Page 117 of Mask and the Magnolia

”Maggie, are you coming?”

I nod as I force my feet to move. “Be right there.”

”Are you okay?” Isaak stops in the hall between our front doors. “Your face is really red.”

“I’m fine, honey.”I just have to get to the bathroom before I shit in my brand new sweatpants, no big deal.

After an agonizing few minutes of walking off cramps the devil himself is sending me, I finally get inside my omega’s apartment.

Then immediately drop to my knees and let out a pitiful whine as I double over, hugging myself as the most excruciating pain I have ever experienced rips through my stomach. It feels like there are hundreds of tiny, fiery razor blades being dragged through my belly, shredding my insides as they scorch a path right down between my thighs.

Oh my god. Oh my god, I think I’m dying.

This has to be death.

I start sweating buckets as the hot flash equivalent to the surface of the sun blankets me from head to toe, making me wretch hard enough to see spots. Tears spring to my eyes as the pain becomes persistent, almost as if it’s one ongoing cramp that’s twisting my insides and making me sick. I try to breathe through it, try to remember some of the techniques I learned to help when I have a panic attack but all it does is make me dryheave again then burst into tears when the worst thing in the entire world happens.

I perfume.

I perfume like I never have before, my scent something I can taste on my tongue, it’s all I can smell, I swear I can actually see my pheromones flying out of my body. It’s so goddamn potent I almost forget that I’m in pain but that doesn’t last, especially when I try to crawl toward the couch and realize my panties are drenched, soaked right through to my sweatpants, with slick.

This is worse than death.

So much worse.

I’m in heat.

I’m in heat without any medication, without any sex toys, and without my alphas.

I’m probably going to die tonight, and I can’t even scream for my omega to sit with me while I do.

”I was thinking maybe that Thai place in town? They have a couple of vegetarian dishes I think Vin would like and maybe when—Maggie!” Isaak drops the takeout menus in his hands and rushes toward me, unsticking the hair from my face and checking my eyes.

The doctor in him is making sure I’m not having a seizure, that nothing else neurological is wrong and while I can appreciate it, now is not the fucking time. I need the omega in my mate to kick in so he can help me figure out how to navigate this before I do, in fact, die.

”Oh no,” he says, panic filling his voice as it goes up an octave. “Oh no, no, Maggie, you’re going into heat.”

For a moment I think about wringing his neck for stating the obvious but quickly remember Isaak hasn’t been through this, either. Not really, anyway. We’ve both treated our cycles with medication; suppressants to keep it predictable and on aschedule, and some sort of IV sedative to knock us out when it happens so we don’t actually experience being in heat.

I’m regretting that right now.

Which is the exact moment I remember why I’ve always chosen to be medicated.

I am fucking terrified of going into heat because my father always told me it would kill me if I did without my mate to help me through it. He used something that was woven into my DNA as a weapon, one he wielded to keep me in line and even now, when I know better, it’s still working.

”Hold on, Maggie.” Isaak scoops me up into his arms as I burst into tears while a panic attack piggybacks off of my heat. “Hold on, my love, and focus on me.”

“I can’t,” I sob as my legs begin scissoring on their own. “It hurts, Isaak!”

He nods as he rushes in the direction of his nest. “I know, my love. I know it hurts but we’re going to make it stop.”

”We can’t!” My back arches in his arms, my clothes like sandpaper against my skin. “We don’t?—“

I scream in pain as he lays me down in the middle of his forty million blankets piled in the center of the gigantic mattress on the floor. Isaak quickly pulls off my socks and shoes then fights to remove my pants. My legs are scissoring and moving so much he can barely get a grip.

When I scream again, he channels some superhuman strength as he grabs the elastic waistband and tears it, ripping my sweatpants down the middle seam before sliding the legs off of me. My sweatshirt goes next, meeting a similar fate to its matching bottoms and even down to my underwear, I feel like my skin is on fire.

“I’m so sorry, my love,” Isaak says with a panicked look on his face as he removes my bra and panties. He shakes his head then blinks down at me a few times, almost as if he spaced outfor a second before he goes back into protective mode. “The last thing I want to do right now is leave you, but I have to go see if I can find something to help. It’s too dangerous for us to try to ride this out on our own.”