Chapter 6
Chapter Six
TRISTON
T he room is dark and quiet. Still.
A heavy blanket covers most of me, large, plush pillows cocooning me.
The weight and shape of them are familiar enough to know I’m in a Haven.
Lance must have gotten me to a local one when my heat broke through the double suppressants.
I should probably sit up and get cleaned up and reconnect with him to figure out what’s on the schedule now that I’ve won the championship.
Pride rushes through me at the thought, no longer buried under the need to find a quiet corner and claw my skin off.
I won. I did it. I made bull riding and rodeo history.
Satisfaction settles in my chest, a weight to it I’ve only ever felt when with a partner before.
Instead of getting up, though, I snuggle deeper into the pillows that surround me, an ache to my bones that’s common after I’ve been through a heat.
This time it feels especially bad. Breathing in the fresh, clean scent of the fabric beneath me, I try to remember anything from this heat cycle, but no matter how hard I try, all that I can pick out is the fist fight my sudden breakthrough caused at that bar.
There’s a vague voice that flits on the edges of the darkness, someone trying to figure out who I was.
As I try and focus on the voice, the memory of hands lifting me and supporting me filter through the haze, too.
But no memory of knotting, of a hard body beneath me or behind me, of a scent wrapping around me and offering me just as much comfort as the physical satiation of the heat.
With a groan, I push myself up and out of the pillows, finally opening my eyes to take in this particular Haven’s nest arrangements.
There’s a small light plugged into the wall—a nightlight, like I’m a toddler.
The blankets and pillows are all a middle gray, pressed and washed, but only my scent clings to them.
Someone’s put me in sweatpants with wide legs and a low waist but no shirt.
The room is warm without being stifling.
It’s also smaller than the others I’ve used.
Maybe there hadn’t been any of the larger ones available?
I carefully rub the sleep from my eyes and swing my feet over the side of the bed, grimacing as more muscles protest me moving at all. Before I convince myself I can actually stand, there’s two soft knocks on the door.
“Mr. Harding?” a muffled voice asks, one I don’t recognize, though that’s not surprising. It’s not like I was lucid by the time I arrived here.
“I’m awake,” I say, my own voice scratchy with disuse.
The door swings open a moment later, revealing a small blonde woman in the Haven medical uniform—black knit pants and shirt—and Lance a step behind her.
His hands are in his pockets, worry etched in every laugh line surrounding his eyes and lips.
He’s in navy slacks and a light blue button-up shirt, a gray tie held in place with a simple silver tack that matches the metal in his belt.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Harding,” the woman says with a small smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m Dr. Gent, but you can call me Irina. I’m one of the on-call doctors at the Haven here. I’m glad to see you up and lucid. How are you feeling?”
Confusion rips through me. This hasn’t ever happened before. I glance at Lance, but he’s focused entirely on the woman—Irina.
“Fine?” My uncertainty has it come out a question. “Thirsty.”
She nods. “That would make sense. That’s typical when an Omega comes out of a Drop.”
Drop?
Unease mixes with the confusion, both bleeding into my clove scent. Neither of them notice the change. Lance raises an eyebrow as I say nothing.
“A Drop?” I finally ask.
Irina nods.
“There was a stimulant in your bloodstream when the paramedics got to you. Between those and the suppressants you took earlier in the night, it caused a full-blown crisis in your limbic system. A Drop isn’t uncommon when a stimulant is used.
Since you were stable, your medical proxy opted to have you transferred here rather than remain hospitalized. ”
She gestures toward Lance.
“I didn’t take a stimulant.”
I know the risks of accidentally combining the suppressant medications used to keep an Omega’s heat—or any of the other traits unique to Omegas—from surfacing with the stimulants some use to better time their own heats.
It’s something the doctors and pharmacists reiterate every single time I get the suppressants filled or adjusted.
Not to mention the public health campaigns the Council has been putting out the last half decade.
Both of them frown.
“You didn’t give yourself the stimulant?” Irina asks, a new worry in her tone.
I try to shake my head, but it makes my jaw ache. When they don’t say anything else, I press my fingers to the pressure points in my temples and ask, “How long did it last?”
Drops aren’t good. No wonder my entire body feels like I’ve been rammed into the chute by a bull. Already, my eyes burn, and I want to curl into the bedding again.
Lance clears his throat.
“About three days.”
That explains why I’m so hungry. Even during a heat, I’m able to drink enough. It’s part of what the Alphas who work at the Havens are supposed to help with beyond the physical satiation of the heat cycles.
“Drop recovery is a bit more complicated than just surfacing from a heat,” Irina says, still five feet away, just inside the door. “We’ve put you in an observation room to help monitor your progress. I’ll have some food brought up. Is there anything particular you’d like?”
“No,” I mutter.
She crosses to a small phone perched on a three-drawer dresser in the far corner, dialing in a number from memory and then speaking to someone. Her voice is calm and cool, so quiet it feels more like a hum than a true noise.
Lance closes the distance while she’s still on the phone.
“You need to take a break,” he says without preamble. “These buckle bunnies are getting way too comfortable with you again.”
Yeah, they apparently were. A break, though? When I’ve just won the championship buckle and should be spending the next few weeks doing some kind of press circuit with the right magazines and website reporters?
“I’ve cleared your schedule through mid-May.
I’ve spun it as a much-earned break after the whirlwind of the last season,” he continues, leaning against the foot of the bed, his hands still in his pockets.
“Before you panic, know that your sponsors are happy enough to wait another few weeks for their exclusives with you. The NbrA interview is scheduled for the 12 th .”
“All right. Where am I going?”
Lance’s frown deepens. “I figured you’d want to go back home, but there are a few Omega retreats I can look into if you’d like.”
I clear my throat. “No, yeah, going home sounds good. I just… haven’t been back in a long time.”
Nineteen months. Not that anyone is counting.
“Not sure they’ll appreciate it if I bring a mob of fans and paparazzi.”
It’s why I didn’t go back last summer, no matter how much I wanted to. Though the Baileys would probably eat it up, especially Jessica. She’s always champing at the bit for the next bit of gossip to rile up the town.
Lance chuckles, but there’s not much humor in the sound.
“I can put in a call with the ranch you worked at while we were still on the semi circuit if you’d like.
Can’t guarantee anything, of course, but that could help keep your going back quiet enough it’ll take a while for the groupies to find out.
And by then, you’ll be toward the end of your respite. ”
Irina puts down the phone and moves to the end of the bed, her arms crossed. I just want to sleep again. Is that part of the drop recovery? I don’t know, but I’ll pay whatever fee the Haven wants to charge so I can just take another day in here.
I force myself to focus on Lance. “Not sure being a ranch hand counts as taking a break.”
He only snorts. “For you, it is. Out on the pasture with only a couple people around you? No cameras, no suits, no buckle bunnies hounding you?” He arches one eyebrow. “Definitely a break.”
Irina quietly agrees. “It certainly sounds like what you need right now. Especially since you have to come off the suppressors until your next heat because of the Drop.”
Fuck .
I lean my head back against the wooden headboard and sigh.
“Yeah, if you could give Ethan a call, that would be helpful.”