Chapter 9 #2
“Yes, I’m high. No, it’s not touching it.”
“Maybe you need more.”
“If I have any more, I’m going to feel like shit while I’m drooling like a baby.”
“It should be taking the edge off,” she fretted. “It always does for me when Dalton has to go away for a day.”
“Maybe it is,” I replied. What a scary thought. How much worse would it be if my pop wasn’t dosing me? “Why is it still this bad? I thought once we completed the bond, the symptoms would get better.”
“They should be,” Aunt Halle replied. “Have you noticed any difference?”
“It’s worse,” I complained as I curled up like a shrimp on the couch.
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Reassuring,” I grumbled, pulling a crocheted blanket off the back of the couch so it would stop digging into my hip.
“Everyone is different,” she reminded me quickly. “And it’s not all sunshine and rainbows right now. Your body is probably reacting to that. Your mind and your emotions and your body all work together, you know. If you’re anxious, of course you’d feel worse.”
“Right.”
“Do you want me to come over?” she asked.
“What, so you could watch me lie on the couch all day? No, I’m fine.”
“You really don’t sound fine.”
“This is the best I’ll sound for the next few hours,” I told her.
I wasn’t joking. The panic hadn’t set in yet, but I knew it would. It always did.
“How long has he been gone?” she asked sympathetically.
“About twenty minutes.”
“So three more hours?”
“Maybe a little less.”
“I don’t like this,” she said sharply. “I don’t like this at all.”
“I can handle anything for three hours.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” she argued. “I’m going to talk to Dalton about this—”
“Don’t you dare,” I snapped in horror, lifting my head from the couch.
“Daniel should know better than this,” she continued. “How did no one teach him his responsibilities to his mate? I know his parents, and it just doesn’t make sense. Maybe if Dalton spoke to him.”
“Don’t, Aunt Halle,” I warned. “Leave it alone.”
“He must be in pain too,” she retorted. “And the human mate’s symptoms are even worse than the Vampire’s, so how is he just—”
“Maybe he’s not in pain,” I countered, voicing the thought that had been whirling through my mind for days.
“That’s not possible.”
“He’s leaving every day, and it doesn’t seem to have any adverse effects,” I told her quietly. “He comes back completely fine. So maybe he doesn’t think that it hurts me because it doesn’t hurt him.”
“I doubt that’s true.”
“Either way,” I replied, willing to let it go. “He’s gone for the next few hours, so I’m going to lie here in my misery. Want me to call you later?”
“Yeah, do,” she said with a sigh.
I lay there for a while, staring into the empty fireplace. Intellectually, I knew the house was cool. Outside, it was sprinkling rain, and the wind was making branches from the willow tree on the side of the house clack against the siding, but it felt like the hottest day of summer beneath my skin.
Rising, I went to find my pop and Thunder. Misery loves company and all that.
I was so sick of everything. Sick of the panic and the pain and Daniel and the house and my own weakness.
“How ya doing?” Pop asked as I joined him on the patio.
“Why are you sitting out here in the rain?” I asked, raising my arms to catch the droplets. I was surprised they didn’t sizzle when they made contact.
“This ain’t rain,” he said with a scoff.
“You should have a coat on.”
“Worry about yourself,” he retorted.
“Oh, I’m doing that too,” I said, shaking my head. “If I’d known mating heat was like this, I probably would’ve hesitated at least a little.”
Pop chuckled. “No, you wouldn’t.”
“I thought it would be easier,” I blurted out. “Uncle Dalton and Aunt Halle—”
“Dalton and Halle fought their own battles before you knew your letters,” Pop interrupted. “Just because you’ve always known them settled doesn’t mean they didn’t fight to get to that point.”
“Really?” From the stories Aunt Halle had told me, their bond had been rainbows and butterflies from the beginning.
“Of course,” Pop said in surprise. “No relationship is perfect, Flower. Mating bonds are more difficult because you’re not getting to know someone in order to decide whether you want to spend your life with them. That decision has been made for you already. It’s all backward.”
“You like Daniel, right?”
“Sure, I do.” He looked at me closely. “Seems to worship the ground you walk on. Protective. Polite. Loves his family. Why?”
“Just asking.”
“The more important question is if you like him.”
“I…” I paused, trying to find the words. “Yes. I adore him. He’s just so…”
Pop watched me expectantly.
“I don’t know if it’s the same for him,” I sputtered out finally.
Pop scoffed. “That Vampire would happily die for you, Rosemary.”
“He keeps leaving,” I argued. “He leaves and—” I gagged and had to take a deep breath, in through my nose and out through my mouth. Great, the nausea was back. “He makes me feel like this. He won’t take me with him, but he insists on going every day. What am I supposed to think?”
“Have you told him?” he asked reasonably.
“He should know,” I yelled in frustration. Turning, I took two steps and threw up the breakfast Pop had insisted I eat. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I swiped at my mouth with the back of my hand.
God, I was miserable. The rain no longer felt cooling against my skin, just wet. All of my clothes were damp and sticking to my skin, the friction like tiny razor blades all over.
“He should know,” I repeated, turning back to Pop. “He’s well aware of what the mating heat entails. It should be hurting him too.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“Then why does he keep leaving? Huh? Why would he keep putting us through this? Why would he keep putting me through this?”
“You know, some days—most days—I wish your mother were here. I never know what to say to you. Didn’t know how to comfort you in high school when you got that terrible haircut that made you look like a mushroom.
Had absolutely no clue how to use tampons and had to read the directions before I talked to you about them.
Hell, I forgot to put sunblock on you more times than I could count.
” He rose to his feet and braced a hand on the back of the chair.
“But this? This I know. This I can set you straight on.”
“Enlighten me,” I ordered, throwing my arm out.
“Daniel is so terrified that you’ll be hurt and he won’t be able to save you that he’s willingly making you both miserable for a few hours a day because he knows you’re safe here. That’s his goal, Flower. Keepin’ you safe.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“He’s gotta go home to his family to check in. Lost one brother already, house was attacked, his family is healin’ in more ways than one.”
“I know that.”
“Don’t you think he’d rather have you with him?” Pop asked curiously.
“I don’t know what to think!”
He just shook his head. “When you’re done havin’ a pity party and want to talk logically, we’ll talk.”
“Oh, that’s real nice,” I grumbled. “Seriously. Thanks for being on my side.”
“I am on your side,” he said, waving me off before letting out a short, sharp whistle for Thunder. “But you can’t see the forest for the trees.”
I was too pissed to follow them inside, so instead I stomped over to the barn. The inside was a mess of random shit that we didn’t have room for anywhere else. I swore under my breath as I grabbed a pair of gloves out of the cabinet and got to work.
Random tools littered the room where Grant and Seamus had left them, and I took my time—mostly because everything hurt and I wasn’t moving very fast—as I rolled up the cords and put them away in the bottom of the cabinet.
I stacked short two-by-fours and pieces of plywood against the wall.
Pop’s portable air conditioner was on wheels, so I covered it with its little bag and shoved it into the corner, looping the air tube over the top of it.
I searched the ground and found four pairs of pliers, two Allen wrenches, and various-sized sockets and bits that the boys had left out.
I needed to remind them to put shit away where it belonged, so if Pop came outside, he didn’t have to go searching for the tools he needed.
After a while, I had to sit down on a crate to catch my breath.
I hated feeling so weak.
After an hour of sitting there, watching the rain and urging myself unsuccessfully to get up and do something, I finally made my way back into the house.
I paused inside the doorway.
The kitchen table was covered with newspaper, a pile of rags, solvent, oil, and various firearms.
“Grab a rag,” Pop offered, nodding at the pile.
“Is there a reason we’re cleaning our weapons?” I asked.
“Needs to be done,” he replied, reaching for a rifle barrel.
“And you chose today.” I shook my head and moved around him. “Let me change my clothes first.”
My shirt was still damp with a mix of sweat and rainwater when I took it off.
The shorts were better, but not much. I kicked them into the corner of my bedroom and pulled a new set out of my drawers.
I needed to do laundry, but it was hard to find the resolve to do it.
I wasn’t going anywhere. No one saw me except Pop—who didn’t care—and Daniel, who was more interested in taking off whatever I was wearing.
I sometimes wished I were one of those people who were productive when they had extra time on their hands, but I wasn’t. Too much time just made me bored out of my mind.
As soon as I was dressed, I lost all sense of time as I crawled onto the bed on my knees and curled into a ball, my feet tucked under my ass and my arms sandwiched between my torso and the bedding.
I didn’t even bother pulling a pillow under my head as my chest tightened, aching like it was being squeezed in a vice.
It was time for the panic, and although I always thought I was ready for it, I never was.