. There’s a high chance that those drugs will make you incapable of having them.”
Eric’s stomach knotted up. It wasn’t that he had been planning to have kids anytime soon, but not being able to have them at all—having that option taken away from him—was… daunting.
Trying to hide his discomfort, Eric shrugged. “I’m never getting mated, so it’s not very relevant.”
Dr. Randall frowned. “You’re eighteen. How can you be sure that you won’t change your mind in a few years?”
Smiling crookedly, Eric looked anywhere but at him. “It’s not about changing my mind, doctor. It’s not up to me. Let’s be honest: no one wants spoiled goods.”
“Spoiled goods,” Dr. Randall repeated slowly. “Is it about the scandal in Pelugia?”
His lips twisting, Eric looked down at his hands. “I mean, the mere fact that you, a Kadarian I’ve never met before, are aware of the scandal speaks for itself, doesn’t it? No one will want to mate an omega like me.” No one would want an omega who had been stupid enough to send a salacious picture of himself to an alpha he’d met on the Internet—an alpha who had sold the picture to the tabloids. The scandal it created had been unheard of. Eric was the brother of the omega the future king had been courting. Highborn omegas like him were supposed to have an unblemished reputation, but his was tarnished beyond repair.
“Look at me, kid.”
The informal address, spoken in a different tone, made Eric look up.
For the first time since he’d entered this office, Eric could see a man behind the professional, neutral mask of a doctor. And that man was angry.
Dr. Randall’s eyes were hard, his face stony as he said in a flat voice, “Any decent alpha would know not to blame you for that situation. You were a kid whose inexperience was taken advantage of. You are hardly ‘spoiled goods’ just because you sent some asshole a revealing photograph. It’s not your fault.”
Eric blinked a few times and looked down at his hands, his throat a little tight. He rarely allowed himself to feel sorry for himself—what happened was his own fault, no matter what his relatives said—but… It felt so damn unfair that one stupid mistake had cost him so much. If he were an alpha or beta, no one would have cared about the photograph. He wouldn’t have been forced to flee to a different country and live with strangers. His life wouldn’t have been ruined. The double standards were unbearable sometimes.
It felt good to be told that it wasn’t his fault by someone who wasn’t his family or friend. He was grateful—and a little surprised by how candid his doctor was being—but Eric knew things weren’t that simple. He wished they were. “The problem is, people think I did more than just send him the photograph, doctor. I’ll be forever labeled as a slag no matter what I say. No alpha will ever want to be mated to an omega with a tarnished reputation.”