Daddy by Choice

Hunting

Things were getting busy at the office and the best solution was to get Chen back in as quickly as possible, so Nancy sent them real estate listing after listing. An agent was taking them around today to all the ones they thought had potential. Zed found eight he liked and Chen narrowed that down to five. All of them were easy walking distance to Chen's office, a primary consideration, so they were getting a workout walking a circuit around said office to see them all.

It was all a bit much for Zed by the time they left the third apartment. The doctor told him walking was good for his pregnancy and he should do it as much as he could, and he was in good shape while walking around campus all the time, but the last month he'd been hiding at home, relatively sedentary and starving and in the last two weeks of recovery he was spoiled with rest, good food, and sweet company. At this point he felt like dying again and Chen's smug expression as he watched his partner slowly deteriorate was irritating on top of everything else. When they reached the next building and the agent said, "this one is only on the third floor. Shall we take the stairs?" Zed looked at Chen and growled.

"I'd like to check out the elevator," Chen was irritating, but still came to his rescue. "I'm sure we'll be using it a lot with a stroller." When they crowded into the elevator Chen leaned down and whispered in Zed's ear, "and you wanted to look at eight."

"Yes, yes," Zed whispered back in a sarcastic grumble. "You're so practical. My hero." Chen grinned widely in response and as the elevator doors dinged and opened, he swooped Zed up bridal style and carried him out into the hall. Zed thought he ought to protest, but he was just too tired of walking.

"Which way?" Chen inquired of the agent. The agent looked amused and led them on.

********

"He's been back again," the doorman of Chen and Zed's apartment building reported to Quinn's office. "This time he stopped to ask me if the lad in 708 had moved. I told him no so he wouldn't look elsewhere. Hope that was the right thing to do."

Quinn's investigative assistant answered, "Yes, thank you. The longer he stays on the wrong track, the better."

"Naw, I should thank you all. My mother-in-law is doin' much better since you got her transferred, and my wife can go in to see her everyday so she's not home worryin'," the doorman answered.

"I'm glad to hear it. Please keep us posted."

"Will do."

The investigation was going well and not so well. On the one hand, they'd used the pattern Quinn found to identify two more likely targets and contacted them to put safety measures in place. Primarily a panic button with a locator that would also begin recording audio the moment it was pressed. But neither expected to go into heat in the next month or more.

On the other hand...all the missing prior victims were still missing. Their families, the ones who had family, were at their wits end and were thrilled to cooperate with Quinn's investigation, but they'd garnered no viable leads. And a fair few had no family or friends. Life was harder for Omegas than Quinn had ever imagined. Their stories were heartbreaking, and surely they only got worse after the professor found them.

********

How could he lose track of such a puny insignificant Omega? The professor returned from yet another fruitless visit to Zed's apartment. No one was there; he could feel the emptiness. The Omega scent was stale. The doorman said he hadn't moved out, but he clearly hadn't been back recently either. Was he in a hospital somewhere again? He needed to get Zed somewhere secure where he could convince him to sign over custody of the baby, before auctioning them both to the highest bidders.

If he could force or falsify the former, he would, but hospitals were his weak point. They employed no Alphas in obstetrics so he couldn't bribe anyone with Omega ass, and they maintained a high level of security specifically for the sake of exploited Omegas. This was the one place he could get caught. The adoptive parents would pay top dollar for a clean legal record of the birth and adoption so their child could never be taken away, and he would want both child and mother to come through the birth safely or he'd have nothing to sell.

Surely Zed was out there somewhere struggling to survive. He needed to find him so he could swoop in like the hero one more time. It would do him no good if Zed were out lying dead in an alley. Maybe he should report him to the police as a missing person. They could do the finding for him. Was he close enough to have noticed the Omega going missing without making himself suspect? A story needed to be conceived first. He didn't have forever to follow up on this. He had three more Omegas on his list for this year and one was due to go into heat in less than a week.

********

"You've missed one," Zed looked over the list Quinn provided. "There were actually six Omegas in my year and three were business majors that took the professors classes besides me. Mark was passing as a Beta, but I saw him taking suppressants, and I'm sure the professor saw it too."

The list was part of Quinn's investigation, but it also occurred to him that it might be a good place to start helping Zed make some friends. They were all people with whom he should have a lot in common. He took Zed with him when he went to talk to them about the case and ask them to carry the panic button, and he invited them to join the bachelor party at the beach house. They were not especially keen to go to party with a bunch of Alphas, but they were enthusiastically receptive to Zeds overtures of friendship. They had 'struggling for every achievement' and 'being the lonely Omega in every class' in common.

The wedding was less than a week away, and the bachelor party right before that. Zed and Chen were moving into their new apartment over the next two days, so there wasn't really time to take him to meet with Mark beforehand. "No," Zed insisted. "We need to do this. I'll make time."

********

Mark couldn't find his suppressants. He always kept them in his backpack because he always forgot to take them at home in the rush to get out the door every morning. This was bad. He could feel his heat rising. Should he ride home? He was standing indecisively by the bike racks when he saw his salvation, Zed was back on campus! He'd been absent for two months. He didn't know Zed well, but he had enough care for his fellow Omegas to know who they were and notice their absence.

Quinn could smell the Omega going into heat. It smelled to him like cafe au lait and made his mouth water. He wanted to drink it up like nothing he'd ever wanted before. This was bad. He looked around and sure enough, the professor was also nearby, watching. He didn't approach. They made it in time, but they were revealing themselves. He was glad Zed insisted. Zed could smell it too, though not as strongly. He pulled the injectable emergency suppressant that he always carried now, out of his bag, and went straight to Mark's side.

"I don't know where they went. I always keep them in my bag." Mark was mumbling apologetically. Zed suspected where they'd gone, but that was not important right now. He gave Mark the injection and stood by him while it took effect.

"You remember me, right? Come on, let me take you somewhere safe," he urged. Too on edge fighting his heat to protest, Mark followed.

The professor followed, too, so Quinn suggested they go to Zed's old apartment. He called ahead to make sure the movers would not be in evidence. They assured him that they were already done and gone.

The apartment was empty. It made Zed a little sad to see it this way. He hadn't been back inside since he left for the hospital about a month ago. It seemed a long time. Mark looked around the empty room, confused. Quinn was on the phone talking to his investigator to confirm that the professor had followed them here and to arrange some kind of distraction to get them back out.

His distress seemed to find its echo in Mark. They were ramping each other up. Mark was an Omega in heat and Quinn was an Alpha. There was nowhere to sit, no tea to be offered, nothing to calm the situation down. Zed apologized profusely, as he grabbed Mark and drug him into the small bathroom. He locked the door and set about explaining the situation.