Page 116 of Alpha Heat

“Well, so long as a I smell nice enough not to offend you, little brother,” Ray said with a wry smile.

But he was far too weak to get out of bed on his own. Xan helped him into the bathroom and under the spray of the shower. He steadied him and washed him, his heart aching at finding the older brother he’d always admired as weak as a baby.

As he dried off Ray, his brother’s eyes went distant again. “Xan, I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything. Of course.”

“I have a friend, an omega friend…” Ray frowned slightly, and then cleared his throat. “A lover. I know it’s not as big a deal for uncontracted omegas to be involved with betas, but he’s ashamed. We aren’t…” Ray waved a thin hand around. “I care for him. But he…” He sighed and seemed to lose the thread before coming back to it. “I need to know if he’s all right. He was with me when I got sick.”

“This is Vince?”

Ray nodded. “Vince Ross. He lives in the Calitan district.”

Xan’s surprised expression must have reached Ray through his exhaustion and worry, because he said, “Yes, he’s a prostitute.”

“There are a lot of folks who live in Calitan that aren’t prostitutes.”

“Well, Vince is.” Ray seemed drained as he let Xan lead him back to the bedroom.

Xan pressed him into a chair next to the open window. “I’m going to change the sheets and bedding.”

“Joon does that.”

“Today I’m doing it.”

Xan left Ray coughing hard into his fist and found the linen closet right where he’d left it the last time he’d needed to change his own bed sheets after inappropriate dreams of Jason back before he’d moved out.

“Will you make sure Vince is all right?” Ray asked again when Xan returned.

Xan stripped the bed of the dirty sheets. “Do you know his telephone number?”

Ray shook his head. “He doesn’t have a phone. He doesn’t live like we do.”

“No, of course not.” He pushed the pile of dirty bedclothes out the door and into the hall with his feet before coming back in to put on the fresh sheets.

“He works the corner by the Lincoln Deli. If he’s healthy, he’ll be there,” Ray said, almost pleadingly. It was a tone Xan had never heard him use before. “Can you check on him?”

Xan finished up the pillowcases and fluffed the fresh duvet. “If he’s not healthy, then what?”

“Ask around. The owner of the deli lets him sleep in the apartment over the shop sometimes if he doesn’t have a client. He’ll know if Vince isn’t well…” Ray coughed violently and hacked up a large wad of mucous.

Xan shuddered but grabbed a handkerchief for him to spit it into. Then he gave him a dose of the black elderberry syrup Urho had said was for congestion and worked as a whole system booster.

“If he’s not well, can you see that he gets some help?” Ray coughed again, but not so deeply. He wiped at his eyes and sighed. “I feel so much better since that pill. What was it?”

“I’m not sure. My friend Dr. Chase told me to give it to you. He said it was a new drug reserved for the worst fevers.”

“YourfriendDr. Chase, huh?” Ray said softly, his tired eyes gone gray in the descending twilight coming in from the windows.

“Let’s get you back in bed.”

“But Vince—” Ray said, breaking off with a deeply earnest plea written on his face.

“I’ll check on him soon.”

“Lincoln Deli,” Ray said again.

“Right. I’ll remember.”