Chapter Twelve
Knox
I opened the door before the woman on the other side could knock. She had a narrow face, a bright smile and shiny, straight black hair pulled up in a ponytail. Her fist was up, in the process of beginning to knock when I'd opened the door.
"You're fast," she said brightly. "I'm Dr. Tiffany Lewelyn, but everyone calls me Dr. Tiff."
When I'd called the Walkers the day before, they said they were sending their pack doctor immediately. I appreciated the haste, but Dr. Tiff was a shifter and, as such, dangerous.
It didn't matter that I'd asked for her to come or that Nash and the other Walker alphas had vouched for her. She was a stranger capable of violence who I was letting into my home, near my omega. "Are you trained? How long have you been a doctor?"
Dr. Tiff's eye brows rounded. "Huh. Normally I get a hi back, but okay. I completed my bachelor's in Sexual and Reproductive Health from the University of Washington and graduated medical school from Pacific Northwest University-Health Sciences. After that, I completed a four-year residency at the largest all-shifter hospital in the US—Los Angeles Center of Shifter Medicine. Following that, I completed an additional two year fellowship on pack lands working under Nana Walker. I've been secondary pack doctor for a little over four years now and primary pack doctor for one. Is that sufficient?"
I regarded her carefully, narrowing my eyes at the cheeky glint in her dark gaze. "It's a good start."
She rolled her eyes, and I couldn't be mad at the disrespect. Right then, I deserved it. Dr. Tiff stepped past me into the entryway, where she looked around with wide eyes. "This place is half amazing, half soggy," she said, tightening her ponytail. "Where is the patient?" She wandered toward the stairs. "I assume this way?"
A low growl vibrated from the next floor. Dog stood in the center of the landing, his teeth bared at the stranger attempting to gain entry. "Is this the doctor?" Faust asked, walking out from the shadows.
"I'm Dr. Tiff. Hey there." She gave a small wave. She cupped her hand while looking back at me. "This isn't the blessed one, right?"
Blessed sounded like a fancy way of saying unexplainable. "We don't know that."
She frowned, dark eyes darting between us.
"Faust is not the one you are here to see. You're here for my omega, Jazz. He's upstairs."
"Your omega? Should I be reporting in with an Alpha?"
It should've stung that she didn't just assume I was the Alpha, but my behavior toward her so far had been more barking guard dog than it had been a wise leader. "No. We—no."
By then I heard the twin's heartbeats, down the hall, always half a beat faster than everyone else. They remained hidden, lurking, while doing just as I, Faust, and Dog had done, protecting Jazz.
"Let the doctor through," Diesel grumbled . He joined us from the kitchen. "You called her here. Now you're treating her like a spy. Something is wrong with Jazz. Rainbow puke isn't normal. Let her see if she can find out."
My immediate urge was to ignore him. Out of all of the men, he'd accepted Jazz the least. His version of Jazz acceptance was avoidance. He wouldn't care if Jazz was sick or if Dr. Tiff meant him harm. Or if this even was Dr. Tiff and the true doctor had been intercepted and murdered.
"Did anyone get a sample?" Dr. Tiff asked, her mood as chipper as when she walked in. If she noticed our overprotective behavior, she didn't let on. Or she was used to it. "I'm very eager to get a look at that."
"I did," Faust said. "I'll bring it to Jazz's room."
"And Jazz's room would be… ?" She pointed her finger in one direction and then the other.
Diesel stepped close to my side. "My opinion once meant something to you, Knox. As the only one of us who has any experience with having an omega and mate, listen to me. The suspicion will never fade. Neither will the doubt. Welcome to having an omega."
"Oh, there's more than one omega here?" Dr. Tiff asked brightly.
Diesel's face closed down, like watching the door to a bank vault slam shut. "No." He stomped down the hallway toward the gym.
Diesel's pain was so thick in the air. There was no avoiding the burnt taste of his sorrow. We'd been tasting Diesel's grief for years, and I knew by now, there was nothing I could do to soothe his pain. I took the first step up the stairs. "I'll take you."
At the door, I knocked. "Jazz, I'm coming in with the doctor. Are you decent?"
"Will it matter?" Jazz shouted back. His voice rang clear and strong. "The doctor is going to see me naked anyway."
"I like him," Dr. Tiff whispered.
I shook my head before pushing open the door and letting her pass. "It's hard not to."
***
Dr. Tiff pulled off her latex gloves, tucked one inside the other, and tossed the bundle in the trash can. "What about any former doctors, Jazz?" she asked. "In an ideal world, I would have records to compare to today." She picked up her clipboard, scratching her pen over the paper as she made notes.
Jazz shook his head. His curls bounced, no longer plastered to his forehead by sweat. "I've never seen a doctor."
Dr. Tiff paused, her pen frozen against the paper. "Never? Not once?"
"Not that I can remember. I don't really get sick a lot."
That was true. When he wasn't vomiting rainbows, Jazz was in good health, especially considering the junk he used to eat.
"Can you remember experiencing any medical emergency?"
"I almost drowned when I was little, but I don't remember going to the doctor's after."
"But no flu? Ear infections? Broken bones?"
"Not yet. Why? Is that weird?"
Dr. Tiff scrunched her nose in what I guessed was her thinking face. "No. Not average, but not weird. Do you feel comfortable enough to tell me more about the near drowning?"
I'd already stopped my pacing right around the time Jazz admitted to almost dying. It had happened when he was young, long before I'd known the young man existed. I still felt as if I'd failed him. He'd nearly died. That was unacceptable.
Is that any worse than what you've done to him?
I shoved the thought down. Paying attention to Jazz was more important than my shame.
"I don't remember a whole lot. I was so young. I was at a park, back when my father still took me places, so I couldn't have been older than four, if that. I'd fallen into a creek or something. I just remember breaking through the water and seeing the sky overhead and having this clear idea that my father would finally be happy once I was gone.
"But then someone grabbed me, I think? He patted my back as I coughed and held me while I cried. I remember that part clearly, being held. And then he sent me back to my father, still sitting on a bench screaming at his assistant until he saw me, and then he yelled at me for getting wet."
I was going to kill that bastard. His own son had nearly drowned, and the man never knew.
"I'm sorry that happened." Dr. Tiff squeezed Jazz's hand. "Records would've been lucky, but we don't need them. I would like to take another look at your stomach if you don't mind."