Sighing, I reached for another shell, frowning when I saw that the pretty white sand had drops of red in it.
Where had that come from?
More droplets fell and I realized dazedly that it was coming from my face.
Reaching up, I touched slightly sandy fingers to my mouth and nose, gasping when they came away gleaming with red blood.
The last time this had happened to me had been during a swim meet in high school after a race when I’d gotten out of the pool. It had been worse then, dripping down my chin and the white school swimsuit that we all wore.
But what had come after was what was truly chilling.
I needed to get to Rhodes. To try and explain what was happening, but when I whirled on my heel to him the whole world dipped and I heard him call my name as my knees buckled underneath me.
There was a loud crash as my camera tripod fell with me and I vaguely worried about it breaking as the ground came up to meet me and the darkness at the edges of my vision closed in completely.
“I don’t care about waiting for the fucking tests, Eli, you tell me right now what you think is happening.”
Edison’s sharp words were the first thing I heard as my consciousness returned.
I still felt a little bit woozy, but more clearheaded than I’d been earlier as I forced my eyes open.
Edison was standing over Dr. Stedmeyer, practically in his face as Rhodes tried in vain to hold him back away from the shorter alpha.
He looked more disheveled than I’d ever seen him before, his white dress shirt smudged with some kind of dirt and his black hair standing on end as he ran a hand through it to get it out of his eyes so he could continue to glare at the doctor.
“He thinks my leukemia is back.”
My weak voice made all three men whirl towards me, Rhodes and Edison leaving Dr. Stedmeyer behind completely to come stand on either side of the hospital bed I was in.
“Hey, you scared the shit out of me.” Rhodes brushed my hair off of my forehead and pressed a kiss to it, seeming to completely forget about the fact that we were supposed to be keeping our pack a secret.
“I didn’t mean to,” I murmured, lifting a hand up to my face and finding it clean. “At least I don’t look like something out of the Exorcist anymore.”
“Why do you think your leukemia is back?” Edison asked, his face completely bone pale as he stroked the bond mark we shared.
I could feel the rising panic that he was working hard to keep from letting into his expression and I tried to soothe him through the connection already having been through this once before.
Somehow, I felt completely calm. The last time I’d ended up in the hospital with a nosebleed it had taken three people and a sedative to calm my hyperventilating down after they’d told me what they found in my lab tests.
“When I was seventeen I had a really awful nosebleed at a swim meet and that was how I was diagnosed the first time. Isn’t that right, Dr. Stedmeyer?”
The doctor in question was gripping the plastic rails at the end of my bed as he watched the three of us with a stoney expression. “That’s right. But I don’t think that’s what’s happening right now.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to sit up and sending both of the alphas on either side of me jumping into action. Rhodes was pressing the button to lift the back of my bed as Edison slid in behind me, underneath the IV line in order to help support me against his chest.
Edison’s vanilla scent was tinged with worry, but it still comforted me as I leaned back into his warmth to listen to the doctor.
“I wanted to wait for your blood tests to come back and get some other scans done, but when I saw you a few months ago your scans were totally clean. I don’t think this is a recurrence of leukemia, but instead omega hormones swelling before your first heat.”
“Explain,” Edison ordered harshly and I turned to scold him for talking to my doctor like that, but Dr. Stedmeyer didn’t seem to mind as he started to speak again.
“I’ve seen it quite a bit with recovering omega cancer patients in some form or another. As your biology reasserts itself, hormones swell and there are side effects as the omega approaches their first heat post chemo and radiation. Headaches, nausea, body aches, low-grade fevers, and yes sometimes bleeding from the eyes, nose, and mouth.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this could happen?” I asked incredulously, trying to remember the doctor’s appointment where he explained what the first year post-chemo would look like and how my biology seemed to be intact.
Dr. Stedmeyer held his hands up in front of himself defensively, glancing at my two alphas with a frown as a growl rattled out of one of them. “Honestly, it occurs in such a low percentage of patients that I didn’t think it would happen to you, Perrie. When I ran your tests last time you were still six months out at least from a heat, though now I’m sure it’s only a couple of weeks to a month out at best. It usually takes quite a huge hit of alpha pheromones to really trigger an omega’s heat.”
As the meaning behind his words registered in my mind, I felt my face warm. By alpha pheromones he meant sex and we’d been having a lot of it since that first day in Edison’s office.
It had gotten to the point where I was fairly sure that some of the staff would avoid the places Edison and I would go entirely.
But I didn’t want my doctor to know that! He’d been with me since I was seventeen and I knew he viewed me as a child. So his words made me feel like I’d been caught by a parent.
Thankfully, Edison was already changing the subject away from our sex lives before I decided to duck under the blankets with embarrassment.
“So, what does this mean for her? Does she need to stay in the hospital?”
“I’ll know for sure once her blood test results come back in a couple of hours, but no, I don’t think so. She’s going to need some iron supplements in case the nose bleeds keep happening and I’ve got some suppressants as well in case you choose not to engage in heat activities this time around. But if you keep going the way you are…” Dr. Stedmeyer trailed off sheepishly before clearing his throat. “Then you can expect Perrie’s first heat in the next couple of weeks.”
Dr. Stedmeyer excused himself after that, leaving the three of us alone.
“Perrie,” Edison’s hand slid along the side of my face, turning it so that I could look him in the eyes. “I don’t think I have ever been so scared in my entire fucking life.”
His kiss was long and desperate, like he was trying to convey everything he was feeling through it even though I could feel it through the bond.
Love. He loved me so desperately that I could feel it crazed and wild, thrumming up the mental thread that connected us.
