16. Sick as Hell
Sick as Hell
Kelya
Ican only recall the last few events. Everything seems so twisted up and backwards.
I know I threw up because I can taste it, and I remember the noise Tony made when he failed to grab me in time.
I know he pulled me across his lap and held my head as he made a phone call.
It wasn’t to emergency services—I know that.
He knew people’s names. Dr. Soto. And other people.
I don’t know. Matty? He knows things about me, like that I don’t sleep in a bed.
I don’t keep soft things around. I get new clothes constantly, and don’t carry anything with me more than a few times.
He tells him that I don’t have an alpha, but that I meet alphas all the time.
Never the same one twice. He’s pretty sure I don’t let them knot me.
Then Tony asks me questions like, “How long has this been going on?” “Have you ever been to the doctor about your symptoms?” “When was your last unmedicated heat?”
I turn my head and see my lipstick marks still on him. His hands are striped with my dried blood. I wonder if he touched my face.
The man on the phone tells him to use his alpha bark on me to get me to answer the questions. I guess he doesn’t like my answers, which are all, “Don’t take me to the hospital.”
He grumbles, so I switch it up.
“Go fuck yourself,” I mumble in his shirt.
I cower, anticipating his reaction. God, I haven’t recoiled like that in a long time. Fucking nesties. Tony just scoffs at me. No heat behind the noise.
“Doctor, I don’t want to take her to a clinic. Or the ER. Please stop suggesting it.”
Thank god.
I can’t go to the hospital, because they’ll find out what’s wrong with me and make me fix it.
I got the nesties a few months after leaving the Livingstons.
Stomach pains. Nose bleeds. Deep, aching longing for a place I left behind.
For most omegas, a nest can be remade. There are portable nests.
Heats with new alphas. Temporary nests in hotels.
Not me though. No matter how many times I tried to remake a nest, it failed.
My inner omega only wants the one in Saint Kane with the Livingstons.
It only wants that special place in the desert of Saint Kane, under the roof of the most despicable men.
In short: I developed an unnatural bond with my nest.
Now I’m sick as hell being away from it.
I know all about it, because that’s how my sister died.
Hers was quick. Months and she had an aneurysm, fell into a coma, and then my parents had to let her go.
I didn’t know what happened at first. It was a year before my mother told me that something else went wrong, and an hour before I figured it out myself. The nesties got her first.
It’s why I run. I’m trying to get enough living done before the end. I will never go back. I’ve been afflicted for two years and am on borrowed fucking time.
Tony listens intently as the doctor gives him a series of tasks.
I must have blacked out, because the next thing I know, warm water cascades over my shoulders. I’m in my bra and panties underneath the shower, and Tony stands in here with me, down to his underwear, too.
My eyes fly open, and my hands shoot out to grab the shower walls. I nearly lose my balance, but his rough hands hold me still.
“You are covered in your own mess, Rosette, relax. I just need to clean you up. Lean on me.” Once I’m calm, he gets a washcloth and wipes my nose, mouth, and throat.
I see the pink-tinted water go down the drain.
God, that’s gross. If I could smell anything, I know it would be bad, but my nose is stuffed with dried blood.
Tony has one arm holding me tight around the middle, and I still see the kiss marks on his throat.
“What did the doctor say?”
“He suspects you have an advanced case of Nest Waning Syndrome. Have you ever heard of that? An omega develops a bond with her nest and is separated from it.”
“The nesties?”
He pauses the cloth against my sternum.
“What?”
“It’s just the nesties, Tony. Don’t worry about it.”
Somehow I sound like my mother, and it makes my stomach churn. She’s always downplaying things. I groan and nearly slip out of Tony’s hold.
“People die from Nest Waning Syndrome!” I feel the rumble of his voice through the parts of us that touch. He’s right, and I’m wrong. How fucking stupid. Worst position to be in.
He calms himself and then resumes cleaning me. Finally he asks, “If you don’t want me touching you, I can stop. I can go get someone to help. I didn’t ask…”
“It’s fine. It’s fine.”
“Good, I’m glad. The doctor told me how to care for someone with NWS.”
He shuts the water off, wraps me in a towel, and walks me to a stool where I sit.
“I’m going to dry your hair.”
I lean over the counter and rest my head on my arms, unable to keep myself up straight and incapable of looking at myself in the mirror in front of me.
Tony takes the time to dry my hair with the hotel-supplied hair dryer.
It lulls me into a sleep-like state. After what seems like forever, he’s lifting me up and carrying me to the bed, where he gently lays me down on clean sheets.
My heart is beating to a rhythm I’ve never felt before.
I want to reject this—whatever this is—but I don’t have the energy. It’s been sucked out of me.
He changes clothes, tidies the room, types things into his computer, and writes in his special little notebook that he must have retrieved from my go bag, then comes to sit next to me.
“Omega.”
Oh, that’s not a good start.
“If you do indeed have NWS, here’s the care plan.
” He taps his notebook against his knee, then fixes his glasses.
I expected him to grill me on how I let this happen.
I thought he would want to know why I’m a broken omega who bonded with her nest. He seems like the kind of guy who would want to know that.
But let’s be real. The care plan is probably him tying me up and taking me off this island and back to Saint Kane.
“What’s on there?” I refuse to look at the ill-fated notebook.
He takes a deep breath, crossing one leg over the other, then opens up the book.
“You need to keep letting your omega take things”—he reads from the open pages—“but you need to keep them. You need comforting items nearby. You need…” His eyes close briefly. “Alpha pheromones. Consistent. From the same source.”
I’m so thrown off by the list not including seeking out my old nest that I forget to breathe. Or think. Or listen. What did he say?
“No sleeping pills and no more scent or pheromone blockers. Skin to skin is helpful, and also, you need an alpha’s pheromones rubbed onto you, marking you.”
Fuck no.
“By this same alpha, you need to be knotted. Often.” Tony reads from his notebook like he didn’t write the words himself.
It’s not the strangest thing. I should have probably expected it. Omegas and alphas both need sex in order to stay well. It’s one of our most primal and anti-civilized traits. The reason I seek out alphas is to help clear out the nesties.
“How often?” I grind my teeth.
“Twice…a day.”
We make solid eye contact. He looks as serious as a heart attack.
“The doctor said that?”
“He said several times a day. I’m rounding down.”
Absolutely the fuck not.
Well, none of this is going to happen, so…
I try to sit up, and Tony holds me down.
“I’m not doing any of that.”
“Then I’m taking you to the fucking hospital.”
He pushes me all the way down onto my back, and I glare at him.
“I don’t know why I’m not taking you in.
I should take you in and let my clients know all the details.
I’ll have the fucking police handcuff you to the hospital bed, and then I’ll call the FBI tip line.
Do you fucking hear me? That’s what I should be doing, and yet, here you are in my hotel room where you’ve been all night. ”
The danger that usually hovers outside my purview is now right in front of me. I’m a rabbit in his snare. He has a crazed look in his eyes. Our hard breaths match. Did I know his eyes were green? Light green. So green they’re yellow. He’s looking at me with absolute ire.
I bare my sharp omega teeth at him.
It doesn’t affect him at all.
“It seems I don’t have a lot of choices here.”
“You don’t. Here’s what I’ve got. Either we can come up with a plan to get you well, or I can take you to the hospital.”
My mouth opens to say something, but I realize he’s giving me an option. A real option.
He must want something more I don’t know about.
I’m racking my brain to remember what he wanted during our game. What it revealed about him. All I remember is the word bloodhound.
“Did the doctor tell you why I have NWS?”
He nods.
“He said there’s a nest you need to be in…you are separated from a nest you’ve unnaturally bonded with.”
I let his words sit in the air.
“It’s the one with the Livingstons, right?”
I don’t answer him. There’s no point. It’s fucking obvious. Poor dumb omega running away from the thing that will cure her but will still kill her…
“What’re you offering?”
He backs off, and his hand passes over his face. He leans forward, elbows on his knees. I can’t see his face anymore.
“I’ll take care of you. I’ll make sure you aren’t on the brink of a coma or death. And in turn, you’ll…”
“I’ll what? Go with you to Saint Kane?”
“I mean, yes, that’s definitely happening. No, I mean…” His voice is strained, and he’s wringing his hands. He’s nervous. All signs point to him being kind of embarrassed.
“Spit it out.”
“You’ll stop taking your pheromone blockers. Obviously. Because that’s part of the care plan. You’ll do everything in the care plan. And in turn, you’ll let me smell you.”
He turns and looks me in the eye.
Yellow and bright.
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m willing to do this in order to give my alpha some time to enjoy your scent.
I caught your scent in Casablanca, and it really appeals to me.
As a bloodhound, I smell a lot of things a lot of the time.
I have many preferences. From what I caught, your scent is special.
I want to smell it more. Having you near me, off the blockers, gives me a rare opportunity. ”
It’s the first time I feel like he’s being truly honest with me. It’s rare to hear someone be so vulnerable…
“How long do I have to do the care plan?”
“Dr. Soto said three weeks.”
“Three fucking weeks!”
“Kelya, you threw up for two hours! Convulsed on and off for the next hour. You passed out for four. I was worried that you’d stop breathing!
It’s midday!” I look towards the balcony doors and see the light peaking around the corners.
“But we don’t have three weeks. We have to be in Saint Kane next Monday, which gives us about a week. ”
When I look back at him and his earnest face, the motion makes me dizzy. Tony puts his hand on my forehead and directs me back to the pillow.
“You’re fucking dying unless you do something. If you don’t agree to do something, I’m not going to be the one to force you. I’ll make some mean ass nurses force you.”
Nurses can be very mean.
I turn to my side, giving him my back.
“I’m tired. Can I decide my fate later?”
He rests his hand on my shoulder and then checks my temperature with the back of his hand on my neck. I accidentally let out a little moan at the touch. He does me a favor and doesn’t acknowledge it.
“You need to drink some water first.”
I groan, and he gets up to get me a plastic water bottle. He has to help me up so I can drink it. I’m so pathetic. I could have gotten sick around anyone else, and it would have been a better idea. Some random alpha who would help me into the shower. Clean up my vomit. Patiently dry my hair…
I realize he must really want to smell my scent if he’s doing all that. That worries me. It doesn’t seem like an even trade.
Bloodhound.
I’ve heard of it, but never knew anyone with the trait.
My eyes dash to his clenching jaw. They have a strong bite, I remember, but what does that mean?
Alphas and omegas have a keen sense of smell, but for bloodhounds, their primal scent drive is amplified.
Scent torments them. I know something about a primal desire tormenting me.
Then that’s what I’ll do. I’ll let him make me better so he can scent me, but I’ll be well enough to give him the slip. He said next Monday is when they want me back? I’ll get better sooner than that and then make a run for it.
I hand him the empty bottle and curl into a ball on my side.
Getting better in one week means doing everything in that care plan…
No. Absolutely not. I am not letting some alpha knot me and mark me, hold me while we’re naked, or whatever else is on that goddamned care plan. That being said, I would rather do that than go back to my old nest.
But first…a nap.