39. Burn Baby Burn
Chapter thirty-nine
Burn Baby Burn
Callum Morris, NPHL Network Analyst:"We really are seeing a legend in the making, Jeff. As the Titans head out on their final road swing with the Atlantic Division all but secured, Carter Reynolds is playing his best hockey of the season and some of the most exciting hockey I’ve seen in thirty years.
You can’t miss him on the ice— he’s blocking shots, leading the rush and taking heavy minutes everywhere you look.
It's the kind of all-in hockey coaches dream about, though you have to wonder how much one player can keep pushing before something pushes back.”
“Ishould be coming with you.” I stomp after Carter, my frustration muffled by the fluffy purple socks he’s wrestled onto my feet. Possibly so I can’t chase him, because my feet skid against the wooden floor before I catch myself. “This is ridiculous. I am fine.”
For once, I really need him to believe me.
Carter dumps his duffel at the end of the hall leading to the elevator along with the other bags and turns back, cupping my face. “You heard what the doctor said. Minimal stress. Plenty of nesting. No travel, Ro. Not this time.”
“Cart is right,” Liam says behind me. His hands settle on my shoulders and squeeze. “When do these test results come through?”
“A few weeks, they said. They’re sending them to some sort of specialist.” Carter is watching my face.
Possibly digesting the absolute disgust roiling through my stomach at the feel of Liam’s hands on me.
He reaches forward and tugs me away from Liam, and I inhale into his chest. “Your numbers were way off, Ro. You saw them. I’m not taking any chances.
We’ll be back in forty-eight hours. As soon as this swing is done, we’re heading back. Rest.”
He steers me over to the couch and wrestles me down into it, wrapping me in the fluffy blanket equivalent of a straitjacket to stop me bouncing back up. Carter points at me. “Stay. Please. I don’t need to be worrying about you too.”
It’s not me I’m worried about. I gnaw on my lip as Carter disappears, coming back with my phone and charger. He drops it into my lap. “Keep it charged. If anything changes, you call me immediately.”
“Any of us.” Liam slides up beside him, his eyes tightening at the corners. “You should have told me you were going for a medical. I would have come with you.”
I bet he would have. I doubt we would have made it through the doors. But the doctor at the NOC clinic was concerned enough about my haywire hormone levels to order an avalanche of different tests. I toy with my blanket. “You’re already spending so much time with me. I was fine with Carter.”
His eyes narrow further. “You’re our priority. If you’re sick, I need to know.”
“I’m not sick.” Just broken, you son of a bitch, and you know exactly why. “There’s no point in worrying about it until the test results come through.”
And it won’t matter, anyway, because Carter and I will be far away from him by then.
But it’s satisfying as hell to watch him panic that his Robot Rosie scheme is unraveling around him.
I run my thumb over my phone screen, resisting the urge to pull up the house listings that are getting me through each day like an oxygen mask with cute window dressing.
Why yes, I would like a hot tub. And a movie room. And a double-floored nest.
Liam vanishes toward the bedrooms to round up the others, and I watch as Carter double checks his jacket pockets. “You didn’t sleep much last night.”
He unzips the side of his duffel, rummaging around in it with increasingly panicked movements. “I don’t sleep well before games.”
“You never had any issues before.” I swallow as he yanks open the main section of his bag, pulling out clothes. “I’m worried about you.”
“Nothing to worry about.” But Carter doesn’t look at me, tugging out his wash bag and rifling through it. “I told you already, things are good on the ice. Better than they’ve been in months. Shit.”
He dumps the washbag down and runs his hand through his hair. “Where the fuck are they?”
“Have you lost something?” Lauren wheels her suitcase into the room, leaving it beside Liam’s. He doesn’t answer, pushing to his feet and disappearing. We both stay silent, listening to him toss the contents of his bedroom upside down with increasingly irritated grunts.
“I’m sorry you can’t come.” Lauren sounds genuinely apologetic as she flashes an uncertain look in the direction of the grumpiness. “Is there anything I can do? I put some extra water bottles in the fridge, and some meals you can warm up if you’re hungry.”
Wow. Our sister-wife relationship really is progressing.
“Thanks, mom.” I draw my knees up. “I should be coming with you.”
We both look up as another crash sounds, and Lauren’s mouth gapes open. “Seriously. What’s he looking for? Sounds important.”
I slide my hand into the pocket of my onesie and bite down on my lip. The sound of drawers slamming—off their hinges, from the noise—makes me flinch. I hold up the bottle to Lauren silently, and she frowns. “What’s that?”
I’m learning to fucking despise the sight of this bottle. “His pain meds. For his shoulder.”
Her brows fly up. “And you have them… why?”
Another bout of swearing interrupts any response I might give, and my fingers curl around the bottle. Lauren looks between my face and the hall, her expression settling into understanding.
I’m glad one of us does. Because I’m not sure I understand what’s happening myself.
Why my alpha is pacing the apartment at night when he’s here at all.
Why he’s distracted, and irritated, and why he seems to need these pills more than he needs anything else.
Why he spent my entire medical appointment sweating and itching at his neck, to the point that my doctor asked if he was having a reaction.
“That’s why you want to come so badly,” Lauren says quietly. “You’re worried about him.”
“Yeah.” I turn the bottle of oxy over in my hands. His name is blurred, the ink warped from touch. “Stupid, right?”
Lifting my hand, I throw the bottle over toward his strewn luggage. It bounces off his shoe and rolls a few inches away. “He’d only get it from somewhere else.”
When Carter storms back in, his face set like thunder, his eyes land on it immediately. He scoops the bottle up and shoves it into his pocket. “We gotta go!”
“You’re still taking those?” I can’t not say anything.
I should be going with them. But I’m stuck here with my ass glued to the couch because Liam and his fucking mind games are playing holy hell with my hormones.
“Leave it alone, Ro,” Carter says gruffly. He doesn’t meet my eyes. “Less stress, remember?”
I am currently one hundred percent stress, with a glistening sweet cherry of trauma on top. I should find a therapist after we leave. Another therapist. The first one I tried a few years ago fired me for answering all of his questions in Shakespeare quotes.
“Jonas will meet us in the garage,” Liam says testily as he reappears. “Some sort of cologne-related emergency, apparently.”
Carter mutters something that sounds distinctly uncomplimentary, but his face softens as he leans over me and kisses my head. “See you on Thursday.”
“Yeah.” I force a smile and keep hugging my knees as Liam copies him before picking up his own bag and Lauren’s suitcase.
“You can message me too, you know.” Lauren tilts her head toward the elevator. “I’ll let you know how he’s doing.”
“Thanks,” I whisper.
They vanish after calling out goodbyes, and I stay where I am, placing my chin on my knees and focusing on breathing evenly.
When his footsteps sound, I keep my eyes down. I don’t want to look at him. “Have a good swing.”
“Will you look at me?” Jonas lets his bag drop. “Please?”
When I don’t move, he sighs and takes a seat beside me on the couch. “Liam said he’d talked things through with you.”
That’s one way of putting it. The only words I have are ones I can’t voice, so I say nothing. Jonas clears his throat. “Look, Rosie. This pack… we can make this as easy or as hard as it needs to be, alright?”
Un-freaking-believable. “What do you want me to say, Jonas?”
He reaches for my face and my hand shoots up, slapping him away. His face creases in irritation he has no damn right to. “What, so I can’t touch you now?”
You lost the right to touch me when you forced my jaw open and shoved soap down my throat.
“I don’t feel well,” I say instead. “The others are waiting for you.”
He pats his hand over my blanket-wrapped, fluffy-socked foot. I’m assuming it’s supposed to be comforting, but all I want is to kick him in his perfectly chiseled face. “Maybe it’s a good thing you’re staying home. A bit of space to think things through. Think about what you really want.”
He reaches forward, and I flinch back, face twisting as he scoops up my phone. “What are you doing?”
“Like I said.” He holds it out of my reach. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Have a think about it while we’re gone.”
“Give me my phone.” I make a grab for it, but my arms are shorter than his. “Jonas, seriously. I need my phone!”
“You’re at home.” He stands, pulling it back out of my reach as I fight to free myself from the tangle of blankets Carter wrapped me in. “There’s food in the fridge. Plenty to keep yourself entertained.”
He takes a deep breath as I stare at him wildly. “You are not to leave this apartment.”
The tone registers a half-second late. My body slams back against the couch, a whine slipping from between my parted lips as he tears another page from the Daddy Kessler playbook of discipline.
But this feels different.
As if I’m being yanked in two separate directions. Two alphas. Two sets of orders, both of them pressing me down until I can’t breathe. I claw at my neck, a keen crawling up my throat and coming out in choking, pleading fragments.
It doesn’t feel right.
Jonas’s face twists. “Calm down. It’s two days. You’ll be fine.”
I don’t feel fine. I try to stand, but the blankets get in my way and my knees hit the floor. Jonas backs away, his face sallow but determined. “You will not say a word about this to anyone.”
My body curves over, my stomach revolting and my nails digging into the floor as a stab of pain strikes. “Please—”
“Don’t be so fucking dramatic.” He picks up his bag as I try to drag myself forward. But the pain is getting worse. I curl over again, my arms wrapping around my stomach. “Now you’ll understand what the consequences can be when we’re not friends, Rosie. Consider this a taste.”
He leans over me, and my hand reaches out for his ankle.
He can’t trap me here. He can’t leave me like this. Another stab hits my stomach and I cry out, my hand pressing over phantom pain.
Not right—
Jonas’s feet disappear from my line of sight. When I try to crawl after him, my legs shake so badly that I crumple back down.
Something is seriously wrong with me.
Something more than a bark.
The elevator sounds, and I start dragging myself in that direction. The doors slide closed, and my last glimpse is of Jonas’s face as he slides my phone into his pocket.
He doesn’t look at me.
The pain worsens as I haul myself down the hall and reach for the button to call the lift back up.
My hand hovers over the button. But it won’t move. Won’t go closer, won’t push in no matter how hard I try. My body refuses to let me disobey Jonas’s order.
I can’t get out.
Finally, I let my hand drop and roll over. The ceiling blurs in and out.
He took my phone. My fucking phone. I can’t call for help, and a small sob ripples out into the empty apartment.
We must have a spare phone somewhere.
A tablet. Anything. The air around me feels like it’s warping as I drag myself upright by sheer force of will, stumbling off furniture and walls as I slowly push myself through the apartment, searching for anything I can use.
But there’s nothing aside from an old tablet Carter dropped, the screen cracked beyond repair. I sink down to the floor in the kitchen, almost knocking myself out on the edge of a drawer as a wave of heat flashes over my skin, sweat beading across my forehead.
My abdomen cramps in a sudden, clenching tug.
“No,” I breathe.
No, no, no.
But it happens again. And again, and again, over and over until I’m doubled over, my head pressed to the tiled floor in an attempt to force it away.
My heat isn’t due for another two months.
But my body clearly hasn’t got that memo, because it’s telling me in no uncertain terms that my heat is happening right now, whether I like it or not.
Small whimpers fall from my mouth as I drag myself to the window. My hands bang against the reinforced glass in a plea that I already know is pointless, because nobody is paying any attention to the twentieth floor.
Another cramp curls my spine in a brutal contortion, and a flash of fear seeps in amongst the agony.
I need an alpha. My alpha. I need Carter, but he’s not here.
This could be bad. Really fucking bad.
My hands shake as I press them to my face, trying to think through the haze.
This is how it starts. The temperature. The cramps. The pain.
And from there, it will only get worse, unless I can stop it. Biting down on my cheek so heavily I can taste my own blood, I make for Carter’s bedroom.
It’s upside down. Pushing aside the clothes and shit he tossed around earlier, I start digging through the drawers of his dresser for painkillers. Aspirin. Anything.
Pain management. Temperature control. Hydration. My mouth shapes them on repeat, as if I might be able to hold off the coming avalanche by sheer mental fortitude.
I yank open the last drawer, ripping it from its hinges, and try to make sense of what greets me.
So many bottles and packets and crumpled, scribbled prescriptions that I couldn’t possibly hold them in both hands. I pick one up, and then another. There must be dozens of them, dating all the way back to the end of last season.
But every single one is empty.
An orange pill bottle cracks in my hand.
I need—
Knot.
My head twists violently as if I could shake the thought off. But it pushes in, insistent claws digging into my skull as I stumble back.
Knot.
Another whine. Low and desperate as my body tugs and pulls and demands and needs. My hands bury in softness as I drag them to my nose, inhaling deeply.
Yes. Good.
My skin is burning, and a low whimper breaks through the haze threatening to overwhelm me. The haze that will turn me into a mindless, needy mess with nobody here to help.
Yanking Carter’s comforter off the bed, I drag it into his ensuite and bundle it into his shower, followed by his pillows.
His white sheets, so bright against the dark green tiles.
Anything that delivers a hit of pepper, of smoke and bonfires, of nights curled up watching flames flicker into the sky.
Crawling into my makeshift nest, I tug his jersey to my nose and curl up, muffling my cries with the thick material.
It’s not him. It’s not enough, not nearly enough. Panting, I bury myself as deeply as I can and form silent words between sobs of pain as my heat drags me under.
Help me.
Please help me.