Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
KOR
The post office was nearly empty when I walked in, which I considered a blessing.
After the Council meeting, I wasn’t exactly in the mood to make small talk with anyone in Blackridge.
Barbara Finch was behind the counter, sorting through envelopes with a sour expression on her face, and the moment she saw me, that expression sharpened into something that looked a lot like disapproval.
“Alpha Korwyn,” she said flatly.
“Barbara.” I set the package slips Vivienne had printed out for me on the worn wooden counter. “I’m here to pick these up.”
She glanced at the slips and then gave a short nod.
“I know.”
Something about that answer put me on alert.
“You know?”
“Of course I know.” She shrugged one shoulder and turned toward the back room. “I already pulled them.”
I watched her disappear through the door behind the counter, my instincts prickling. I couldn’t have said exactly what bothered me, but something did. She came back a moment later carrying several boxes and set them down on the counter with a little more force than necessary.
“There you go.”
I looked them over. At first glance everything appeared normal.
The labels were intact, and the boxes didn’t look damaged, but as I reached for the largest one, something caught my eye.
The tape had been disturbed. The strips had been lifted and pressed back down again—not enough for most people to notice, perhaps, but enough for me.
My Were instinct stirred uneasily, and I found myself looking up at Barbara with growing suspicion.
“These have been opened,” I said.
Barbara rolled her eyes.
“Oh, for the Goddess’s sake.”
“They’ve been tampered with,” I insisted.
“No, they haven’t.” She folded her arms over her chest. “They’re exactly the same as when we received them.”
I wasn’t buying that and neither was my wolf. The beast inside me had been restless lately anyway, but now it stirred again, making my voice lower when I asked,
“So nobody looked inside them?”
“No,” she snapped.
The answer came a little too quickly and her cheeks had gone faintly pink. Interesting.
I held her gaze for a long moment and finally she looked away, which told me everything I needed to know. Unfortunately, proving it was another matter. With no evidence beyond a few disturbed strips of tape, there wasn’t much I could do in the middle of the post office.
So I carried the packages outside and loaded them into the trunk of the Mustang.
I was just lowering the last one into place when something shifted inside the largest package.
A flap popped open, and a plastic object tumbled onto the pavement at my feet.
Frowning, I bent to pick it up and turned it over in my hands, trying to figure out what I was looking at.
At first I had no idea. It was some kind of plastic device with tubing and suction cups attached to it and for a second, I thought maybe it was some kind of kitchen gadget or medical equipment. Then I found the product description on the side and suddenly everything clicked into place.
A breast pump. Fuck—Vivienne had ordered herself a breast pump!
For a moment I simply stood there staring at it as everything clicked into place. The oversized robe…the exhaustion…the way she’d barely touched her breakfast and the strange sweetness in her scent.
“Oh, Goddess,” I muttered.
Heat. Vivienne was going into Heat. And if she needed a pump to deal with it, it wasn’t just a mild Heat Cycle. Only the really strong ones filled a woman’s breasts with nectar.
The realization hit me so hard I had to lean one hand against the open trunk. I felt a sharp stab of hurt before I could stop myself. Why hadn’t she told me?
The question struck deeper than I wanted to admit. After everything we’d shared—after the way we had held each other and talked and trusted each other—I couldn’t help wishing she had come to me instead of trying to handle this alone.
Then guilt followed almost immediately because the answer was obvious.
Vivienne hadn’t hidden this from me because she wanted to hurt me—she had hidden it because she was frightened and embarrassed and probably trying to protect me from the consequences of helping her.
Also, she had spent twenty years with a cruel man who didn’t love her—twenty years learning that no one would care for her, even if she was in really deep trouble. She’d learned to rely only on herself.
I couldn’t expect that kind of fear to disappear just because I wanted it to.
The hurt I felt faded and was replaced by something much worse—fear.
Heat wasn’t a joking matter among female Weres. A mild cycle could be uncomfortable, but a severe one could be dangerous—especially if it was ignored.
I thought back to the scent I’d been noticing all morning and felt my stomach tighten. It had been growing stronger—much stronger.
The breast pump in my hand suddenly seemed less embarrassing than alarming. If she was producing enough nectar to order equipment to deal with it, then this wasn’t some minor hormonal fluctuation—this was serious.
And if things continued progressing, she could be in real danger.
A female going through a powerful Heat without relief could become ill.
In extreme cases, she could develop Heat Fever and die.
Every Were child knew that, though most people didn’t talk about it much because bonded females had mates to care for them.
Vivienne didn’t—at least not officially.
I drew in a slow breath and forced myself to think.
The situation was becoming clearer now. She wasn’t avoiding me because she didn’t want me.
She was avoiding me because she was scared and because she had convinced herself that needing me would somehow put both of us in danger.
She was trying to handle everything alone.
Well, that wasn’t going to happen—not if I had anything to say about it.
The problem wasn’t figuring out what was wrong anymore. The problem was figuring out how to help her without making her feel cornered, ashamed, or betrayed.
The last thing I wanted was for Vivienne to think I was using her Heat as an excuse to push past boundaries she had set. I would rather cut off my own arm than make her feel trapped the way my uncle had trapped her.
Still, one thing had become painfully clear—whatever was happening to her wasn’t going away and if I didn’t find some way to help soon, things were only going to get worse.
With that thought weighing heavily on my mind, I put the breast pump back in the box, closed the trunk, and got behind the wheel of the Mustang.
Then I started the drive back to Wolverton Manor, hoping like hell I wasn’t already too late.