Chapter 14 Eleven
Eleven
Taryn
Today was different. Day eight, maybe, or nine—somewhere around there—Dr. Pretentious-as-Fuck Hilt himself strolled into my room, perusing some papers on a clipboard as he towered over me on my bed.
That alone was enough to set my skin crawling.
I’d hardly seen him since he’d instructed me to count all the pieces he could carve my alphas into if I disobeyed.
He’d hung mostly in the background, talking to techs and nurses as I was moving from room to room for tests.
Now, though, he sat at my bedside, like an actual doctor about to actually see to my health. His brow furrowed behind his glasses as he flipped to the next page on his clipboard.
Finally, he deigned to look up at me. “All of your test results so far are acceptable,” he said in a voice that almost sounded bored. “When did you last have sexual relations with a man?”
Blood rushed to my cheeks, my brain warring between reveling in memories of my heat and pushing any hint of my pack out of my consciousness. “The night those goons raided the house.”
Hilt hummed. “Excellent. Your bloodwork shows no pregnancy, which is good for us.”
A shiver went up my spine, considering all the horrific scenarios of what could’ve happened had I actually been pregnant. A tiny sickly baby floating in a liquid jar…a pale child who’d never seen the light of day laid in a bed just like this…
It turned my stomach to imagine.
Hilt continued, oblivious or apathetic to my disgust. “When was your last heat?”
I stared at him, almost laughing. “However long I’ve been here ago, plus like three days.”
He leveled me with an exasperated look. “Before that, Ms. Maddox.”
I rolled my eyes. “Four months, ish.”
“How many heat partners?”
“Three.”
“And it lasted how long?”
I shook my head a little, trying to remember. “Three days…I think?”
A nurse entered the room with the rolling medical cart. I tried to ignore the nervous flutter in my stomach as she pulled on a pair of blue gloves. Hilt just pestered me with more questions.
“You take heat control?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Since I presented, basically.”
He made a disgruntled face at that, crossing something out aggressively on his clipboard. "Prior to your Registration earlier this year, how did you obtain that medication?"
"My grandmother knew where to get it. Then my alpha."
Hilt hummed. "Which I take to mean black market?"
"Well, it certainly wasn't Main Street Market."
Doc gave me a scathing look before jotting down a note.
The nurse circled the bed. “Arm,” she said.
My heart picked up speed. “What’s this for?”
Hilt arched a brow at me. “Will the reason affect your compliance?” he asked, voice deep and menacing.
I stuck my arm out, gritting my teeth as the nurse wrapped a bit of latex around my bicep, searching for a vein in my elbow. And Hilt returned to his questions.
Have you ever been pregnant? No.
The nurse retrieved a syringe from the rolling cart.
Have you ever taken a day-after contraceptive? Yes.
She approached, thumb tapping the veins in the crook of my arm.
Have you ever sought the care of a fertility specialist? No.
She inserted the needle, dispensing the entire syringe of amber-colored something into my arm. It burned slightly.
Have you ever donated eggs? No.
The nurse removed the needle and held a cotton ball over the site, taping it up to hold it in place.
Finally, Doc stuck his pen in the pocket of his white lab coat and stood, clasping his hands behind his back. “Very good. We have a clear baseline for your health at this stage, which means we can proceed to the next phase of research.”
Nausea clawed at my stomach.
The easy days were over.
“And what is that?” I was proud of myself for how steady my voice sounded.
“We monitor you through your heat, collecting samples along the way with an egg retrieval at the height of your fertile days.”
I blinked rapidly. “But I just had my heat. It’ll be months…before…” I stared down at the cotton ball in my elbow, realization moving in like a cloud covering the sun. “How long?”
“Three hours, maybe four,” Hilt answered.
I nodded. Okay. Okay. Another heat wouldn’t be awful. I had two of my alphas in the building. The reason they’d agreed to spare them after all made sense, at least. I cleared my throat. “I think we’d be more comfortable in here,” I said. “They should definitely get a good meal beforehand.”
Doc lifted his chin, staring down his nose at me. “Who, Ms. Maddox?”
I snapped my gaze to his. “My alphas.”
A cold chuckle made his eyes crinkle. “Ms. Maddox, your alphas will remain precisely where they are. As will you.”
Panic gripped my throat, icy cold and choking. “That’s…that’s torture.”
“It’s the best way to ensure pure samples,” Doc Fuckwad replied.
“Normally, we would want your initial cycle observation to occur naturally, though those attempts were thwarted.” His tone implied I’d been naughty in evading capture, like a child who’d snuck out of bed for a nighttime cookie.
“Considering your advanced age and medication history, not to mention our tight timeline on other projects, it can’t be helped. ”
My life had been an exercise in surrealism for months.
Really since the first bounty hunter had cornered me in our apartment, my world had taken on a fuzziness at the edges.
Almost dreamlike. Like, this couldn’t actually be my real life, could it?
Every advance and retreat on the chessboard was the same—terrifying, but with an underlying sense of not real.
Denial? Disassociation? Who could say?
For the first time, though, reality sharpened around me. High fucking definition.
An unassisted heat in this bright, sharp room, with this man and his psychotic team watching and prodding and recording me.
I was here. This was real. It was happening.
I leaned over the side of the bed just in time to vomit.