Chapter 35 #2
"I've been a dick to you," I blurt out, fighting the urge to cry.
I fucking hate how crazy I sound right now.
Elowen looks up from her notebook so fast it's almost comical. "That is absolutely not true," she says, like I accused her of something.
"It is." I shift against the pillows, my joints protesting. "Since the second you got here I've been." I wave a hand vaguely. "You know."
"Quiet," she says with a little smile. Giving me an out.
I can’t help but snort. “No. I’ve been mean,” I insist. “I even looked up online if a newly mated alpha and omega could separate," I say. "Like, break up. Whether it was medically possible."
Elowen stares at me for a second, then bursts out laughing. It's sudden and completely unguarded, her hand coming up to cover her mouth.
In the doorway, Perrin's expression does the opposite. His brows pull together and his mouth goes flat. He’s looking at me like I've just confessed to something deeply upsetting.
"Adam," he says like he’s disappointed.
"I didn't do anything about it," I say quickly. "I only looked."
"What did it say?" Elowen asks, still smiling.
“Nothing,” I mumble, feeling a little embarrassed for admitting it.
“You are ridiculous,” Perrin says as he moves closer to the foot of the bed.
"In my defense, I was having a very bad day."
"It's okay." Elle reaches up and smooths my hair away from my forehead. Her hand feels so cool against my skin. "You're allowed to be upset, Adam.” She pressed the back of her hand to my cheek, clearly checking my temperature. “This whole situation landed on you without any warning."
"I'm the worst pack beta in the history of pack betas," I say, because once I've started, I apparently can't stop.
"Betas are supposed to crave omegas. We're supposed to be nurturing and welcoming and excited about this kind of thing, and instead I've just been.
" I wave a hand weakly. "A pouty little baby. "
Elowen tilts her head, considering this very seriously. "I mean," she says slowly, "you're not wrong."
I stare at her.
"The pouty baby part," she clarifies, nodding. "That part was pretty accurate."
I lift my hand and swat weakly in her direction. It doesn't come close to connecting, and we both know it, but she leans back dramatically anyway, like I've dealt her a significant blow.
A weak laugh jerks from my throat. It shakes my chest and makes my lower back ache, but I don't care even a little bit.
Elowen grins as she sits back up, completely pleased with herself.
"Hey." Cliff knocks lightly on his own bedroom door, and we all turn to him.
His big body fills the frame in a pair of grey gym shorts and nothing else. His broad chest and shoulders are bare, his dark hair slightly damp at the temples like he's been working out. He looks the same as he always looks, but somehow completely different at the same time.
His skin looks impossibly soft over all that big muscle, warm copper brown in the afternoon light, and I have the sudden, irrational urge to press my face against his chest and lick.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I've seen this man shirtless approximately ten thousand times, but for some reason my body is tingling at the sight of him, every hair on my arms standing straight up.
"How's our patient?" Cliff asks, his eyes moving to Elowen as he crosses to the bed. He leans down and presses his palm flat against my cheek, and the contact lights me up from the inside out.
He’s so warm and solid, and his smokey scent is so achingly delicious that I close my eyes for a second and feel it.
"Fever is still up," Elowen says, flipping back through her notebook. "Joint pain is a little better. I'm thinking about trying a different anti-inflammatory tonight and seeing if that makes any difference."
"Whatever you think is best," Cliff says, tucking a damp strand of hair back from my face with two fingers.
They keep talking, Cliff and Elowen and Perrin, their voices low and unhurried, going back and forth about symptoms and timing and whether I've been eating enough. I let the sound of it wash over me because it's warm and I'm tired and Cliff's hand is still on my face and everything is—
"How's our invalid?" Raff appears in the doorway, and my eyes fly open. "Still rearranging the blankets?"
He struts into the room, and his scent arrives a half-second after he does. Sage and sunflowers, warm and green and alive, curling around me like smoke, and I pull it into my lungs on a slow, helpless inhale.
And my body does something that has never once happened to me before.
My cock slams against my belly, hard as steel. It’s so sudden it's painful, my abs flex. Heat floods my groin as blood rushes south, my entire body flushing with a fever-hot intensity.
The blanket tents obscenely over my lap, a blatant betrayal that makes my stomach clench with humiliation.
Everyone is in here, chatting and smiling, and looking right at me.
I move my hand slowly, carefully, pressing down against myself through the blanket to try to flatten things out before anyone notices, and the contact sends such a violent bolt of sensation through me that my body locks up.
It's so sensitive it borders on unbearable, every nerve ending lit up and screaming, and the sound that escapes me is small and strangled and completely involuntary.
"Adam?" Perrin's voice cuts through the room.
I have no idea what he said after that. The words reach me, but they dissolve somewhere between his mouth and my ears, lost in the static of whatever is happening to my body.
"Fine," I mumble at the ceiling. "I'm fine."
Then a cramp hits.
It starts low in my abdomen, deep and rolling, clenching hard then radiating outward toward my lower back. A sharp exhale cuts through me, bringing the room to an immediate stop.
"Adam?" Cliff's deep voice rumbles, and something warm and wet spreads beneath me.
I shift, not sure what it is, then my ass spasms, the muscles clenching violently before they surrender, opening up. My whole body shakes at the deep, internal dilation that feels alien and wrong, my body betraying me as more liquid pours out of me in a sudden rush.
“Adam?” Elowen whispers my name, but I can’t answer.
I can only scream as a vicious cramp crushes my insides. It starts in my lower back and radiates outward until my spine bows off the bed. My throat burns at the sound being torn from my throat, and another wave of liquid gushes from me, hot and unmistakable and completely beyond my control.
"Huh—elp" The word won't come out right. My body shakes so violently that my teeth are clicking together and I can't get enough air to form a complete sentence. "H-help," I beg. "P—please. Help."
“What’s wrong with him?” Perrin’s panicked voice briefly cuts through my pain.
I curl inward, my knees drawing up toward my chest. The cramping won't stop, it keeps rolling through me in waves that steal every thought I have.
Then Elowen's face comes into view.
She's leaning over me, one hand planted next to my face and the other pressing carefully against my shoulder.
Her face has gone pale, and the look in her dark eyes stops my heart for a full second. She's scared. Like really scared.
“Adam,” she whispers my name.
"What—” My voice cracks. "What’s—what’s happening to me?"