Chapter 7
Seven
brICE
Damn. One second Hollis was looking up at me as I played with her beautiful, thick brown hair, and the next, she was passed out. She really wasn’t kidding about her medication.
Unsettled, I walk into her bathroom and look at the prescription.
The medication is called Rizatriptan, and I frown at it.
I’m going to see what I can find out about the prescription.
I won’t lie and say that I’m not grateful that there’s something to help them, I simply dislike that the only way for her to get through it is to knock herself out.
I’ve never met anyone with migraines this severe. It’s making me realize that anyone else who has ever said they had one may have been speaking about a headache instead.
My phone rings in my pocket, and it snaps me out of my thoughts. Placing the bottle back, I pull out my phone, not expecting to hear from the guys yet.
“Hello?” I answer, seeing that it’s Felix. “Is everything okay?”
It’s Monday, the world could have burned down and I’ll have to fix it. It’s not the first time I’ve gotten a panicked call from one of my pack members. They’re also kind of dramatic.
“ Why is your location showing you so far away from Hollis’ office?” Felix asks.
Did I mention that Felix has this obsession with Lo-jacking us all? If he knows we aren’t at the office, he’ll intermittently check to see where we are. While Malcolm does predominantly drive us to and from work, we still have errands to run throughout the day.
A glance around the bathroom has me finding Naughty Tote products. There’s a toy cleaner, silicone lubricant, and… are those stirrups over a hook? Damn girl. They’re used to hook up to the footboard or headboard so you can thrust up better.
A tendril of jealousy comes over me before I take a deep breath. I’m not allowed to get pissed off that she may be spending her heats with someone else or even that she, dare I say it, has a sexual connection with others.
She just met me for fuck’s sake.
Get it together, Brice. Don’t be an asshole. She’s allowed and justified to have a past.
With that discussion with myself, I glance at Hollis and turn out the light in her bathroom.
“If you must know, stalker, when I got to her office, she was clutching her head like she’d like nothing more than to shove an ice pick through her temple,” I explain.
“I put the food I brought her in the fridge, put the daisies in water, and carried her out of the office. Then I drove her home and put her to bed to sleep off her migraine. I hate seeing how sick she is, Felix.”
“ Are you going to stay with her? ” he asks worriedly.
“She made me promise to leave after she took her migraine medication. It puts her on her ass, and I don’t think she likes the idea of having anyone around when she’s that vulnerable, you know?” I ask, practically tiptoeing over to check on her again.
I’m sure if anyone was around to see me that they’d laugh because I look ridiculous, but I’m alone so it doesn’t matter. I’m also nervous to leave my omega. My fingers move over her soft hair again, and then ghost down to her back so I can feel her breathe.
“ Does that seem like a normal reaction?” he asks. “ You’re her alpha, why would you want to hurt her?”
“I don’t think it has anything to do with me,” I admit.
“We didn’t give her the best first impression either.
Doesn’t your mother have some kind of special CBD cream that she makes?
It won’t touch the one she’s having now, but I think it would help at the first signs of a migraine.
She said she was about to just lay on the floor of her office and close her eyes.
There was no way she’d have been able to drive herself home. ”
“ My mom? Yeah, I have some here at the house too actually. She sent some to me last week. I’ll gladly give her a jar of it,” Felix says.
“ Mom also swears by hot water for a person’s feet when they’re suffering from a migraine.
It pulls the blood flow away from their head. Does she have a kettle by chance?”
“Maybe. I’m going to go snoop through her things. I’ll be back at the office soon,” I say, hanging up.
He’s going to fucking watch me drive back on the damn app. Snorting, I shake my head.
“Biology has chosen quite the pack for you, Baby Girl,” I murmur.
I’m loath to move, but force myself to walk to her kitchen. Looking through her cabinets, I find an electric kettle, and write on a sticky note from a drawer.
Fill Me, I write. I’m intent on getting her to actually pay attention to me, so I set it on the counter where she won’t accidentally knock it over but she’ll definitely see it. Next, I find a plastic tub she can pour the water into for her feet, and add that next to the electric kettle.
Pour into me , I add with a smirk.
Lastly, I grab a towel that’s fluffy and perfect for drying her feet and add it to the group of items for her to use. Hopefully, she doesn’t think I was recklessly going through her things. I just want her to feel better.
Writing a note for the towel, I find a pad of paper to add a little context for her.
Much like Alice in Wonderland, I have notes for you. These aren’t laced in psychedelics, but hopefully they’ll help you with your migraine.
As promised, I’m heading out, but I wanted you to wake up to the reminder that a little self care can go a long way.
If you still have a migraine after this, I hear an orgasm or two can help. I hear you’re a good customer of ours, and we did give you a bag to product test.
Call me later, please.
Brice.
My eyes move back to the bed, where Hollis hasn’t moved at all. It’s kind of creepy how hard her medication hit her. Shaking my head, I leave my last note to her on the counter and move to the elevator.
Her loft is incredible. It’s full of light colors, curtains for motions, and open spaces. I didn’t really think that omegas would enjoy something like this, but the security for this building is pretty amazing.
She also has her lighting set up so she can control it, and the bulbs are all a warm color. It won’t itch at all. It makes me wonder where her nest is, but I force my finger to hit the button to call the elevator.
I can’t fuck with the smells in her nest, and I refuse to violate her privacy any more than I have. Reluctantly, I step into the elevator car and push the button to go down to the parking garage.
I’m intrigued by Hollis. I want to know more about her place with the mafia community, as well as why they insist that they see her. It seems they need things from her only she can provide.
Hollis works her ass off, yet it doesn’t ever seem to be enough. Felix was wrong. She’s not an alpha pimp, our scent match is a fucking fixer.
She can’t continue to ignore her health while she’s oiling the cogs to people’s happiness. What about her?
Something tells me that she’s ignoring her own needs and I want to fix it. If she won’t take care of herself, then I’ll have to make sure that she does. I don’t care how small we start as a pack, I want to teach her that it’s okay to lean on someone.
I hope the notes I left help to nudge her in that direction. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I have a feeling the way to my omega’s heart won’t be easy either.
That’s okay though. I can be patient.
NOVA
Burrowing further under the blankets, I sob as my head pounds. It feels as if there’s a full percussion band marching between my ears. It’s been getting more and more intense despite trying to sleep it off, meditate, and distract myself.
Nothing works, the minutes continue to slip past my fingers like sand, yet the pain continues.
“Please…stop,” I whimper. “I can’t… fuck.”
My fingers massage my scalp, and I ask myself who in the cosmos I managed to tick off. I’m a good person, I deliver babies for a living, ow whyyy?
Hiccuping out a sob, I tell myself this won’t help. Tears lead to dehydration, which will make this all worse. I haven’t been able to eat, I’m drinking water when I can, but I feel nauseous.
Having only water in your stomach when you feel ill makes you more aware of it sloshing back and forth inside of you.
I have had one other migraine since I moved to Minneapolis, but this one is so much worse than the first one. Besides that, I’ve always been very healthy. I don’t understand if it’s the weather change or maybe I inhaled too many fumes while doing work on my car.
Is that possible? I can’t even promise whatever heavenly body that exists never to touch the inner workings of my van again if this migraine will just go away because I know it’ll be a lie.
I need to change my brakes out today anyway, and don’t have time for this. Crawling out of the oasis of my nest, I inch painstakingly to my bathroom. Panting, I begin to get desperate enough to whisper birth mantras.
I’ve never been pregnant, I’ve seen many women crawl on their hands and knees to get a baby to progress, but this has to be on par with contractions. Except there’s no cute newborn at the end of the pain.
What’s the point then?
“Focus, focus, fuck me!” I scream, my head pressing against the cool tile.
I need to get it together. If my landlords hear me screaming, they’ll try to come inside. I suppose they should probably be at work still, but all sense of time is beyond me. It could be morning or the day could have blown past me altogether. Breathe, Nova.
“I can do anything for thirty seconds at a time,” I wheeze out. “I’m powerful and being tortured for some reason. I can handle this.”
Eh, I’ll work on it. My brain feels as if it’s been put through the grinder right now.
Pulling off articles of clothing as I gaze at the shower, I force myself to stand and stumble over to turn on the water. If this is due to congestion from the changing weather, I can try some facial massage exercises to drain it.