NALEDI’S POV
My head was pounding.
My stomach was on fire.
My senses were flared and all over the place.
My bones ached. It felt like the first time I transformed into my wolf. Except this time around, it was worse. My first transformation did not hold a candle to the pain I was experiencing.
It felt like my body was ripping apart. Tearing from the inside and slowly driving me crazy. My teeth felt like they were seconds away from falling, and everything was blurry.
All through the pain, all I could think of was Caellum. I was somehow convinced that if I saw him, everything would be alright. My wolf was calling out to his, begging for help that only he could render.
Some time in the night I was discovered in my room. I nursed this pain myself for hours until I couldn’t anymore. Instead of calling for help, I let myself give up and lay unconscious in my room, enjoying the temporal relief it granted me.
I woke up in Caellum’s room. One would think with the amount of hatred I nursed towards him, I’d scream bloody murder and retire to my prison – but I didn’t.
It was hard doing anything at all when you were so out of it that your body felt like it had a mind of its own. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. The thought of having been poisoned by my own mate made me feel sicker than I already did.
But the fact that laying on his bed somehow seemed to ease the pain I felt made me confused. “What is going on with me?” I asked the pack doctor when he came around but received no answer.
Instead, he took one look at me and decided to ask all the guards hovering around me out of the Alpha’s quarters. I didn’t know what to make of that. I didn’t look too fondly at the idea of staying here with this doctor who may or may not have something against me.
But I didn’t really have a choice in the matter.
I watched the entire male population leave the room as I groaned in pain, wondering what was going on and what the darned doctor had planned for me. Something I hoped could alleviate the pain I was feeling at the moment.
“The Alpha is on his way back. You will have to bear through the pain.” He finally said, confusing me the more.
If I wasn’t feeling totally out of it, I’d smack him in the head and order him to tell me what the fuck was going on with me while I held a gun to his head. He’d be vomiting the words in seconds.
“What. is. wrong. with. me?” I gritted, feeling a twist in my stomach that hurt like crazy.
“You are in your first stages of heat.” He finally said, placing an IV in my hand. “This should help reduce the pain, but that is only temporary. The pain would increase with time and I need you to fight it.”
My body was shutting down. I could feel it. My doom was close and this doctor was not doing shit about it. “I don’t know if you haven’t noticed but my mate has not marked me. There is no way I am on heat.” I gritted with clenched teeth, biting back the pain.
“You don’t need to be marked to experience heat. It’s actually the other way around. A lot of couples choose to mark themselves during the heat period because not only does it immortalize the experience but also a good opportunity to conceive.”
“I have no intentions of getting marked or bearing fucking pups. I just need the pain to stop.”
The sheets were bathed with Caellum’s scent. That was the one thing that kept me from hammering the doctor’s head with my fist.
“I suggest you rethink. The easiest way to get through heat is to give in to it. The pain will only increase and as time passes, that’s all you’ll ever want to do. It’s a natural course of life.”
I never wanted to bear children. Never did I think of it, and so help me God I wasn’t thinking of bringing another freaking Morello into this world. That was not happening.
I had heard bits of this heat thing. But none said a word of how painful it was. Growing up in the Yakuza slave camp, I believed heat was what qualified a woman for the taking. For procreation. A way to bring in more people who would be inflicted with the same or even worse fates than their parent.
“I just need to hold out until it is over.” I murmured, “I just need to hold out until the heat wave is gone. How long would it last?”
“You shouldn’t hold back-”
“How long?!”
“Three days. After three days you would have safely completed the cycle.” I sensed a note of anger in his tone. But did I care? Hell no.
Three days sounded too far. We were talking a whole 73 hours. Three days and nights. This was barely the first day and I felt like a rock rolled over me. I hoped with all my heart that the days could pass back quickly and I’d be ready to go.
I remained in Caellum’s room, laid on his bed, and sucking in on his scent for the life of me. The doctor was by the door, by time intervals, he’d replace the IV drip which was doing nothing for me.
He said they were supposed to alleviate the pain, so I’d expect to feel better with time but reverse was the case. As time crawled, I felt worse. It seemed like I was mere seconds from losing my wits and becoming the animal I was.
My wolf was in pain, I was in pain, and our mate was God knows where doing something other than me! There, I said it. I couldn’t bear it anymore. Much more than ever, I felt sensitive.
I wanted Caellum. In all the possible ways. Much more than ever I felt the gaping hole in my core – waiting and needing to be filled by him. Except he was nowhere to be found.
Even the scent of him was not cutting it anymore. I felt a fire ravage me with a vengeance. I needed to quench this thirst. I needed to end this suffering. I needed to have Caellum or any other male willing to put me out of my misery.
My eyes found the doctor who was busy reading a book, unaware of my thoughts. He smelt bad. Nothing like Caellum. I hated him. But if Caellum wasn’t coming. He was going to have to help.
He was a doctor after all.