Page 70 of Scent to the Feral Cowboys

The large truck with its slide-outs fully extended, had the aura of a hospital. It was painted a clean, clinical white. Inconspicuous save for the name EROS stenciled in bold, dark letters across the side over a straight arrow. It was parked in the alley behind the club, in nearly the same spot where I’d first met Crystal. Me, looking like a hopeless stray cat. Her, sparkling in sequins and smoking like a chimney.

I joined the back of the line, watching as the Tanya stepped up into the van after one of the new hires—a pixie haired brunette with bloodshot eyes—exited. Coke, maybe. She wouldn’t last long here if she was an addict. Too big of aliability. I fidgeted with the blocking bracelet. I needed to get more solution from Crystal’s dealer. Or maybe now that I had a steady job, and I didn’t have to worry about my dwindling bank account, I could ask for something higher tech… I squinted at the company name on the side of the van.

That was why Eros sounded so familiar—they were releasing a new state-of-the-art ferality suppressant. The side effect warnings listed extreme dampening of natural Alpha and Omega scent. That would turn a lot of prideful people off, but for me it would be a happy silver lining. It probably cost a fortune though. Maybe the black market already had something similar to offer…

The line moved again. Tanya exited, letting Jade enter. Tanya was covered in bandages. Both sides of her neck, wrists, inner elbows. I couldn’t imagine why. Our normal health screenings shouldn’t require that many needles. I rubbed my upper arms, fighting away the goosebumps sprouting which had nothing to do with feeling cold.

Jade emerged from the van, her usual confident swagger replaced by an unsteady gait. She clutched her left arm against her side, and I caught a glimpse of a thick bandage which was already quite stained with crimson. Our eyes met for a split second—hers wide with almost a combination of surprise and discomfort—she cringed, then looked away, beelining into the club’s back entrance.

This was apparently more than a routine health screening.

Dancers continued to exit and enter, until I was standing near the bottom of the clinic’s elevated stairs.

Lost in my own thoughts, I missed the moment when the current patient left testing. I was roused from my daze by a brisk voice?—

“I haven’t got all day.”

I shook my head a little, automatically looking around to see who was holding up the works. Then I realized it was me.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, looking up and seeing the pinched face of a male Beta. He held a clipboard in one hand, a pen pinched against it. His name tag read Mister Love.

“Step inside,” was his clipped response. He didn’t wait to see if I’d follow instructions, he turned and disappeared into the cool shadows of the truck.

I climbed the metal steps on shaking legs, the blocking bracelet suddenly feeling like a beacon on my wrist. To me, it simply looked like a nondescript piece of jewelry. Management didn’t like excessive jewelry—club aesthetics but also flipping around on a pole meant giant dangling earrings or long necklaces a hazard—but they’d never stopped me from wearing the circle of petite beads.

When I was fully inside, I shivered from a blast of air conditioning from an overhead unit.

The beta was seated on a chair bolted to the floor. One of the truck’s slide-outs accommodated a patient chair. I sat there without asking as it seemed the right thing to do. The tech was already in a foul mood, and I’d rather not rile him up further by hovering in the doorway like an idiot.

The Beta had already prepped sample tubes and butterfly needles. I expected those. But I did not like the look of the larger needles and the small device that looked like a vein finder but wasn’t.

“Why do you need so many tubes?” I asked, swallowing hard and the sound seeming to bounce around inside the cramped quarters.

The Beta didn't look up from his preparations. "Standard protocol for enhanced screening." His tone suggested I should already know this, which only made my anxiety spike higher.

"Enhanced screening for what exactly?" I pressed, watching as he double checked all of the prepared items.

His answer is emotionless, as clinical as our surroundings. “There’s been a spike in Beta glandular disorders. We’re sampling for overproduction. It’s been citywide for three weeks. You haven’t heard?”

I hadn’t. I also had zero friends outside of work. The closest friend at work was Crystal, and aside from random group breakfasts at greasy twenty-four-hour joints, we didn’t hang out. We all mostly kept our personal lives, and identities, separate. “I don’t have a glandular disorder,” I offered quickly, as if it would keep the needles from doing their worst. “And we were told this was just another basic health screening. Nothing special.”

“Well, I’m sorry if your employer did not inform you. I’m just here to do my own job. Having said that, please just lease sit back and let me work.”

God, he was a barely full of laughs. Definitely didn’t fit his last name.

I wasn’t a Beta. I couldn’t have whatever glandular disorder was spreading. But I couldn’t say that…

“We’ll take the routine blood first.” He lowered the chair’s arm rests, and I automatically placed both arms into position. He looked around, tapping and feeling, before tightly tying a rubber band around my left upper arm. He did it so tightly I winced, and the skin between the constraint and my elbow began to pale. He snapped a sterile swab between his fingers and rubbed a section of skin vigorously.

I averted my gaze as he slid the butterfly needle into the vein, supported it one handed while ripping a piece of tape from his prep tray. After stabilizing the needle, he began popping tubes off and on, filling each one about halfway. He seemed satisfied when he was done, flipping a few up and down.

“Scent samples now. If you’ve not had this done, it can be slightly painful.”

“Why do you need that?” I pulled away, well, as far away as I could get with my back pushed into the patient seat. “We don’t even have the large glands and production that?—”

He cut me off. “A glandular disorder is causing overproduction and swelling. It’s like,” he rolled his eyes, looking exasperated. He’d probably had to explain this a dozen times already, “it’s similar to Graves’ disease of the thyroid.”

“Okay…” I said nervously as he picked up a larger needle and the device that looked like a vein finder. “Have you done this before?”