As Liam took the baby blue carrier into the back treatment room, his heart pounded. An alpha? Even worse, he’d smelled good. And looked good. Tall, dark, and way too handsome in a rumpled t-shirt, muscles on muscles with the posture of a soldier and the smudge of a five-o'clock shadow on his square jaw. Liam had been through this before. For a few brief seconds, before he’d seen the little girl, when the alpha had cornered Liam between the door and the gate, he’d been both excited and scared. Just like before, when he’d met Damon outside the shelter.

And look where that had gotten him.

The police didn’t take omegas seriously when it came to an alpha’s "attention".

“He calls and just breathes on the phone. I know it’s him because...I just know it.”

“He still sends me notes and flowers.”

“A dog was left dismembered on the porch of my apartment complex. Yes, he could have been hurt in a fight. No, I don’t know who his owner is.”

Liam wasn’t even sure if he believed himself anymore. But rational or not, his fear of Damon had become too much. Two months ago, Liam had packed up his entire life, his dog Lucky, his cat Ferrous, a rescued lab rat, an ancient hamster, and whatever worldly possessions could be squashed around them into his station wagon and drove cross-country for two weeks to put Damon in his past.

It was inconvenient living incognito. No social media. He had to use a burner phone to call his parents, who still kept asking him when he was going to bring home a nice alpha, as though Damon’s controlling behavior, his quiet threats, and that one night had never happened.

Liam’s throat still ached as he thought of it.

No.

No point in thinking of it. Damon was in the past. Gunnar had a kid and wore a wedding ring, which made him harmless, insofar as threatening Liam’s new life here. Liam was safe in Liberty City and luckier than he had any right to be to find what was turning out to be the perfect job.

The patients came first. Not this stupid and irrational fear.

As Liam pulled the kitten out of his carrier and onto a towel on the exam table, his patient Puff could barely lift his head. Liam suspected the kitten's blood sugar was extremely low, and he plucked some fur from the kitten's ear with the hope that he could get enough of a prick to test his sugar on the machine.

Liam had seen this before too many times. Well-meaning people adopted a young kitten from the shelter, and it came home with a cold. New parents, especially those who had never had a kitten before, didn't realize how much the little one was supposed to eat. They didn't notice their new family member, not being able to smell the food, was starving until it was too late.

Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too late this time.

The door opened, and Carolyn bustled in. "I'm sorry I'm late. I heard you had an emergency – – goodness!"

"Shelter adoption."

"Want me to get the paste?" Carolyn put her bag down in front of the wall of kennels and started to the cabinet.

Liam pulled up the kitten’s lip to expose his gums, which were pale and slightly yellow. Jaundice.

Carolyn handed Liam the tube of nutrient paste in the cabinet, and Liam rubbed a healthy glob over the kitten’s gums. He went through the rest of the basic exam: weight- a pound under for his age, which judging by the bluish green of his eyes, was between seven and eight weeks. Temperature, 96 degrees- low. He pulled up the fur on the kitten's back, and it dropped slowly; he was also dehydrated.

Puff would need subcutaneous fluids. Considering his lethargic state, if his blood sugar was too low to register, which it likely was, he would also need an injection of dextrose into his belly. Hopefully, that would give him enough energy to get some real food into him.

"I'll need a heating pad and a towel. Sub Q," Liam rattled off the instructions as he pricked the kitten's ear and milked it for a drop of blood. Ferrous had been the same way, just a half pound bigger than Puff and even worse off with a ruptured eye, when Liam had found him wrapped in a towel in a cardboard box on the steps of the shelter in Philly where he used to volunteer. Now the fat tabby spread out over Liam's chest every night and kneaded his paws into Liam's bladder every morning to make sure he was awake and ready to offer up the promised quarter can of cat food to go with his kibble.

Carolyn pushed a test strip into the blood sugar meter and held it to the slowly growing drop of blood on Puff's ear. About ten seconds later, it beeped and returned two flat lines. Too low to register.

Puff definitely would need the dextrose. Also, significant hand feeding,preferably in the hospital, at least for today.

"Can you bring the owner back?" Liam asked.

Carolyn nodded.

Liam quickly gave the dextrose and had just started the subcutaneous fluids when Carolyn and the alpha returned. Gunnar. Liam smelled him, a mix of pine and sandalwood with something spicy he couldn't identify but knew smelled good. In his college biology classes, they had done a chapter on alpha and omega scent glands and how the brain interpreted the pheromones. The more genetically suited an alpha and omega were to each other, the better they smelled. Betas were similar, but their pheromones and scent glands were not strongly developed. At least, that's what the research said. So it was just biology that made Liam, for a brief instant, want to bury his nose against the alpha's neck and just breathe.

Gunnar fiddled with his wedding ring as he took a step towards the table. That simple motion wiped any thoughts of scents or biology class from Liam's mind. The way he was acting, he was proving the omega detractors, the ones who said omegas couldn't be trusted with important work because their hormones would get the better of them, right.

Puff lifted his head, and his meow was stronger this time. He even moved his paws, scraping a pad lightly over the towel.

Liam smiled. He glanced up at the fluid bag. A bubble had begun to form under the skin of Puffs flank from the fluid. Another 10 mL would be enough for now.

"He looks better, doesn't he?" Gunnar asked. "What's wrong with him? What did you do?"

Liam pinched the line and pulled the needle out as he explained about the low blood sugar and everything he had done so far. "A normal kitten will usually eat one to two full 5 1/2 ounce cans of cat food over the course of the day. Or an equivalent amount of dry. It's usually best to do a little of both."

"That much?" Gunnar fiddled with his wedding ring again. "I didn't know." He took another step so that he was catty-corner to Liam. Puff squirmed a little on the towel and sneezed. Gunnar reached out and then stopped. "Can I touch him?"

Having an alpha so close should have scared Liam, but Gunnar was so gentle with Puff that Liam felt calm too. Damon had pretended to like Liam's pets, but he had rarely tried to touch them. And the feeling had been mutual. Ferrous, who liked most everyone, had given Damon a disdainful hiss and stalked off, tail twitching. Liam should've known then.

"You can pet him. Of course. He's going to get a bit more active in a few minutes, but we have to get some real food into him. Dextrose is a simple sugar, and easy to absorb, but once he is strong enough to swallow, we're going to have to hand feed him. I'd like to keep Puff for the day, just to get him off on the right foot, if that's okay."

"Yes, please." Gunnar petted the kitten gently. "Do you think he's going to…? I know you can't say for sure, but he's looking better, isn't he?"

"I can't say for sure, but it's clear this little guy is a fighter. And I'm going to do everything I possibly can to make sure Puff stays with us. My cat, Ferrous, was in a similar place when I took him home, and now he’s so chubby, it's embarrassing when I tell people I'm a vet."

Gunnar laughed, and for a moment the grimness lifted from his expression and Liam's breath caught in his throat. Gunnar's omega was a very lucky man.

Maybe. You never really knew.

"Can my daughter see him?" Gunnar asked.

"Absolutely. I'll have Carolyn mix up some – –." A bowl of diluted prescription cat food and a syringe were already sitting on the table. "Thanks, Carolyn," Liam said.

Carolyn was already setting up a cage for Puff to spend the day and be monitored. She was going to be an excellent veterinarian. She was detail oriented, intelligent, and kind. Liam really loved working here. Back home, he had worked in an emergency clinic, and while he loved knowing that his split-second decisions could and would immediately save lives, he never really got a chance to know the clients or patients beyond the duration of their emergency. Here, he could build longer-term relationships. As lonely as he was being so far from everything he had known before, he liked this. And more importantly, he was safe.

"I'll be right back," Gunnar said.

Liam breathed a soft sigh through his nose after the alpha had left. The attraction was biology. Even if Liam had wanted to act on it, which he didn't, the man was married, and he had a kid.

Liam stirred the food with a tongue depressor and then drew up a syringe. Puff was sitting up now, and his eyes looked a little brighter. With his thumb and middle finger on either side of Puff's cheekbones, Liam gently lifted Puff's head and put the tip of the syringe behind his right canine. He gave a small squirt. To his relief, Puff began moving his tongue and jaw, and he swallowed.

Good. The dextrose worked quickly, but it didn't last long. He would need to get real food into Puff and have that digest to truly stabilize the kitten's blood sugar.

Puff sneezed. That was the second, serious challenge. Between the sneezing and postnasal drip, it was important to be slow and careful so that he didn't choke on his food and develop pneumonia.

Liam had given a little over a milliliter when Gunnar returned with his daughter.

"Puff!" Olivia ran to the table. "He's awake!" Her eyes were shining, and she grinned. "What are you doing? Is that medicine?"

Liam smiled. "It's a special prescription cat food, like chicken soup when you're sick. Puff has a very bad cold, and because he had such a bad cold and he was feeling so lousy, he wasn't eating enough, and his blood sugar got too low. Do you know how you can feel dizzy or sick when you don't eat for too long?"

Olivia nodded, and for a moment her expression went deadly serious. "Like when Daddy died."

Poor child. Liam nodded solemnly. "Yes, I've been so sad or scared sometimes that I haven't eaten too. With Puff though, he just felt very sick. As people, we know when we feel sick that we need to eat, but cats don't think that way. So sometimes we have to help them. That's what I'm doing. I gave him some medicine to bring up his blood sugar, and we're going to give him something for his cold, but the most important thing is to make sure that he keeps eating."

"I can help. Me and Dad, we can help."

"You did a good job bringing him here. He's not out of the woods yet, but he is doing better, and we're just going to keep working with him all day. And when you to come back, we'll see what else we need to do."

"Can I stay? And help?"

Gunnar locked gazes with Liam and shook his head. Because he was behind Olivia, the little girl didn't see, but something must've shown on Liam's face because she whipped around to her father and said, "Please, Dad. I know you have to work, but I can miss one day of school. I did all of my homework."

"I'm sure the doctor has staff and can't have an extra person underfoot all day. We'll be back when they say we can pick him up. Right doctor?"

Liam knew better than to put himself between a father and his kid. Especially since Gunnar was right. If she touched the wrong piece of equipment or accidentally hurt herself somehow, he would never forgive himself. It would also be a lawsuit for the practice, and the last thing he wanted to do was to get Dr. Griffin in trouble, especially since she had given him a chance with only one interview and a week of probation. "Us omega professionals have to stick together," she had said.

"Puff will be ready for pick up after five. But you can come earlier if you want to check up on him, Mr.…" Liam glanced out of the file. "Mr. Justice."

"We can't thank you enough, doctor," Gunnar said. "We'll be back tonight. Is 5:30 okay? I want to make sure we know everything we're supposed to do."

"I'll have Pam pencil you in. Carolyn can walk you through the full program. And make sure you’ve left her your number in case we need to contact you." Liam smiled. "And that doesn't mean something has gone wrong if we call. Usually, we just have an additional question."

"Why don't you tell Puff goodbye," Gunnar said. "Then we have to get you dressed and off school."

"I'm going to be late."

"I'll write you a note. This was an emergency."

"Maybe I can just spend the day with grandma, and we can come back this afternoon. I already did all of the work for today, so it's not a big deal."

"Say goodbye to Puff for right now," Gunnar said, his tone getting a little harder. "We want to give the doctor time to help get him better."

Olivia leaned over the kitten and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "See you later," she said, and then in a low whisper added, "I'm not saying goodbye." Olivia petted the kitten a little longer.

Finally, Liam said, "I want to try and get a little bit more food into him before we start getting more patients. And then we have to give him some more medicine."

"Come on, Olivia. We have to go now." Gunnar took his daughter's hand, and after a bit more negotiation, the two of them left.

Liam fed Puff until Carolyn came back into the room. "Nice family," she said. "How's Puff doing?"

"I got three syringes into him." Puff was beginning to squint a little bit, and not just from the cold. Being sick and hungry was exhausting. "I just want to get some antibiotics into him and some gentamicin for the eyes and nose. Then we'll just work on feeding him through the day. Hopefully, I won't have to take him home tonight." Shelter colds were highly contagious. Already, they were going to have to spray bleach on the table twice before putting any other animals on it.

"I'm sure that alpha will be very grateful for any and all care you give." She raised an eyebrow and gave him a quirked grin.

Liam rolled his eyes. Carolyn was always trying to fix him up, but this was a bit much, even for her. "Mr. Justice is married."

"You heard the kid. Her bearer dad died. Mr. Justice is probably just wearing the ring because he can't let go yet."

All the more reason not to get involved. Liam shook his head. "I'm not looking for a relationship. Especially not with a client."

"I was just saying he would be grateful. Who said anything about a relationship? There is such a thing as casual sex."

Maybe for other people. "Why don't you get some more food into this kitten while I draw up his medications?"

"Party pooper."

"What?"

"Yes, doctor."