Page 10 of The First Omega Made (Scales and Tails of Fate #2)

Doc

Four doses.

I’d never had more than one.

Every time, it hurt, even before Noel. This time, it hurt worse.

Sarge sat at my side as my mind flowed through consciousness and sleep.

Noel came by a few times. I thought. Food and water happened, trips to the bathroom. Sarge was amazing about it.

Bathing. I needed so many baths.

I woke in a haze at one point, half slumped in the shower as Sarge scrubbed at my body.

“Did I s—soil myself?” Shame burned my cheeks as I registered his wet clothes. Even in dire straits, he wouldn’t let me see the extent of his deterioration.

“Not at all, cutie.” He kissed me openly, the faint sweet smell under his breath a comfort.

“Why?” I couldn’t get my legs beneath me, and when I reached around my body—everything felt wrong—strange.

“Skin coming off. Scales beneath.” Whatever he scrubbed me with brushed against my raw skin, rough and satisfying.

A shiver went down my spine, to my ass and even farther down, like…

The shiver went all the way into my short, stunted tail.

I reached for it behind me and whimpered at the pain of movement.

“Shhh, back to sleep.” Sarge’s soothing voice made me drift off. The warmth made it so easy as I drifted off, desperately trying to ignore the raw chicken-like sheets of flesh laying on the textured pan of my shower. “Shhh.”

If I changed—maybe Sarge would, too. If I changed, I could survive. I could defend him.

If he could protect me, first.