Episode 15 A Bite of Bitterness #2
“But you won’t be, Pixie,” Court says, ignoring all of the warning signs I’m blaring and reaching for me, brushing his knuckle over my flushed cheek.
“You’re going to be sick if we leave you.
I get that you want to be strong, and you want to be okay without us, but, love, the simple fact is that’s not the way your body works anymore. ”
I stare at him feeling unaccountably vulnerable and fragile and weak.
He’s right. It's not the way my body—this body that I love, that has supported me in my best times and my worst, the one that has never failed me, even when a near feral alpha damaged it—works anymore. I was able to recover from Frederick Bell’s attack.
Not fully. But I can walk. I can dance, even if not professionally.
But this isn’t something I can will my body through.
There are medications that can help with the worst of the symptoms, things I can do to help with the rest of them—like avoid unbonded alphas that aren’t my mate—but my doctor warned me that none of these were considered long term solutions.
Mostly because people with RMD don’t live all that long if they don’t reunite with their mates.
She said that the longest anyone has been recorded living with RMD is fifteen years.
If that holds for me, I’ll die before my fortieth birthday, childless and alone.
And I’ll have to endure forty-five to fifty untended heats before then.
Painful ones that will make me want to rip my uterus out with my bare fingers just to escape the pain.
I’d asked about getting a hysterectomy, to see if that would help with just about anything, my life span, the heats, the pain. And the doctor told me ‘no.’ I’d still be sick, my body would still turn on itself, which just seems fucked up.
If fate is going to punish anyone in this stupid situation, it should be the person or people who do the rejecting, whoever it is that turns their back on the gift fate gave them.
Not the one who gets rejected. That just seems like kicking when they’re already down and rubbing salt into a wound and countless other idioms like that.
Like you’ve already been rejected by your perfect counterpart, let me add nausea, body aches, unmanageable heats, and early death to the emotional pain you’re already under.
What the fuck is that?
But then again the world is a fucked up place and very rarely fair.
I just don’t understand why I was picked to suffer like this, why it was deemed necessary.
I could have gone my whole life and never met this pack. I would have eventually gotten over my fear of alphas—I’m stubborn enough to know that would have been the case—and I would have met a nice pack and fallen in love with them and bonded them and had their babies. But instead I get this.
Five fated mates that refuse to pick me.
That reject the very idea of it—of me—day after day.
Every time it happens I feel my illness dig its claws in a little more, clawing its way deeper into the very heart of me. When they do eventually leave me—and they will—it’s going to be so much worse than it was before.
The idea of that makes trepidation curl in my stomach. It was already so bad.
How will I survive when they leave me a second time?
Maybe I should go with them. The thought creeps in, unbidden, likely from my omega, who doesn’t give a shit that they broke our hearts. They’re here now and that is all she sees, all she cares about. And she doesn’t want to be parted from them again.
Almost like he can sense that moment of weakness, Forsythe leans into me, pinching my chin between his thumb and forefinger, gently.
“We will take care of you, Florence. We need to. Please come with us to Bravonne. I promise it won’t be like you’re imagining.
You’re our mate, cor mea. We wouldn’t be able to stay away from you. Surely you can see that.”
I want to believe him. God, I really, really do, and I tell him that, softly, “I want to believe you, Sythe. And I believe that you believe it… but if you bond with Isadora, especially while I’m there, I think my heart will shatter.
And I don’t mean that metaphorically. I mean that literally.
I think my heart would break and stop beating from the pain of it. From the rejection of it.”
All of them growl and shift like they want to rip apart the very idea. But they might as well rip themselves apart. They’re the ones doing this. They’re the threat.
I run a hand down my face, suddenly feeling so goddamn weary.
I still have two more classes to teach today.
Ugh. “This is pointless,” I tell them. “We’re just talking around in circles.
You clearly aren’t going to change your minds about being with me, and I can’t change my mind about going with you.
I’m not reckless enough to put my health in your hands. ”
They all flinch, like I struck them. But it’s the truth.
“Your health is already in our hands, killer,” Thayer says evenly, pushing my berry blast smoothie in my direction.
“Yeah and look at how well you’ve handled it.”
I drag the plastic cup the rest of the way to me, and suck on the straw more for something to do than anything else.
“Okay, so we’re currently at an impasse,” Court says, smacking a hand down on the table. “Let’s talk about something else… anything else.” He leans toward me, eyes pleading. “I just want to spend time with you, Pix. That’s it. I missed you like fucking mad.”
I set down the cup. “Okay, let’s talk about how you’ve had people following me.”
Grieves winces. “I told you I needed to know you were safe. The best way to do that was to put my own men on you.”
“Right, because nothing says safety to an omega more than creepy men lingering around corners and darting out of sight when I look at them. Or, you know, strange black cars with tinted windows parked across the street all day, every day.”
He shrugs, unrepentant. “They were under orders to stay out of sight, while keeping an eye on you.” When I glare at him, he only softens his gaze. “I’m not going to apologize for keeping you safe, bubbles. Besides they stopped a fuckton of people from getting to you, without you even realizing it.”
I blink at that. “They did?”
He nods. “Yeah, more than I care to tell you. Mostly photographers, but not all. Some were… fans.”
I frown. “How could they tell who was going to be a problem or not?” I mean the photographers I get, that’s easy enough to identify, but ‘fans’ is pretty broad.
What if they kept away new students for the yoga studio, new members—or old members for that matter—at the bank, or just random people going about their normal business?
“We have people watching socials for mentions of your name, identifying anyone who might be an actual threat to you, and then we go from there,” Forsythe says, stirring milk into his tea. “We do the same thing for all of us.”
My brows jump in surprise, even though that makes sense.
Of course they do that. Of course they have systems and teams and protocols for things like this.
Of course I don’t, because why would I?
I stare down at my drink, watching the condensation bead and drip down the side of the cup, my thoughts tangling up into something tight and suffocating. The gulf between us yawning even wider.
This is their world.
Security. Surveillance. Control.
And I’m supposed to just… step into it. Let them manage me the way they manage everything else, while I stay alone and separate and hidden.
It's too much.
“No,” I say quietly, more to myself than to them.
They were already watching me, but now their attention intensifies at that one word of denial.
I push back from the table before any of them can latch onto the word. The legs of the chair scrape loudly against the floor, drawing even more attention.
“I have a class in ten minutes. I need to go.”
“Pix-” Court starts.
“I mean it.” I look at each of them in turn, forcing myself to hold their gazes even when it hurts. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. You’re not going to change your minds today. I’m not going to change mine.”
“Then we keep talking,” Thayer says immediately, like that’s the most obvious solution in the world.
I shake my head. “No. We don’t.”
Because if we do, I might crack.
Because if we do, I might say yes.
And I don’t trust what happens to me—to my body and my heart—after that.
“We’ll figure something out,” Forsythe says, softer now. Maybe he believes that.
I don’t.
“You already did,” I reply. “You made your choice.” I turn before they can respond, before they can pull me back into it again, rushing across the cafe toward the door.
“Ren-” Piers tries, the scrape of all their chairs against the ground and the growing distance nearly drowning it out.
I don’t stop.
The bell above the café door chimes as I push through it, the warm air hitting my face like a reset.
They follow. I know they do.
But they keep their distance this time, trailing behind me, exchanging whispers.
When we reach the studio, they stop in the parking lot, lingering by their car.
Letting me enter alone.