Page 37 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)
AUDREY
With my shoulders squared and my determination pushing down the grief caused by Knox rejecting the bond, I marched to the nurses’ station.
An exhausted-looking nurse stood at the chest-high desk with an open folder and a pen in her hand, the pen hovering above the page as if she couldn’t figure out what to write or as if she’d zoned out and forgotten what she was doing.
“I’m looking for Nova,” I said. I wanted to get this conversation over with and get away from any more gossip about me before my fragile hold on my determination shattered… or before my desire returned and everyone in the building knew I needed to have sex.
The woman glanced up and opened her mouth to say something, but her expression flashed from exhausted to concerned and I gritted my teeth.
“Nova,” I pressed. I hadn’t looked in a mirror, but from her reaction, it had to be obvious that I’d been crying. Past experience told me my eyes were red and my face splotchy, and I could only hope because I hadn’t been crying for long, I’d look closer to normal by the time Bishop was finished talking with Finn.
That asshole who I should have told off instead of running away… and maybe if I see him again I will.
The thought shocked me and yet didn’t shock me. Talking back had always ended in punishment, but so had everything else, and I guess I’d finally reached the end of my rope. I was sure I was going to cry and be a horny basket case again — and again and again — before all of this was said and done, but I also had a strange new wildness inside me. It was as if the sensation from my dreams with Knox, that I actually had a wolf buried deep in my soul, was affecting me while I was awake.
And if it got me out of this building without looking like a complete and utter mess, I didn’t care if that was just my imagination or not.
“Audrey,” Nova said from down the hall as she stepped out of a patient room. She wore the blue scrubs that everyone else was wearing even though she was the town’s head physician and one of Cyrus’s betas. Her light brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail and while she didn’t look as exhausted as the nurse, she did look as if she’d been working with little rest since the grimalkin attack yesterday.
“Why are you out of bed?” she asked, striding to the nurses’ station and setting a pile of folders on the desk. The exhausted nurse gave her a quick nod then headed down the hall and stepped into one of the rooms.
I was supposed to stay in bed? No one had mentioned that or even tried to mention it. But of course, they were distracted with breaking my bond with Knox because Knox was their priority, not me.
“No one mentioned it,” I replied. And really, I felt fine, or as fine as I could get given the circumstances.
She threw her hands up and huffed in frustration. “Why do I even bother giving them instructions? The grimalkins are a distraction, but Cyrus was clear about your… condition. He should have at least told Bishop to not let you walk all over town as if you’re perfectly fine.”
“My condition—?” Oh. Right. The condition that meant I couldn’t shift and I healed more like a human than a shifter. And as much as I hadn’t wanted that particular detail getting out, Nova had needed to know how to properly take care of me.
“Like I said the other night,” she added. “You might look and feel fine right now, but you’ll still get tired faster because your body is still processing the trauma. It’s best you rest.” Her attention flickered over my face but she didn’t react to my red eyes or splotchy skin.
“I’ll make sure she stays in bed after this,” Bishop said behind me, his words instantly making me think of him naked and in bed with me.
Hot need shot straight to my core and flaming embarrassment heated my cheeks, overwhelming the last of the Finn-induced-Knox-rejecting-our-bond grief which wasn’t the solution I wanted for either my emotional problems or my splotchy skin problem. Just great.
“Will that be before or after you make her march back up to the Residence?” she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“If she gets tired, I’ll carry her,” he replied.
My thoughts lurched to being in Bishop’s arms and more heat flooded me. Both Bishop and Nova sniffed, unable to keep pretending that I wasn’t flooding the hall with the scent of my arousal.
Unbelievable. Now I couldn’t even get through a conversation without embarrassing myself.
“But this is important. Audrey needs to discuss her… options ,” Bishop said, his tone making options sound like a dirty word. “The sooner the better.”
And now I was thinking about last night’s dream and my core was trembling in anticipation. Humiliation burned my whole face, seeping into my hairline and down my neck.
“Can you please stop talking about it?” I croaked. “I’m sure Nova’s already figured it out.”
“Come on,” Nova said, her tone softening. “We can talk in here.”
She led me to the end of the hall to an empty patient room, ushered me in, and gave Bishop a “no way in hell” look when he tried to come in as well.
“Wait by the nurses’ station. If Audrey wants to talk to you about it, she will.” She pointed back down the hall, then shut the door in his face. “Is this your first heat? Has anyone in your family talked to you about it?”
She motioned for me to sit on the bed as she sagged onto the chair beside it.
“It’s ah… It’s complicated,” I said.
I had no idea if I should tell her the truth, or if she’d even believe that I’d come from a different realm and heats were different there. Cyrus and Bishop hadn’t believed me until Whil had confirmed it and neither of the guys had mentioned it to their betas at dinner the other night. That, and bringing it up might distract Nova from the real problem — me about to jump on any passably good-looking guy I came across — and the sooner I figured out what my options were the better. And I hoped to God they had some form of birth control here.
“Where I’m from women don’t experience heats this powerful, so I’m not sure how different this will be.” Not that anyone in my pack had talked about heats or that heats were an issue for any shifters in my realm. “I’m guessing it’s like what I know, that I’ll have a heightened sex drive for about a week, except it’ll be ten times stronger.” Of course, that was if what I felt was an indication of what to expect, and also assuming I actually was in heat and not just being compelled by the mating bond.
“Heats can be powerful, and from your reaction, it looks like yours is going to be pretty strong,” she said. “Knowing you can’t shift makes this quite unusual. The weaker shifters tend to have weaker heats so I would have thought you’d have little to no reaction. I’d like to draw some blood and run some tests.”
“Will that help you figure out how I can deal with this?”
Her expression softened even more and I wondered if she thought I was younger than I really was. How old were women in this realm when they got their first heat? In my realm, it was late teens or early twenties for shifters who hadn’t had their ability to shift suppressed until they were eighteen, and with my pack it was shortly after their first shift. But no matter how similar this realm was to mine, I couldn’t assume anything.
“With Whil’s help we’ve discovered lots of amazing medications, but nothing to ease the symptoms of going into heat. Because you’re unmated and with the amount of pheromones you’re releasing, I suggest you avoid public places until you’ve gotten through it, get physical contact, and?—”
Need shivered down my spine and, from Nova’s subtle sniff, I released another nose-full of desire.
“The contact doesn’t have to be sex,” she said with a soft chuckle. “Although given the strength of your symptoms already, it would probably be best. But even just increasing the amount of touching and cuddling with someone close to you will help if sex isn’t the direction you want to go.”
Except the only people I knew in this realm were Bishop and Cyrus and it would be a challenge to stop at just cuddling since every time Nova said the word sex I thought of them. Of course, that was if either of them were even willing to cuddle with me.
Logically, because I was a shifter, I knew my soul needed physical contact even though my wolf hadn’t woken. I’d been reeling since I’d come to this realm and my body had been seriously injured twice now. Bishop placing his hand on my arm or thigh wasn’t nearly enough to keep me steady. I needed more. A lot more.
Nova frowned. Guess she’d just listened to what she’d said and realized I was alone and didn’t have someone to cuddle with. “When was the last time someone held you?”
Too long.
I swallowed a bitter huff. Mila had joined her mate’s pack just over a year ago and before that maybe once every couple of months because Mila, once she’d become an adult, had gotten more responsibilities with her family and the pack. We hadn’t really cuddled since high school which had been about five years ago.
But I’d gotten by with minimal cuddling all this time and I’d get by without significant contact now as well. I just had to wait until my soul naturally steadied… and pray nothing else happened before then to shake it.
Nova’s frown deepened and a hint of her power that she’d kept tightly controlled until now rolled over me. But I didn’t get the impression she was trying to make me submit. No, it felt more like she was upset and her control had slipped.
“Sorry.” She pulled her power back. “From the look on your face, I’d say it’s been a while and not by your choosing.”
“I didn’t have much value in my previous pack and I have no family,” I said, trying to keep my tone even. “So there weren’t many options for cuddling.”
It was just the way things were for someone so weak and there was no point in keeping it a secret. Even if I hadn’t already told Cyrus and Bishop, everyone would figure it out. Hell, despite what Bishop and Whil had said, some of them, like Finn, had already decided I belonged at the bottom of the pack.
Nova’s expression darkened and her power slipped her control again, sending a wave of pressure sweeping over me before she yanked it back. “Okay, since you’re touch starved, I’d recommend you spend your heat at the heat clinic. Wilder and his men will be able to help you through it.”
“And by helping me through it you mean…?” Was she suggesting that they have sex with me?
“I mean with you being touch starved, the best way you can get through a heat this strong is with sex. Physical contact will still help you better manage your symptoms, but in your situation, I’d say sex is the ideal.”
Holy shit, she was!
She was prescribing I go have sex with a bunch of strangers.
Except if heats were a lot stronger in this realm than in mine and always had been, it made sense that their culture would develop differently and have ways of helping single women deal with it.
“The men regularly take the inhibitor extract, but just to be safe we’ll get you a dose. It’ll be good for four months.” She stood and headed to the door. “If you don’t mind Bishop coming along, we can go to the dispensary right now. If not, I can send it to your room in the Residence.”
“He already knows what’s happening.” I huffed and hopped off the bed. “I’m sure everyone within a twenty-foot radius knows what’s going on with me.”
“Oh, thirty feet at least,” Nova said with a chuckle and a mischievous smile, the same smile she’d had when she’d been teasing Cyrus at dinner. “It’s a miracle you didn’t have a trail of men following you down the street by the time you reached the hospital.”
“They know they couldn’t handle me,” I quipped back. “I’m crazy enough to face down a grimalkin by myself.”
And they didn’t want to accidentally knock me up and get stuck with a pup who was just as powerless as I was.
But that was a sour, aching thought that I wasn’t going to acknowledge. I’d managed to ignore the grief of Knox rejecting my bond during my conversation with Nova and if I went down the “no one wanted me” rabbit hole, I’d start crying again.
“Well, worry not. Wilder will definitely know how to handle you,” she said, sending a wave of need shooting hot and heavy to my core. “I want to wait until you’ve had another day of healing, but I can get you set up in the clinic tomorrow and after your first session you’ll be in much better control of your needs.”
Except I was leaving tomorrow morning to head north to break my bond with Knox. Wilder definitely wouldn’t be handling me.
She opened the door, wafting my scent into the hall. Bishop, who was leaning against the wall across from the door, straightened and cleared his throat. His warm brown gaze locked with mine and my pulse stuttered, my whole body aching for him.
As much as I wanted to believe I could hold myself together, my hope was quickly slipping away. Knox and I were going to have to have a conversation, and I could only hope that we could break the bond and he wouldn’t try to kill one of his brothers for sleeping with me.