Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
The nurse at the front desk waves at me as I exit the procedure room. “Will we see you in two days?”
“I’ll be here!”
This isn’t a pleasant experience, but I always leave in a great mood. I’m ready to get back to my Omega. I’ve been gone longer than I anticipated.
I squint against the sun, and when my vision focuses, I see Ariana standing in front of my car.
Oh, shit.
Ariana is standing in front of my car.
She looks like she’s upset but also pissed. Upset that she’s pissed? Pissed that she’s upset? Regardless, I know I’m the one who put that expression on her face.
“What are you doing here?” As I get closer, I can see that her hands are shaking, but she doesn’t reach for me for comfort. “What are you hiding from me?”
“This isn’t how I wanted you to find out.”
That wasn’t a smart thing to say. She takes a step back, betrayal painted across her features.
“I forgave you. I looked past your lies, bonded you, welcomed you into my pack and my bed. And now you’re lying to me again? How could you?” Tears trail down her cheeks. Ones that I caused, again.
“Please, let me explain.” I’m not above begging. This may not be how I wanted her to find out, but I’m not willing to let her suffer or hurt in hopes of hiding what I’ve been doing. I hold my hand out for her, praying she’ll trust me enough to take it. “I’ll show you.”
Tentatively, she slips her hand into mine and lets me pull her through the doors of the clinic. When we get inside, the nurse looks up in surprise.
“Back already?”
Ariana’s hand tightens around mine at the nurse’s familiar tone. “This is my Omega.”
They know that I’ve been keeping it a secret from her. The doctor was concerned about it at first, but when I explained that I was doing this to protect her, she stopped asking questions.
“Oh. Well. Come on, then. The procedure room hasn’t been cleaned yet. You can go over your file with her.” Her fingers dance across the keyboard. The printer beside her whirrs, and she grabs the pages. “Follow me.”
The small room still smells like my creamy pecan pie scent, and Ariana’s nostrils flare as soon as she crosses the threshold. I don’t like how sour she smells. I hate that I’ve ever given her a reason to think that I’d hurt her, but I know that my lies are still so fresh.
I shouldn’t have kept this from her.
I lift her onto the bed and step between her thighs.
“When I left the Expected house, I didn’t know if you’d ever want to see me again, and the last thing I wanted was for you to feel like you had to or risk getting sick.
” I hand her one of the pages, but she doesn’t look down at it.
“I’ve been coming here three times a week to harvest my pheromones.
I’ve had them cryogenically frozen, so they won’t degrade over time.
I wanted to make sure there was never any reason why you felt like you had to keep me in your life if you didn’t want to.
If anything happens to me, or you decide you don’t want me around, you’ll have a stock of my pheromones to keep you healthy.
They’re even working on a way to create synthetic pheromones based on a sample, so hopefully, if I don’t get enough stored up for you, they’ll be able to do that if the time comes. ”
She breaks her eyes away from me and looks at the paper, not saying a word. I can barely breathe as I watch her read it. Will she be happy that I did this? Will knowing that she has another option now make her change her mind about me?
“Doesn’t it hurt?”
That’s not what I expected her to ask when she found out.
“It’s not great. There’s a machine that squeezes my knot to collect… the fluid.” She wrinkles her nose in disgust. Yeah, the whole thing sounds gross in a medical context. “And they take extractions from my armpits, too.”
“Three times a week?”
“It’s the maximum amount. I’d go every day if I could. I want to make sure you never have to feel pressured to stay with me. Ivan said he’s going to start donating, too. That way, if anything ever happens to us, you won’t go through what Calvin did.”
A startled sob escapes her, but she tries to smother it with her hand.
She’s not fast enough.
I gather her in my arms and pin her to my chest while burying my face in her neck. I can’t make sense of what I’m feeling from her in our bond right now. “I’m sorry I hid this from you. I didn’t want you to know because I worried you’d think I was just doing it to win you over.”
“This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
I’m not sure what reaction I expected from her. I wasn’t sure when to tell her, because I don’t like the idea of making her think about her pack dying, but I feel a weight has lifted off of me now that she knows.
When her tears don’t seem to slow, I sweep her up in my arms and carry her out of the clinic.
I try not to jostle her as I place her in the passenger seat and pull her seatbelt over her lap.
It’s not until I turn the car on and click my buckle into place that she sniffles away her tears enough to talk.
“I was so worried when I realized you were keeping something from me. Don’t be mad at Marlie for telling me where you were.”
“She warned me not to keep it a secret from you. I should have listened to her. I never wanted you to go through this kind of stress, and she knew this would happen. She’s a good friend.
One of her brothers works in a lab at the storage facility, so when I mentioned what I was doing to her, she hooked me up with him. ”
Ariana turns toward me with her arms wrapped tightly around her body. “And you did this because of Calvin?”
“For you.” I hit the blinker and turn into the parking lot of a superstore so I can look at her while we have this conversation.
“Calvin’s death destroyed you. I hated that you lived in fear every day.
I knew that when you met me, all you could think about was what happened to him, and if I could do something about it, I needed to.
You faced your fears going onto Expected, and I didn’t want that to be in vain.
I want you to have a safety net. If something happens to me, or you come to your senses and realize that I am not good enough for you, I needed to make sure that you would be okay. ”
She reaches across the console and grabs my hands. “I love you, Derrick. So fucking much. You gave me my life back.”
I brush some of her hair behind her ear before cupping her cheek. “I’d give you anything, honey.”
When she leans forward and presses her lips to mine, all of the tension I was holding onto drains out of me. “I don’t need anything. Just my pack.”