The Districts

CHAPTER 22

For the next week, Kenny instead decides to continue to keep watch over Craig and watch his health. There was something that had been on his mind about it for a while now, and he wasn't sure if he had just been imagining it or not. But by the end of the week, his suspicion on it is confirmed.

Craig was getting better.

At first he wasn't sure as to why that was, but when he noticed the back of Craig's neck again, he knew why it was. The mark, Damien's mark, was disappearing. He hadn't noticed it at first because he was so busy with keeping watch on Craig's health and keeping tabs on what Damien was up to and what he may be planning, that it didn't register right away that it had begun to fade.

He had heard stories of it being possible, that an alpha's mark could disappear from an omega if rejected strongly enough. But in most of those cases, the omega either went back to the alpha because the pain was too great, or the omega would die because of the pain.

The fact that Craig had been suffering through so much pain, for over a month and a half now, really put Kenny to both disbelief and amazement. Craig was strong. Even if he didn't see it himself, Kenny knew he was. Even at his lowest, Kenny never saw Craig as weak. To him, Craig had always been strong. From the moment he met him, Kenny could see it in his eyes.

It's another week that goes by before Kenny decides to tell Craig about being a delta. He'd debated about it over and over in his mind, ever since finding out about it himself, but in the end decided it best to tell Craig about it. Not wanting to keep it from him and feeling like his health was at a steady enough point to where he could share it with him.

"Hey Craig, can I uh, talk with you real quick?" Kenny asks, entering into his room.

"What is it?" Craig asks as he sits up in his bed.

"Well, I um..." Kenny pauses, trying to think of how to go about explaining this. As he does, Craig's scent floods into his nose. He had been noticing it grow stronger each day, with what he guessed was his delta senses kicking in. It was very pleasant he found, and for some reason made him want to get closer to the other because of it. But the hint of the other scent that still underlined it, reminded him to keep his distance.

"Kenny?" Craig asks, concerned by the long pause.

"Oh uh, sorry. Got lost in thought for a second," Kenny quickly says, offering a small smile, "right, well... this is probably going to sound a bit out there, but... I uh, I found out that I'm not really a beta anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"Well like—okay, so back when I got that really bad injury to my abdomen, I was given a blood transfusion from Wendy and it kind of mutated—no—awoken some very old dormant alpha genes that were in my bloodline it seems."

"It seems?"

"Yeah, I didn't know I had any alpha genes in my past at all."

"...Then how did you find out you did?"

"Because the blood transfusion didn't kill me," Kenny replies simply, but the moment those words leave his mouth, alarm instantly crosses Craig's features, "what I mean is that I asked Kyle about it and he had looked into it and told me that if I didn't die from the transfusion, then it must have meant that I had some alpha genes in my past bloodline somewhere," Kenny quickly adds on, "but everything turned out ok and I'm fine now," he smiles.

Craig seems to calm down at this a bit.

"So that's why you can smell my scent and taste my... what does this mean then? That you're an alpha now or something?"

"Kind of," Kenny replies in thought, "I'm more of something that's in between..."

"In between?"

"Yeah, apparently I'm what would be called a delta now. Something that is both a beta and alpha. And can show traits of both because of it."