Sunday

In his apartment at Southbank Tower, poor Lucas McCallister was feeling awful and didn't know what to do. Ever since Dorian had asked him about the telephone number to some drug dealer Lucas once knew, he felt like shit.

Lucas was a recovering drug addict since four years back. For some reason, Dorian thought that Finian still had some contacts left, which Finian unfortunate had.

Lucas first got really surprised and then worried when his brother asked. Dorian hadn't even looked at drugs in over fifteen years, not since his 'rave-days,' but when Dorian told his brother what he wanted to buy, it all made sense. So Lucas did give Dorian a number, and now, four hours later, he was on the verge of having an anxiety attack because of the regret he felt.

On the computer screen in front of him, was an article about this new illegal drug, and Lucas had just read it with his heart pounding in his chest. People bought it to terminate unwanted bonds between mates, and it was much more effective than the older ones. But according to the article, the side effects were horrible with hallucinations, memory loss, blood clots, infertility, and cancer. And almost everyone that had taken the drug experienced nearly every side effect. The cancer was especially aggressive in the omega.

Dorian couldn't go through with whatever plan he had. Lucas had to stop him. But how?

He also knew that Dorian would hate him if he ever said anything to Finian about this. But he couldn't just stand by and watch as Dorian risked not only his own life but the life of another person.

Lucas was bewildered; this wasn't like Dorian at all. He wasn't cruel; he would never do anything that could hurt anyone else. The amount of stress and guilt this had put on Dorian was most likely crushing him. Dorian was desperate, and desperate men often couldn't see clearly.

And Lucas felt sorry for him, he did. But he couldn't keep quiet; he just couldn't.

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Monday

Shiro stood in front of the mirror and frowned, his eyes filled with disgust.

He was pale and had dark circles under his eyes, and his face showed apparent traces that the man hadn't slept well at all.

"I look like shit!" He complained and turned to the olive-skinned woman on his right.

Doctor Joy stood with her arms across her chest and shook her head.

"Don't be silly; you're very handsome."

"Yeah, Shiro, the doctor is right. You look great," Deion said and tried to smile, but he couldn't force himself and just lowered his gaze.

Deion wasn't happy at all. Since that night at the club, he had been affected by Shiro's heat twice, and now Shiro's life was on the line.

If meeting this Finian McCallister didn't help, then they had no idea what to do. Shiro had been allowed to leave the hospital after just one day, but he wasn't okay. He didn't say anything, but Deion knew Shiro, he saw that the younger man was struggling.

Doctor Joy had promised to help Shiro and even took a temporary leave from work. As the woman had said when she arrived at the hotel, she was invested in this. Finian was one of her closes friends, and she had become found of Shiro.

"How's the shaking in your hands? Do you want something to calm it down?" Joy asked.

But Shiro shook his head and smiled gratefully towards the older woman.

"No, it's okay. I'll manage it."

When he woke up that morning, Shiro's hands were slightly shaking. It wasn't much, but it was one of the first physical signs that the withdrawal had started, and the shaking would get worse over time.

Joy told them that the symptoms usually started to show after as little as 24 hours from being exposed to the pheromones from the alpha. The signs were anxiety, shaky hands, headache, nausea, vomiting, insomnia, and sweating.

In less than two weeks, the symptoms would get worse with confusion, racing heart, high blood pressure, and fever.

Either the high blood pressure would finally cause a heart attack, or the person would go into a coma without the right amount of pheromones. And after a month since being last exposed to each other's pheromones, the condition would be life threating.

Shiro was, be all right, very scared, and so was Deion. The tall American had been Shiros manager for ten years, and Deion cared for the singer like a younger brother.

Shiro was a natural-born performer and started as a child actor when he was eight years old. At first, Shiro did commercials, then a few years later, he starred in his first movie. Shiro was twelve when he played in his first Hollywood movie. However, after Ikumi was born, the young star didn't want to act any longer.

Shiro started to sing. That was when he met Deion. The manager had been living in Japan for a few years, together with his Japanese girlfriend at that time. It wasn't easy being a black American in Japan. Still, Shiro hired him after only one meeting; he didn't care about the color of Dieons skin or the fact that he was a foreigner. There was something about Deion that made Shiro trust him without a doubt. And both Kei and Ikumi loved Deion.

Shiro's family, especially Hayate, looked down upon the brown-skinned manager. But, Shiro hated Hayate, so that didn't matter to him. Shiro now considered Deion as one of his closes friends. And he was thankful Deion was there by his side through all of this.

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