Page 54

TWENTY

BIRDS OF A FEATHER

MAGNOLIA

“ W hy are you so tense?” I watch Isaak do his fiftieth lap around my new apartment , his hands clasped behind his back, his handsome face forming a frown as his shoulders bunch up to his ears. “We’re going to figure this out.”

“Which part?” He snaps. “How to get one of our alphas out of solitary? Or getting the other out of here before someone else tries to poison him? Maybe it’s?—“

”I’m going to pretend like you aren’t getting shitty with me right now.” I cross my arms against my chest and give my omega a dirty look.

One that makes him fold immediately.

“I’m sorry, Maggie,” Isaak says with a sigh as he comes over and wraps his arms around me. “The last thing anyone needs is for us to be at odds.”

Rubbing my face against his chest, I breathe deep then tilt my head back to look at him. “We don’t need to be so tense, either.”

”I know, you’re right. I’m trying but I seem to be failing.”

”Don’t look at it like that.” Isaak frowns down at me and I giggle. “You’re looking at the entire thing, our pack’s problem as a whole when you should be breaking it down into smaller, more bite size pieces to tackle one at a time.”

His frown deepens as he pushes his glasses up his nose. “How do you mean?”

”Break it down, honey. Start with Calix.” When I get nothing but a few slow blinks in response, I sigh then proceed to school my professor. “He’s back on the ward with us. He’s healing. No signs of concussion since he left the infirmary last week. We’re able to kiss him without it hurting anymore.”

Isaak arches a brow and nods. “True.”

”And Des? He detoxed beautifully, he’s healthy and feeling much more like himself.”

”Also true.” I watch a blush stain my omega’s cheeks as he rubs the back of his neck, no doubt thinking about how Desmond thanked Isaak for figuring out what was wrong and fixing it. “Very true.”

A blowjob. Des gave him a blowjob as a thank you.

“Then there’s me,” I say as I rub my hands over his chest, sliding them up until they’re clasped behind his neck.

“I’m pretty well healed, and I’m here all the time now.

We get to see each other whenever we want.

We’re even sharing a nest. All of those things are small victories for our pack and when we figure out how to get Korvin back up here, we’ll be that much closer to winning the war. ”

While all of that is true, it doesn’t change how hard the last two weeks have been.

I should have seen it coming, though.

Things were going too well, they were starting to feel a little too perfect. It was way too easy to make our relationship work despite the risk involved so I should have known.

The biggest red flag?

I was happy.

For the first time in a long time, maybe ever, I was happy with my life and it didn’t feel like my fate was completely doomed. I started believing I could have a future I actually wanted instead of the one being manufactured for me.

That should have been a goddamn neon sign flashing shit’s about to hit the fan, Maggie, so buckle the fuck up.

If it was there, I must have missed it because I was completely blindsided the day Camden took me home and it’s been nothing but unpleasant surprises ever since.

That’s more my speed. Total disaster and utter devastation.

I was definitely ignorant in my bliss but I can’t be that way anymore. Not if I want to figure out how to get us out of here without another catastrophe rocking our world first.

There’s no telling what that would be, we’ve been through hell if you ask me, so I’m sure it’d be huge and messy, and I want to avoid that.

“You need to get some rest,” Isaak says as he presses a kiss to my forehead. “We can order takeout, you can pick, and I’ll even let you eat it in our nest.”

I smile as he turns toward the door but when I slide off of the empty desk, a sharp cramp pierces my stomach then rockets through the entire lower half of my body, making me clutch my stomach through my hoodie.

It passes relatively quickly, almost as quick as it came, but I wait a few seconds before I move just in case that wasn’t a one off.

Ugh. Why does this have to happen now? So far I’ve been able to avoid performing any sort of embarrassing bodily function in front of my mates and I’d like to keep it that way a little longer.

Hell, I’d love it if I never have to poop in a bathroom within five hundred feet of one of them. That’s not how our bodies work, though, and not pooping for the rest of my life could kill me. Considering the alternative is death, I guess tonight is the night I embarrass myself in Isaak’s bathroom.

Another cramp rolls through my gut, my body hunching over as a hot flash follows right behind it.

Great.

It feels like I could end up destroying his toilet, and death doesn’t seem so bad all of the sudden.

”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 dry heave 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 a schedule, 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 out for 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. ”

I nod as I writhe around in the blankets, tears still streaming down my cheeks. “I know.” I’m fighting to breathe, the pain is that bad, and when I roll to my side and dry heave, it goes from bad to worse. “Isaak, please!”

”I will be right back, Magnolia. I promise.”