Chapter 33
Ethan
Say no, I thought furiously. Nadia, say no.
I’d fallen to my knees, wracked by more pain than I ever thought possible, in a room that looked just like this.
Being kicked in the nuts during footy practise, smashing my head into the concrete footpath when I came off my bike was nothing to the pain of shifting.
But it was obvious there was no psychic link between me and Nadia because she smiled and looked around the room and then gave Riley the go ahead.
You should go, I thought. There's nothing you can do to help.
The sound of her hiss had me starting forward.
“Hey.” My hand shot out and grabbed hers. “Nadia, you OK?”
“It’s just…” Her breath came in hard and fast. “It’s kind of like really bad period cramps.”
“Riley, is there something we can do about the pain?” Tex asked and seeing him serious for once was a miracle in itself.
“There are some painkillers in the mix going through the pump,” she replied. “But there’s only so much we can do. Shifting for the first time hurts.”
Shut up, I thought, staring at the doctor, but my focus drifted back to Nadia.
“It hurts,” I confirmed. “In your pelvis?”
“Hips… Back…” she panted.
“Rub her—” I snapped.
“Back?” Grey shot me one of those cold motherfucker looks of his, and while I was well used to it, suddenly that wasn’t OK. The room stank of burned, sour flowers. An omega’s pain. “On it,” he said, lifting up her shirt and digging his thumbs into the muscles there.
“Hey.” Tex shouldered me aside, taking Nadia’s hands in his. “You’ve got this. Meeting your wolf is gonna be amazing. She’ll be beautiful, just like you.”
I stared at him, wondering where the fuck he got this boundless optimism from.
Probably because his shift was damn near effortless.
Like taking a deep breath in, he said, but not all of us were that lucky.
What I knew was coming should’ve been enough to have me walking out the door, so why weren’t my feet moving?
Because whether or not Nadia accepted me as her mate, I was her friend, so I snatched a bottle of cold water from the fridge and cracked it before holding it out.
“Take a drink,” I said. “If I had to guess, you’re burning up right now.”
“Yes…” she hissed and then the plastic crackled as she drank down mouthfuls greedily.
“Not too fast,” I warned, knowing what came next.
“Ah, fuck…!”
The bottle would’ve fallen to the floor if I hadn’t caught it, but it was quickly discarded.
Spilled water wasn’t what worried me. The way Nadia looked up, eyes wide, I watched the moment the brown bled to pure silver for the first time.
It felt like her wolf stared out at me, right into the depths of my soul and whatever it saw wasn’t good, because her scream tore through the tense atmosphere.
“Turn it off.” Grey could shut up a bunch of rowdy blokes at a work site with that voice, but Riley didn’t move. “Turn it the fuck off!”
“You’re not in control here, Grey,” she replied, tapping a red button. “Nadia?”
There was no way for the omega to reply. Falling forward, we all reached for her at the same time, but somehow she slipped through our grip, her hands hitting the floor.
And that’s when the memories hit.
She’d be feeling like every muscle was jumping on her bones, fighting to break free and rearrange themselves into their new anatomy.
Just far too slowly.
Claws pricked her fingers, and white fur raced up her arms and for just a second, I dared to hope. Maybe she wouldn’t be like me. This could be a simple, straightforward—
“Ahh!”
Her shout echoed across the room, bouncing off every hard surface and into me. Dropping to my knees before her, my hands found her jaw. Fangs had pushed down and blood dripped from freshly cut gums.
“It’s push through or push back,” I told her as the others all shouted.
More and more people were entering the room, making so much noise, but I stayed focused.
“If you’re ready to shift—?” Nadia shook her head sharply.
“Then push her back. You’re in charge, not the wolf.
She wants out, but she doesn’t get to, not until you’re ready, so push her back, down, deep inside you. Push her back—”
“Shit, look at that.”
Tex crouched down beside me, watching the way the fur shrank back, her fingernails returning, complete with slightly chipped nail polish.
The noisy sound of Nadia’s breathing was what I focussed on, right before her arms quivered, then gave out.
I caught her, hauling her onto my lap and then wrapping my arms around her, because I remembered what it felt like.
For your skin to transform into something weird, ill fitting, and only deep pressure helped ease the ache.
Her breath fanned over my shoulder and I felt every twitch as she quivered in my grip.
“Omega…” Grey dropped to our level, then tilted her head his way. “We don’t need to do this.” A growl at Riley and her pack, who apparently had joined us. “Take the pump out now. I’m not putting Nadia through this. If I have to walk away—”
“No.” A ghost of a reply, but the omega had everyone’s attention. “That’s not what I want. It…” Feeling her tense against me was horrible. I didn’t want to let her go, but Nadia sat back on her heels. “It just hit me harder than I thought. Like I knew it would hurt, but…”
But there aren’t enough adjectives in the English language to describe the pain of your body abandoning one form and recreating itself into another.
“Are we done here for today?” she asked, looking up at Riley.
“We should keep you here for the full hour,” the doctor replied, but then her mates looked at her meaningfully. “But the chip will tell us if you start trying to shift again. Head back to your room and try to relax.”
Riley meant with Tex and Grey, so why did I step forward, collecting the omega in my arms?
Perhaps because it was only when I was carrying her out of this damn examination room, I could take a full breath.
My heart beat way too fast as I felt her eyes on me the entire walk down the hall and into her suite.
“Not many of my friends would carry me like this,” she said with a shy smile. “Like Helena skull dragged me out of a party because I was messy drunk, but that was just the blind leading the blind.”
“I hate…” Finding the couch, I set Nadia down in the corner seat, then grabbed blankets and started wrapping them around her.
“I’m just enough of an alpha to fucking hate seeing you hurt like that.
” Crouching down, I finally dared to meet her gaze head on.
She looked tired. “And if anyone knows what you’re going through, its me.
” Taking her hand and rubbing the knuckles, I gave it a squeeze, right as Tex sat down beside her. “Now, anything you need?”
“No, I’ll be fine.”
It was Tex’s chest she rested her head on, and that made sense. His arm went around her, holding his mate close. When he started mumbling soft words, I pulled back, obviously dismissed, but before I could make for the door, Grey stopped me.
“Thanks for bringing the bills by,” he said, dropping the envelopes onto the counter. “Before you go, we need to talk.”
My eyes followed his as he looked back at Nadia, then he jerked his head towards one of the bedrooms. Following him inside, I saw that everything I’d packed was neatly put away, the suitcase squared with the wall.
“What did you want to talk about?” I asked. “About what happened, because I can talk you through what to expect as Nadia learns how to shift.”
“Don’t need that,” he said with a dismissive shake of his head.
“You’ve got insights I don’t, and that’s why…
” His arms crossed his chest. “You need to go and pack your own bag. For the foreseeable future, you’re staying here with us.
We got Nadia into this shit.” He leaned forward, staring into my eyes.
“And now we’re going to work together to get her through this. ”
My mouth opened, shut, and then I found myself nodding.
“OK, yeah, I guess I can do that.”
So why did I drive too fast home, then tear around my room, finding a bag and shoving clothes in it?
It’s not as if Nadia was going anywhere.
Perhaps it was the wolf inside me that started pacing, pacing, the minute I left Crowe Corp.
I watched grey fur prickle across my skin as I got caught in traffic on the way back, especially as I thumped the steering wheel.
Finally I arrived, tapping my fingers on my thigh, much to the consternation of the people I shared the lift with, but I pushed past them when I reached the right floor, striding down the hall.
A quick tap on the suite door and then I was punching the code in to open it, only to find my friends standing there, but no Nadia.
“Where…?”
I didn’t want to end that sentence, because then I’d know. If something happened when I was out. If she’d gotten stuck mid—
“Psych appointment,” Tex said, pulling out a few beers from the fridge, then pushing one my way. The sound of his cracking had my own fingers moving to do the same to my beer. “Something you might want to give a go.”
“What?” I asked, looking at the two of them blankly.
“Or is it a surgeon he needs?” Tex asked Grey. “To pull his head out of his arse.”
“You said I needed to accept the fact Nadia was my mate,” Grey said, then took a sip of his beer. “Well, you might want to follow your own advice.”
“What?”
Tex shook his head with a smile.
“You keep saying that.”
“No, but…” Another sip of beer to try and clear my throat. “I’d know if Nadia was my mate. It’d hit me like a bolt out of the blue like it did you two. I’d…”
They just watched me carefully as I dropped my focus to the kitchen counter.
I’d want to be around her and only her. Nadia’s pain would be like mine. Possessive, people always talked about that.
“She’s my mate,” I said finally, and they both nodded. “So… we’re a pack?”
“Guess so,” Tex said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “So now you’re part of whatever the hell this is, we need your help.”
“Mine?”
Gods, I sounded like a dickhead.
“You’re the only one who knows what it’s like to be a latent,” Grey said, deathly serious again. “So, what can we expect?”
Sitting down hard on a bar stool, I finished half the beer in one gulp.
“Pain,” I replied. “More fucking pain than you can imagine, so…” There was no way to talk Nadia out of doing this. Her body, her choice, I stood by that. “I went through the process mostly on my own.” I looked up finally. “Let’s do better than that for Nadia.”
“Let’s,” Grey said, resting his elbows on the counter.