Chapter 20
Drake
The bathroom floor is cold against my cheek.
I've been lying here long enough that the tile has warmed under my skin. Minutes. Hours. I don't know anymore. Time doesn't work right when your body is eating itself from the inside out.
The toilet is right there, six inches from my face. There's nothing left in my stomach to throw up but my body keeps trying anyway. Dry heaves that rip through my abdomen and leave me gasping.
Bond-break sickness.
I'm a nurse. I've treated it in the ER before once or twice. Packs rarely break like this. It's a fever that spikes without warning, chills that make your teeth chatter hard enough to crack, nausea that won't quit. The body rejecting what the mind decided.
It doesn't always happen. Usually only when the break isn't clean. It happens sometimes if your pack lead fights it, tries to hold on, forces the bond to tear instead of sever.
Ragon fought it.
Of course he did.
My stomach convulses again. Nothing comes up except bile that burns my throat. I spit it into the toilet and let my head drop back to the tile.
I don’t even know how long I’ve been here. Days, weeks? Time blurs together between the pain and sickness. I can’t bring myself to care. I deserve this.
All I can think about is Vee.
Finding her and making sure she's okay. Telling her I'm sorry even if she never forgives me. Even if she spits in my face and tells me to rot.
I've been calling everyone who might be connected to Alex or his pack. Registry contacts who might know Finn. Security consultants who might know Alex's work. Anyone who might have a thread I can pull.
No one will tell me anything.
Either they don't know or they're protecting her.
I hope it's the second one.
God, I hope it's the second one.
My phone buzzes somewhere across the room. The sound echoes off the tile, sharp and insistent.
I watch it light up by the door where I dropped it. When did I drop it there? I can't remember. Don’t care enough to try.
It keeps ringing.
I close my eyes. Maybe if I ignore it, whoever it is will give up.
The ringing stops.
Starts again.
Over and over. Someone really wants to talk to me.
Maybe it's about Vee.
I groan and try to push myself up. My arms shake and give out halfway. I hit the floor again, cheek smacking tile hard enough to send pain shooting through my face.
The phone keeps ringing.
Fine.
I force myself to crawl, inches at a time. The tile is disgusting and I don't care. My hands slide through something I don't want to identify. Probably my own sweat. Maybe vomit I missed.
My fingers close around the phone.
Eli's name on the screen.
I answer. Can't get words out. Just breathe into the phone, harsh and ragged.
"Drake?" Eli's voice sounds tight. Controlled. Like how he gets when he's trying not to panic. "Drake, are you there?"
"Yeah." The word comes out slurred.
"Jesus. You sound terrible. Are you sick?"
"Bond break."
Silence on the other end. Long enough that I wonder if the call dropped.
"How bad?" Eli asks finally. His voice has that clinical edge now. Doctor mode.
"Bad."
"Drake, you need to go to the hospital. Now. Before this becomes life-threatening."
"Can't."
"Yes, you can. Where are you? I'll come get you."
Thunder rolls outside. The motel windows rattle in their frames.
"Doesn't matter," I say. Words thick in my mouth. "Only thing that matters is Vee."
"Vee is safe," Eli says firmly. "And she wouldn't want you to die, not like this."
"Don't care." The words slur together. "What's the point?"
The truth of it sits in my chest like a boulder. Heavy and final.
I spent five years with Vee. Five years of her in my kitchen at two in the morning baking away her anxiety. Five years of terrible jokes that made her laugh when she was spiraling. Five years of her vanilla and wildflower scent wrapping around me like home.
And I threw it away.
I threw her away.
For Marie. For biology. For a scent match that felt like destiny but turned out to be a cage in disguise.
Eli sighs, long and heavy. The sound carries everything he's not saying.
"I know where she is."
My head lifts off the floor. "What?"
"I know where Vee is," Eli repeats, each word deliberate. "I'll tell you, but you have to promise me something first."
"Anything."
"You get help after. Hospital if you need it. IV fluids. Whatever it takes to keep you alive. You don't just collapse and die on her doorstep."
"Eli—"
"Promise me, Drake." His voice cracks. "I love you. I can't lose you too."
The words are heavy. I feel them in my chest.
I broke our pack bond. Tore myself away from him and Ragon both. I left him standing in that hallway watching everything fall apart.
And he still loves me.
He still loves me enough to give me this.
"I promise," I whisper. "I'll get help, just tell me where she is."
Eli gives me the address. I repeat it back to make sure I heard right. My brain is soup but I force the numbers to stick.
"Be careful," Eli says. "And Drake? She's with her scent matches. They're taking care of her. She’s getting better. This is right for her."
"I know," I manage. "That's good."
It is good.
It hurts like hell but it's good.
She deserves alphas who won't abandon her. Who won't let biology override five years of love and trust.
She deserves better than me.
"I mean it about getting help," Eli says.
"I will."
I hang up.
My hands shake as I pull up the GPS app and type in the address. The screen blurs. I blink until it focuses.
One hour away.
I can do one hour.
I have to.
I force myself to stand. The room spins violently. I grab the doorframe and wait for it to stop. It doesn't but I stumble forward anyway.
My shoes are… somewhere. I don't bother looking for them.
Keys... I need keys.
I find them on the nightstand. My fingers are clumsy, numb. I drop them twice before I get a grip.
The parking lot is empty when I stumble outside. Rain is already starting, fat drops that hit the pavement like bullets.
The storm is coming.
I make it to my car and fall against the door before getting it open. The driver's seat feels like a miracle when I drop into it.
I start the engine. Put the address in the GPS again because I already forgot it.
One hour.
I can do this.
The drive is a nightmare.
Rain hammers the windshield. The wipers can barely keep up, smearing everything into streaks of gray and black.
I grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles go white. Not because I'm tense, because I'm shaking so badly I need something to hold onto or I'll lose control completely.
Every few minutes I have to pull over.
The dry heaves hit without warning. My body convulses. Nothing comes up. It’s just my stomach trying to turn itself inside out while I gasp and spit bile onto the shoulder of the road.
Then I get back on the highway and keep driving.
The shakes are constant now. My hands on the wheel. My legs. My whole body vibrating with sickness.
The urge to sleep is overwhelming.
I blast the AC even though I'm freezing. Slap my face hard enough to leave marks. Roll down the window and let the rain hit me.
Anything to stay awake.
A memory comes through the fog.
Vee in the kitchen at three in the morning, flour dusted across her cheek. She'd been crying. I could tell by the redness around her eyes even though she'd wiped the tears away.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Nothing. Just needed to bake."
I pulled up a chair and sat backwards on it. Watched her work. She didn't talk and I didn't push.
Twenty minutes later she said, "I'm scared I'm going to mess this up."
"The cookies?"
"The pack."
"You're not going to mess it up."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, I do. You know how I know?"
She looked at me. Waiting.
"Because you care enough to be scared. People who mess things up?
They don't give a shit. They just barrel through and break stuff and don't look back.
But you? You're standing in our kitchen at three in the morning making cookies because you're worried about getting it right.
That's not someone who messes things up. "
She smiled, small but real.
"Eat a cookie, Drake."
I ate three.
The memory fractures as another wave of nausea hits. I barely get the car stopped before I'm hanging out the door, retching onto the asphalt.
Rain soaks my shirt. My hair. Runs down my face and mixes with the sweat.
I force myself back into the car.
Another memory comes. This one worse.
Marie's heat. Ragon's voice cutting through the fog.
"Drake, stay with Marie. She needs you. Vee isn't in heat."
And I did.
I stayed with Marie while Vee was alone in our house.
I knotted Marie over and over while Vee screamed for help that never came.
I chose biology over five years of love. Again.
And again.
And again.
The GPS says fifteen minutes.
I press harder on the gas. The car hydroplanes on a curve and I wrestle it back under control.
The rain is coming down in sheets, I can barely see the road. Thunder cracks overhead so loud it shakes the car.
Almost there.
Almost to Vee.
The thought is the only thing keeping me conscious.
Finally the GPS says I've arrived.
A cabin materializes through the rain, lights on inside, woods all around.
The storm picks that moment to really let loose.
Thunder cracks so close I feel it in my chest. Lightning illuminates everything in stark white flashes that leave afterimages burned into my retinas.
I can't even turn off the headlights. Can't make my hands work that precisely.
I open the door and practically fall out of the car.
Mud. Grass. Rain so heavy I can barely breathe through it.
My knees buckle.
I catch myself on the car door. Force myself upright.
Then I hear it.
"Drake?"
Her voice.
Sweet and shocked and so familiar it makes my chest crack open.
I look up.
She's coming down the porch steps toward me. Hair already plastered to her face from the rain, eyes wide.
An alpha is right behind her. Tall. Broad. Hand on her shoulder.
Malcolm.
I look past them to the porch.