Warren found that it was much easier to be friends with Jordan when he couldn't smell his aggravating scent.
They video-called each other every evening and spoke for a while before Jordan needed to go to bed—his time zone was three hours ahead of Warren's.
Jordan mostly joked and bitched about his father, but his sense of humor seemed to be darkening with every day.
Although his complaints weren't serious, Warren could read between the lines and see that King Kaiser was really getting on Jordan's nerves.
"He wants you to stay in North Veridia, doesn't he?" Warren said, looking up from his computer. He'd taken to working during their video calls, knowing that Jordan just needed a sympathetic ear to vent to.
"Yeah," Jordan said. "He's being very unreasonable about it. I told him I needed to be back in Central City before Lord Kaito's arrival, but he doesn't care. If I didn't know better, I would think he wants the war to resume."
Warren peered at him. "Are you sure he doesn't?" Jordan didn't answer immediately.
"No, I'm not," he said at last, making a face. "And he isn't alone in this. I'm starting to see that a lot of people here would like for the war to continue." He sighed, his eyes suddenly looking years older than his thirty years. "The thing is, after decades of war, our entire economy is built around it. If there is no war, most of the army will be disbanded, and then all those people will be back home, jobless and poor. Creating enough jobs for the veterans is our biggest problem. Converting factories' wartime manufacturing to peacetime production is a major headache, too, especially considering that many don't believe the peace will last."
Warren nodded. "South is facing similar problems," he said, eyeing Jordan carefully. "You seem off. Tense."
Jordan gave a harsh chuckle. "I hoped you wouldn't notice. I'm entering my rut. I guess it's really lucky I'm not in South right now."
Warren frowned and got to his feet. Stepping to the window, he checked the moons. No, his memory hadn't failed him. "You're in a rut? But none of the moons are full."
"My ruts have never followed any moon cycle," Jordan said. "I know it's weird, but our family doctor says I'm just a bit of a genetic freak."
Warren had never heard of something like that.
All alphas and omegas had their mating cycles follow one of the four moons of Veridia, depending on their alpha or omega status. Warren's own rut was firmly affixed to Veridia's second-largest moon, Torryn, and like most alphas that followed Torryn's cycle, he was relatively rational and even-tempered. Atlas-Type Alphas were considered the most civilized alphas, most of their primitive lupine traits bred out by evolution.
Warren's younger brother's ruts followed the cycle of Veridia's largest moon, Xeus, and Leo was as short-tempered and aggressive as most Orion Type Alphas were. Not to mention that Orion Type Alphas were also physically different from other Veridians, their genes were the closest to their primitive lupine ancestor.
Unlike Atlas-Type Alphas, Orion-Type Alphas could shift into their beastly forms when Xeus was in its full-moon phase. An omega's estrous cycle was usually attached to one of the smallest moons, Dainiri or Vos, though there were always exceptions.
Warren had never met a person whose mating cycle was independent from any moon. Even betas were somewhat affected by one of the moons, because betas still carried recessive alpha or omega genes.
"If you're something of a genetic anomaly…" Warren hummed thoughtfully. "That might explain my reaction to your alpha scent."
Jordan snorted. "Nope, pretty sure that's just you. No other alpha has ever reacted to me like that. I spend plenty of time around other alphas without them needing to rub their scent all over me."
Warren looked away, his hand gripping the edge of his desk. His face felt warm.
"Sorry," Jordan said with a chuckle. "I know you hate being reminded of your less-than-civilized behavior. I've been told I'm mean when I'm horny and frustrated."
Warren looked around the room before returning his gaze to Jordan and finally asking the question that was bugging him. "How are you planning to spend your rut?"
Jordan gave him a flat look and raised his eyebrows. "How do you think? With my right hand. I can hardly get a pretty omega on my knot when I'm supposedly happily married."
Warren averted his gaze. He felt irrationally guilty. Not that it was his fault—except it was.
Had he been a beta, he would have been able to help Jordan with his rut. A rut with a beta wasn't as satisfying as a rut with an omega, but it was still much better than one's right hand.
But since he was an alpha, there was no way he could help Jordan even if he were willing to.
Alphas in rut reacted to other alphas very badly, perceiving them as a threat. Even the rare alpha-alpha couples never spent their ruts together: it was a recipe for disaster.
"Sorry," he said gruffly, loosening his collar and pointedly not looking at the prominent bulge between Jordan's legs.
Jordan sighed. "Not your fault," he said, throwing himself onto the bed and groaning. "It's okay. It's hardly the first rut I've spent alone."
"What?" Warren looked at him in confusion. "Why?"
Jordan turned onto his back. Warren couldn't see his face well from that angle, because the camera was on Jordan's desk.
"My ruts are weird," Jordan said in a quiet voice. "I alternate between being very aggressive and very… needy, I guess. It's hard to describe. But Xander, my friend, described his ruts completely differently from how I experience them. When I'm in a rut, I want to...to consume someone. But no matter how deeply I stuff my knot into an omega, it feels unsatisfying, you know? It's frustrating as hell. So I guess I'm used to being frustrated. Spending my ruts alone is just a little more frustrating than that." He laughed humorlessly. "See, I'm really a freak."
Warren didn't like how defeated he sounded. "Don't call yourself a freak," he said curtly, not knowing what else to say. He couldn't say he knew what Jordan meant. His own ruts were pretty standard as far as Atlas-Type Alphas' ruts went. He didn't turn into a mindless, feral animal that thought only with its knot, as Orion Type Alphas did during their ruts. He just became very horny and very territorial.
"Maybe it's because your cycle isn't attached to any moon," Warren said.
"Maybe," Jordan said, closing his eyes. "Maybe not."
"You going to sleep? Do you want me to hang up?"
"No," Jordan said, his eyes still closed. "I'm going to try to take a nap while I still can. Go back to working, but don't hang up. I like hearing you type. It's soothing."
"You're so weird," Warren said with a laugh.
Jordan smiled, without opening his eyes. "Yeah," he said in a strange tone of voice. "Maybe I am."
Warren returned his gaze to his computer and resumed working on the bill his party wanted to push.
By the time he finished it, an hour had passed.
Turning his head, he was startled, realizing that he'd forgotten to end the video call.
He stared at the projected video on the opposite wall and slowly walked closer. It appeared Jordan had turned in his sleep and was now sleeping with his face to the camera.
The picture quality was so good that Warren could see every little imperfection on Jordan's face.
He stared at it for a long moment until he realized he was possibly being creepy.
Reaching for the remote, Warren ended the video call.
He was left looking at the blank wall, the familiar uneasy, unsatisfied feeling gnawing in his gut.