Chapter 34 Rowan
Rowan
Every muscle in my body is fucking sore. Hell, I have muscles I didn’t even know existed that’re in pain right now.
It’s dawning on me why it’s common practice for omegas to have entire packs of alphas as their heat companions. As a beta, I physically feel like I can’t keep up. Especially since it’s only Griffin helping her through her heat.
And the guy’s a fucking athlete. It’s obvious in every hard line of his body. But he’s exhausted too.
When I’m not in her nest helping her out, I’m making sure they both stay fed and hydrated. Tough, considering during the downtime from the pain after Mirabelle takes Griffin’s knot, all she wants to do is sleep.
“You’re telling me she’s still not out of the woods?” I whisper through my teeth, my eyes narrowing on the doctor.
Griffin’s jaw ticks as he stares at Dr. Stetson, Mirabelle wrapped in his arms, a soft, fuzzy blanket wrapped around both of them. A soft snore passes her lips as she sleeps, oblivious of the tension in the room.
“It’s been a fucking week,” Griffin growls. “Shouldn’t her heat have broken already?”
“It should have,” Dr. Stetson nods, running a tired hand through his hair. “But there are a lot of things that should’ve and shouldn’t have happened to her recently. Her temperature still hasn’t gone down. Is she still in pain?”
“Less,” I answer, perching myself on the corner of her nest, my hand resting by her gorgeous long hair. I’ve spent a decent bit of the downtime we have brushing through it and making sure it doesn’t get all matted and tangled.
Seems Griffin and I have something in common, considering how we both like our hands in her hair.
“But she’s still in pain,” I continue. “She gets breaks though.”
“How long?” Dr. Stetson asks.
“Around six or seven hours?”
“Not long enough to show it’s going to break on its own, especially considering she’s been stuck in this state for this long.”
“Well, then, what the hell are we supposed to do?” Griffin asks, his voice low. He rests a possessive hand around Mirabelle’s waist, tugging her closer into his side. She nuzzles into him with the motion, a soft, satisfied sigh leaving her lips.
Dr. Stetson stares at the two, a strange look crossing his expression.
“Her hormones are all out of whack right now, and without giving her proper medical attention and extensive hormone therapy, there’s really only one solution I can think of. One that’s the closest thing to a guarantee, I guess, though like everything, it may not work, so—“
“Just spit it out, Doc,” Griffin snaps, his dominance rolling off him in waves.
Despite Dr. Stetson’s status as an alpha, he stiffens under the force of it.
“Sorry. Yes, of course. The one option I think we have for stopping this unnatural heat is for Mirabelle to receive the bond mark from an alpha.”
The room goes silent. Well, silent except for the sound of Mirabelle’s soft breathing.
A bond mark. That’s the only way to save Mirabelle.
Binding a girl who has had no experience in the real world to an alpha for life.
“It’s the only way?” Griffin asks slowly.
“Yes. I wouldn’t say something like this if I weren’t serious,” Dr. Stetson nods.
“I’ll do it.”
Griffin’s words have a flare of jealousy so fucking big and overwhelming that if I weren’t already sitting, I probably would’ve fallen on my ass.
I’ve already felt useless during this heat. Sure, I can help give Mirabelle orgasms, but Griffin’s knot and his alpha pheromones are the only things that give her any actual sense of long-lasting relief.
Maybe I’m just being stupid. Mirabelle hasn’t actually done anything to make me feel left out. If anything, she makes me feel included, reaching out to me, asking me to hold her, thanking me for brushing her hair.
But there’s still that gnawing fucking insecurity I can’t shake, no matter how many times I bury my head between her thighs and make her come so hard she tries to break my head like a watermelon. She’s got impressive strength for an omega as small as she is.
“But we need to wake her up and see what she has to say about it. I won’t do it if she doesn’t want to. We’ll find another way,” Griffin continues, shaking me out of my fog.
“Of course. She deserves the right to choose. God knows she’s already had so much of her autonomy taken away from her,” Dr. Stetson says.
“You got any thoughts, kid?” Griffin asks.
My gaze jerks up to him, from Mirabelle’s sleeping form, and my eyes go wide.
“Me?” I’m so caught off guard I actually point at myself.
“Yeah, you. Who else would I be talking to,” Griffin says, letting out a little huff of laughter.
Despite the challenges of this past week, both physically, mentally, and emotionally, Griffin hasn’t made me feel like shit about things.
At least not on purpose. And I’m seriously grateful. I don’t think I could take being the water boy while constantly worrying about Mirabelle’s health on top of the physical exhaustion if it were anyone but Griffin.
If I were being yelled at by Ash, or if I weren’t able to communicate with Rage as well, I probably would’ve lost my mind a while ago.
“Earth to Rowan. You good?” Griffin asks, waving a hand in front of my face.
I shake my head, bringing myself back down to reality.
“Shit, sorry. I think if she consents to it, then we should at least try. I trust the Doc’s opinion. If he says this is the best shot we’ve got, then this is the best shot we’ve got.”
Dr. Stetson nods and pulls out his phone. “I will go call your father. He’s been wanting an update.”
“Need me to talk to him with you?” I ask, shifting my weight and getting ready to stand.
“No. It’s fine. He’ll just have to accept that this is the only option guaranteed to work. He’ll probably have some complaints, but a bonded omega is better than a dead one. Or at least that’s the perspective I hope he’ll take.” Dr. Stetson lets out a tired sigh. “I’ll be out in the living room.”
“Let me know if there’s anything you need, Doc. We’ll talk to Mirabelle.”
He leaves Griffin and I alone with Mirabelle, shutting the door to the bedroom closed.
“Hey,” Griffin says, his voice low and serious.
“Yeah?” I ask, my gaze jerking back to him.
“I want you to know that in my head, we’re in this together. You, me, Mirabelle, Ash, and Rage. The five of us. Ash calls me delusional whenever I bring it up, but I’ve still got hope we’re gonna get the fuck out of here. And when we do, Mirabelle’s gonna need you.”
I open my mouth to protest, but slam my jaw shut in the face of Griffin’s glare.
“I don’t wanna hear any bullshit from you ‘bout how you don’t deserve it or some shit.
If anything’s become crystal clear to me this past week, it’s why Mirabelle’s liked you so much from the very beginning.
You care about her. A whole lot. It’s obvious to anyone with eyeballs.
You anticipate the kinda shit she’ll need without her even asking.
Like her hair. I would’ve never thought about that! ”
“Really?”
“Really,” Griffin nods. “The rest of us are fucking meat heads. Mirabelle needs something more than that. She needs you. And you’re blind if you don’t see that. She’s wanted you to be a part of this week. Just as big of a part as I am.”
“But—But I don’t have a knot, I can’t help her—“
Griffin lets out a stifled snort of laughter, rolling his eyes. “You may be new to this whole fucking thing, but you’re a quick study and eager to please. You don’t need a knot to make her come.”
My shoulders slump forward as I lose the battle raging inside of me and brush some of Mirabelle’s hair away from her face, needing to touch her.
“I know you’re probably not going to believe me. You’ve got too much shit weighing you down. But if a knot would fix the fucking situation, we’d be done and over with what, two dozen times already?” He huffs.
“Probably over two dozen. It’s been a long fucking week.”
“You can say that again. Now, let’s figure out what she thinks about all this.”
Griffin shifts his arm, brushing the backs of his fingers across her cheek before giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze.
“Hey Sugar, sorry to wake you, but we’ve got something really important we need to ask you,” I say when her eyes flutter open.
She lets out a soft groan as she lifts her arms out of the blanket cocoon she’s currently in and stretches.
“Question?” She hums.
“Yeah, sweetheart. The doc just came in. He said your heat isn’t getting better.”
A quiet whimper leaves the back of Mirabelle’s throat as her expression falls. “Really? But—but—“
“Shit,” Griffin says, paling at the sight of the tears that cling to her lower lashes. He shoots me a panicked glance.
It’s almost as if he’s saying, “See, this is why we need someone like you,” with his eyes.
“The Doc said we had one option we could try,” I jump in, reaching out and lacing her hand with mine. “Take a deep breath with me, ‘kay? It’s not the end of the world yet.”
“O—okay,” she sniffles. “Sorry, I’m such a mess. I think—I think it’s the hormones or something. I don’t know why I’m freaking out.”
“Don’t apologize. You don’t need a reason to justify you freaking out, Sugar. Plus, I’d say freaking out in this situation is normal.”
Well, if you can call any part of this insane, fucked up situation normal, it would be her reaction.
She takes my breath away as she blinks up at me, her chest rising and falling with deep, steadying breaths.
She doesn’t have the glassy look that normally indicates her fever is spiking. Probably because she just took Griffin’s knot a couple hours ago.
Good, she seems clearheaded enough to give us an answer we can trust.
“We want you to know that you can say no. You don’t have to say yes. We can try and figure out an alternative. But Dr. Stetson said one thing we could try to get this fucked up heat to stop is for... is for you to bond with an alpha.”
Her eyes go wide, and her head jerks to blink up at Griffin, who offers her a silent nod of affirmation.
“Do you... want to?” She asks hesitantly, her voice small and shaky.