As she climbed the stairs while carrying the small, limp body in her arms, Margaret listened to the sound of the blizzard raging outside the villa. The heavy snowfall and gusts that hadn’t been in the forecast, and the sudden abnormal symptoms of the child left alone in this large villa.
She hoped that her heart, stirring with an ominous premonition, was just needless worry.
At that time, Lorenz’s father and mother were divorced.
Lorenz, who had been living with his father at the Manhattan mansion, was staying at his mother’s Tarrytown villa for about two weeks for the winter.
The Tarrytown villa was surrounded by untouched nature, offering endless things to play with. Right behind it was a dense forest, and down the hill, a beautiful walking path led all the way to the Hudson River.
His mother tried to spend as much time as possible with Lorenz. They would ride the rowboat tied to the small dock together, or search through the forest for unusual plants and insects. During those times, he didn’t notice the cold or the passage of time.
When they stayed here last summer, they had found a puppy wandering lost in the forest. As if injured from a fight with a wild animal, the pup was limping with a wound on its hind leg. Lorenz and his mother brought it back to the villa and cared for it devotedly. That pup had now grown healthy and followed Lorenz around everywhere. Lorenz had personally given it the name Toby.
That day, his mother went out late in the afternoon. There was a gathering at a social club near Tarrytown.
Besides the person in charge of Lorenz’s care, there were several employees at the villa including Margaret, and since the club was only about 20 minutes away by car, no one considered the situation worrying.
Margaret laid Lorenz in bed and gave him fever reducer.
Buried deep in the large bed, he seemed even smaller than usual that day.
“Margaret, the wind sounds terrible.”
“Are you scared?”
Young Lorenz Lockhart shook his head firmly, saying he wasn’t. He wasn’t a child who would admit it even if he was scared.
“I’m worried it might be dangerous when Mother comes back.”
Margaret smiled kindly and adjusted his blanket.
“Don’t worry. Lady Helena is a very careful and cautious person.”
Only then did Lorenz nod with a relieved expression. Margaret’s neat hand stroked his hair.
“Now sleep well. I’ll stay by your side until you fall asleep.”
That it wasn’t necessary, that he could sleep alone. The usual Lorenz would have insisted stubbornly. But that day, Lorenz obediently closed his eyes at Margaret’s touch. The puppy lay down on the rug beneath the bed.
Thanks to the medicine, he fell asleep soon, but he woke up not long after. It was because of a headache that had gotten worse than before he fell asleep.
The bonfire burning in the fireplace illuminated the dark room. That firelight, which had always felt warm and cozy, felt different that night. It was fierce and threatening. The large shadow of the flickering flames on the opposite wall was like a conflagration trying to swallow the entire room.
No matter how much he tossed and turned, Lorenz couldn’t fall back asleep.
He felt nauseous, as if he were lying not on a bed but on the deck of a rocking ship.
Boiled broccoli, disinfectant, wet sneakers… Unpleasant smells were creeping up from somewhere. Though he couldn’t find any such things anywhere in the room, Lorenz’s nose was definitely smelling something. His stomach churned as if he had smelled all the scents he hated at once.
A good idea occurred to Lorenz, who had been burying his face in the pillow to block his nose.
“If I smell Mother’s scent, I’ll feel better.”
He got up and climbed down from the bed. Tap tap tap, he walked barefoot across the wooden floor. Toby, who had been lying down, immediately stood up and followed him. Lorenz entered his mother’s powder room connected to the bedroom and stopped in front of the vanity.
“The perfume should be here.”
When he slid open one of the several sliding doors of the cabinet, glamorous perfume bottles were revealed. The various perfume bottles lined up in neat rows were each like jewels.
Lorenz could easily find the perfume his mother used most among them.
He stood on tiptoe and stretched out his arm.
Just a little, just a little more…
His small feet kept lifting his heels.
Toby circled around Lorenz as if anxious.
The moment the perfume bottle touched his small fingertips, Lorenz thought, ‘Got it!’ but the bottle that had lost its balance plummeted to the floor.
The thin, ornately crafted crystal bottle.
It shattered into pieces as soon as it hit the wooden floor.
At the same time, a terrible stench engulfed Lorenz.
It was a violent attack. An attack more terrifying than the flickering conflagration.
It was his mother’s fragrance that he loved so much. He learned that it could become such a toxic stench.
Lorenz collapsed right there and lost consciousness.
Thanks to Toby scratching at the door and barking, fortunately he was discovered not long after collapsing.
Lorenz’s mother was contacted immediately.
Upon hearing the situation, she rushed out of the social club and into the blizzard without even having time to properly put on her coat.
To her, this wasn’t just simple fever that children Lorenz’s age experience.
The heat of a nearby Omega. The resulting strong pheromone exposure.
Sudden headache and dizziness.
Hypersensitive reaction to smells.
She had intuited it.
That her young son had contracted the disease.
The terrible disease that only afflicted people of the Lockhart family, that Damon Lockhart—her ex-husband and Lorenz’s father—also suffered from.
The Lockhart curse was trying to devour her young son.
A fair amount of snow had already accumulated on the road. A blizzard continued to blow over it. Parts of the road had already frozen. She tried her best to drive as carefully as possible. However, fear and anxiety kept making her rush.
The corner section where she had to make a large right turn with the Hudson River on the left side.
It was presumed to be where her car slipped on the icy road and crashed. The police analyzed that the rear wheels likely slipped on the frozen road, causing the car to veer off the road and plunge down the steep slope. But even that wasn’t certain. By the time they began the investigation in earnest, a large amount of snow had already covered all traces. There was almost nothing they could uncover.
On that night when white snowflakes fell like meteors under the moonlight over the Hudson River where large chunks of ice floated, that river swallowed his mother.
It was the night when the first symptoms manifested in Lorenz Lockhart.
■
Upon arriving at the hospital, Lorenz could only escape the pain after being administered suppressants that lowered his pheromone reaction levels.
Lying with his shirt unbuttoned and chest exposed, he raised his arm to cover his eyes. He finally felt like he could live.
Then the attending physician with a stern expression entered the hospital room.
“How are you feeling?”
Lorenz nodded.
“I’m better now. The headache is gone too.”
His voice was completely hoarse and severely cracked.
After confirming his stable heart rate and levels, the attending physician finally let out a sigh of relief.
“That was really close this time. Your pheromone reaction levels had soared to a dangerous level.”
“How high did it go?”
The doctor hesitated to answer, then replied as if he had no choice.
“When you arrived at the hospital, it was over 200.”
Ha ha.
Lorenz let out an empty laugh.
The doctor explained.
“As you well know, 200 is worse than an Alpha in rut. Not only can you not control your own pheromones at all, but you also can’t defend against another’s pheromones.”
It meant that if he had encountered an Omega in heat, a disaster would have occurred immediately. An ordinary Alpha would be stimulated by an Omega’s heat, their sexual desire would explode, and they would enter rut, but for Lorenz, an Omega’s pheromones were like poison. His pheromone reaction levels would skyrocket and he would lose consciousness. He could suffer fatal brain damage.
Of course, taking suppressants is a legal obligation. Unlike perhaps 20 to 30 years ago, currently there was almost no possibility of encountering an Omega in heat. But the fact remained that Lorenz himself was walking around as a ticking time bomb.
“What is it now?”
“Between 25 and 30. Within the normal range.”
The doctor answered in a flat voice while checking Lorenz’s pupils and various other physical responses.
