6. Maeve
6
MAEVE
T he weekend has been mostly quiet, which is quite surprising. There have been no calls from Adrian, no threats where he’s attempting to force me to go back to work, and there’s not been a single lecture from him about how I’ve abandoned my responsibilities and let down my community.
And, even more surprisingly, my “new mate” has not once shown his face.
I even got paid on time from the archives, with a nice P45 attached acknowledging that I’ve resigned.
It’s everything I’ve wanted, but I’m no fool, and I’ve been unable to enjoy any of it.
The silence from Adrian, and to a lesser extent Julian, has me extremely concerned. I can’t relax, can’t enjoy my newfound solitude, when I just know a plan is brewing, and it’s going to be something that fucks me over.
Adrian Graves is a man with a plan. Always. And after dropping the news about Atticus, I have no doubt something is being concocted to get me firmly back under his control.
He’s already forced his nephew to pretend to be my mate, taken my job from me, and, oh, yes, wrote me a very threatening note where he has pretended to kill someone because I smiled at them. He’s doing everything in his power to make me feel vulnerable.
He wants me to rely on him, to trust him. Which is never going to happen.
I don’t want to wait around and?—
“Ugh,” I groan, clutching at my abdomen as a sharp pang shoots across my stomach again. I pull my legs up under me as I curl in on myself, my eyes fluttering shut as the familiar pain starts.
This is the worst part of the entire process. Rather than just completely being out of my mind with desire , I’m instead forced to endure the flare ups—the mini explosions of pain and agony—before the true main show starts.
Today has been riddled with these cramps and deranged moments. It’s as if fate herself is inside me, squeezing my internal organs as tightly as she can. It’s great, really.
I thought I had more time before it was due to start.
But fate fucking hates me, and instead, I get punished like this every fucking quarter.
My eyes widen, realisation hitting me. Fate isn’t the only one who hates me, and Adrian’s not as fucking slick as he thinks he is.
Despite the pain, I force myself up and hobble through to the kitchen, my stomach cramps only increasing in intensity as I move. It’s as dark as normal in the room, but as I switch the light on and drag myself over to my calendar, I see it plain as day marked on the calendar.
My heat is due to start tomorrow, as I knew. Some people get to spend their Tuesday’s doing whatever they want. Me? I get to writhe around in pain, for a week.
I fucking love how predictable my body is.
But more than that, I now know why Julian’s start at my work was pushed through so quickly, and why Adrian orchestrated it to happen now.
My last heat was rough. I’m struggling more and more each time it hits, and I can’t blame the man for being a little concerned.
My inner chromius is fighting for survival the only way she knows how. Most shifters don’t start their heats until they’ve got a mate bond. It doesn’t need to be solidified, just recognised by both parties.
But for me, as a chromius, my heats began like clockwork from the moment I turned eighteen.
Huh, if only my stepfather waited one more day…
It’s a method for survival, and with me ignoring her over and over, they’re getting worse. Six years is a long time to be alone for a creature whose very survival depends upon touch.
My chromius wants to live, and quite honestly, I’m happy enough for this to be the end.
Adrian, however, is not. He swore to me after my last heat left me hospitalised for three days that he wouldn’t let me endure another one like it.
And what has he done just days before my heat begins? The leader of our people looked long and hard and found me a “mate” who can ride the pain with me, who he can control and manipulate just as easily as he can his little pet chromius.
It would’ve been a tiny little bit less suspicious if it wasn’t his own nephew. But when has Adrian ever done anything by half?
This way, he’s mated me into the family, and he solidifies even more ties with me so that he can continue deciding how I live my life and who gets to birth the next pure little shifters.
Of course, he wants me to give his family line the first pure-blooded, original Pegasus to have been born in over a millennium .
With a heavy sigh, I grab my pain relief, down the strongest dose I’m permitted, and get myself some water to try and keep myself hydrated through the mess that is my uterus.
My true heat is going to be filled with unbearable pain, but that’s not what fucks me over once it’s all said and done.
The lack of a mate to be there to care for my needs whilst I’m lost in the haze means I end up severely dehydrated and malnourished.
A hospital trip where I’m practically shackled to a bed as I’m lectured repeatedly by Adrian, Dr Jones, and the healthcare staff, isn’t even the cherry on top.
No, instead, I get to live in a constant state of anxiety of reliving the trauma that was done to me as my uterus sheds the baby that won’t ever be born.
It’s all fun being mentally fucked up.
E very single cell in my body is burning. Burning from the inside, burning on the outside. I’m just fucking burning alive.
There’s an ache between my thighs as my slick coats the bed and me.
It’s disgusting. I’m disgusting.
“Please, please, please,” I cry, rocking back and forth in the bed as I try to chase off this pain. I don’t know who I’m begging. I don’t know why I’m begging.
What do I even want?
My chromius is an unsettled beast locked inside my brain, a feral and primal edge to her that I rarely feel from her. She’s desperate. Desperate to save herself, desperate to save me.
But what can I be saved from? She’s never helped me. She’s never been there for me.
She takes. And takes.
Like every other fucking man to exist.
“Please, don’t do this to me.” It’s stupid begging a creature who doesn’t give a fuck about my needs, but she’s the only one here.
The irony of this moment is cruel. I need to be touched, to soothe away the ache, to chase off the pain. I need someone here, anyone would do. I just need some relief. I need their touch .
The very thing I can’t have .
“Touch,” I scream, rolling onto my back. “Touch me. Don’t touch. Please, please, don’t touch me.”
The bed sheets feel gritty underneath me. What could be a soft, gentle caress feels like razor blades as it moves across my body. I try to get rid of the feeling of them touching me. But I roll, and roll, and roll, and there’s no end in sight.
I’m surrounded by pink. Pink pillow cases, pink sheets, and even pink pyjamas. Pink. It’s meant to be the colour of romance, but right now, it’s the colour of my pain.
The light-weight duvet is touching me, the bottom sheet is practically encased into my back with the amount of sweat pouring off me.
I’m surrounded. Suffocated. Smothered.
I can’t do this. I can’t do this any more.
“Please, let it be over.” I shriek, pulling at my hair as I direct the words to my chromius. To the chromius who is crying and pleading. Who is begging m e to help her .
But what about me? What about my pain? What about my needs?
My body is in pain.
But so is my mind.
This isn’t fair.
I sob, and cry, and scream. “This isn’t fucking fair.”
I didn’t ask to be hurt. I didn’t ask to be this fucked up. I was innocent.
“None of this was my fault.” I grab the bed sheets as wave after wave of pain overtakes me, as my chromius screams in my mind. I ache. It hurts.
I don’t know how long I’ve been in this state. Hours. Days. A week?
I don’t know if it’s ever going to end. I don’t know if I’ll ever escape. But I do know that I’m alone right now. I’ve got nothing.
Nothing to ease the pain. Nothing to help with the aching inside of me.
“I’m empty.” My words are a cry in the silent room.
I’m so fucking empty.
My body is empty. My heart is empty… my fucking soul is empty.
I’m alone. There’s nobody here for me, nobody I can trust.
I’m in agony. I can’t survive this time. I won’t get through this heat. I won’t do it.
It’s all my own fucking fault.
But maybe… maybe I’ll be better off.
T here’s a loud knocking on my front door, and I groan as I reach over for my phone. I’m covered in sweat, and my entire body feels disgusting, but not enough to set off an anxiety attack, so I’m classing it as a win.
It’s been a shit show of a day. Despite my latest flare up, it’s still Monday, just evening time now. I’ve had two major flare-ups today, and because the heat haze was strong, I can’t remember how I felt during it.
Sometimes, that’s the best blessing.
I don’t remember much except that it felt like it took hours before I was me again. That it was painful and uncomfortable.
That I wasn’t happy.
From the security camera app, I spy Adrian fucking Graves standing in my doorway, an expression of concern on his face. He’s wearing one of his tailored suits, but it’s pretty disheveled, and even his salt and peppered grey hair is messy.
Hm. Does he truly think I’ll fall for a messy look and think that it means he cares?
Men are pathetic.
I press the button on my phone that allows me to speak to him, unable to get up from my bed.
“Hello, Mr Graves, what can I do for you at my humble abode?”
His face pinches in annoyance. “Let me in, Maeve, we’ve got a lot to discuss.”
“Do we really?” I scoff, sitting up in bed. I’m naked, and the cool air feels so lovely against my clammy skin. I’ll have to brave a shower today, unless the heat haze manages to grab me under first.
“You know that we do. You’ve quit your job which goes against?—”
“Not today, Adrian.”
He frowns, his annoyance being hidden by feigned concern. “You sound tired.”
I sigh, and despite not wanting to share anything with him, I know I’ve got no choice since I’m about to be out of commission for a little while, and I can’t deal with him appearing here and harassing me whilst I’m completely out of it.
“I thought you synced your calendar with mine.”
He heaves a sigh as if this is just the biggest inconvenience to him. “No, Maeve, I haven’t. Despite all of your complaints, you have plenty of autonomy, and I don’t stalk you like that.”
Hilarious. He doesn’t stalk me like that .
Instead, he sends me weird, threatening letters.
Ugh. I can’t even be bothered to play with him when he’s put such a damper on my mood.
“Well, sadly, my heat is due to start any day now, and I’m already having the regular flare ups. It’s best that you don’t come inside or your mate might not be my friend.”
I smirk. Whilst my hormones won’t send him into a rut, as a happily mated man, they will cling to him, and it’ll absolutely upset his mate.
“You’re not meant to start for another… fuck .” He’s scouring his phone—you know, where our calendars are not linked—and sighs. “I thought we had more time before this next one.”
“I just bet you did.”
I don’t believe that for even a second. He knew my heat was starting this week, and he set out to deliberately bring his horrid nephew here so that all of his pawns were in place, just in time.
Me, mated to his nephew, fucked into oblivion. I’m not a problem anymore, and I’m trapped under his thumb for all eternity.
I wonder what Julian gets out of it.
I’m not much of a catch, and he’s rich enough without needing access to my accounts. So, what does he get?
A quick fuck with the most fucked up person to exist?
It makes no sense.
“We’ll need to—” he starts.
“Leave me alone so I can ride it out. Alone,” I say, cutting him off. Adrian’s nostrils flare, and I can see how annoyed he is. “I won’t leave, Adrian. I’m not spending this in a hospital or around other people. I can’t . You’d have to drag me out of here against my will.”
“Maeve, love?—”
“Don’t.”
He rubs at his face, and I can see him try to contain himself on the grainy as fuck cameras. “Last time?—”
“Well, there’s nothing else that can be done for it. These were the cards I was dealt,” I hiss down the line as tears well up in my eyes.
There’s nothing else I can do. We tried the heat blockers immediately after my first heat hit, so that I wouldn’t need to suffer with one again. Adrian knew that they’d come regularly, but unfortunately I’m allergic to one of the main components in them.
No matter how much I protested, they claimed anaphylactic pain and potential life-ending side effects are worse than suffering through the heats.
Even if I’m going through them alone, every single time.
Even if they trigger flashbacks and phantom pain of the touches I received.
Even if it takes me weeks and weeks to recover from the mental ordeal, just in time to forget about them for the next heat to surprise me once more.
“We’ve got your old room, we can be there for you,” Adrian offers, chilling my blood and my soul.
That would be equally as bad as letting Julian join me.
For my first two heats, I suffered through them at Adrian’s place. He and Helen were there for me as best they could, but it wasn’t right for me.
I didn’t feel comfortable or safe, and it made the heats all the more traumatic.
“Could I come in, and we can talk properly?” Adrian asks. “Please? I’m worried about you, and I don’t want to have to wait a week for this conversation.”
“I need to shower. I’m fine, honest. I’ll let you know once it’s over.”
“Maeve—”
“Got to go.”
I disconnect the speaker and watch as he knocks on the door once more. Two lone tears drip down my cheek, and I curl up in bed, holding my phone, watching the man who claims to care.
He sighs before walking away, barely a minute after I hung up.
Not that it was a test, but if it were, he’d have failed.
For some stupid reason, I cry into my pillow as if my world has ended.