Oh fuck… Spare me the super sensitive noses of shifters.
“So what do we do? It shouldn’t be like this, should it? Reed, what the fuck did you do?”
“Just what I was born to, but she wasn’t hurting like this before. We need to see if she has what she needs in her bag.”
I shook my head then, just slightly but explosions of pain came as a result.
“Got… nothing,” I ground out.
Because I was stupid, stupid, stupid, assuming it wouldn’t hit me right now. When I was going through periods of high stress my body usually clammed right up, skipping that part of the menstrual cycle until things settled down.
“So she needs pads?”
“Most women use tampons. We could ask Barb.”
“Been a long time since Barb’s needed something like that, I’ll wager. We’ll head to town. Pads, tampons, coffee?”
I made a little whine at that. It would hit my guts like ashes, wanting to be thrown up immediately after, but if I could keep it down? Caffeine withdrawal created headaches, but often I could ease one with a good strong cup.
“Pain killers,” someone else said. “Get one of everything the chemist recommends.”
“You know they say sex—”
“Our mate is hurting, Damon. If you can get it up right now, I’m not sure if what’s wrong with you can be fixed.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that. More like holding her close and—”
“We need to get her some supplies first before anyone holds anyone else. I’m going to the shop.”
“I’ll come with you. I’ll hit the chemist while you’re in Woolies.”
“Damon, you can go and talk to Mum, discreetly, and let us know if there’s anything else we should be getting.”
“And what’s Reed going to do?”
“I’ll look after the cub, keep her amused and away from her mum. She’ll be scared if she sees Lily like this.”
“Right, so the three of us will meet back here ASAP once we’ve got everything Lily needs.”
There’sa strange kind of timelessness about pain. You are never more present in the fucking moment than when you hurt so bloody much you can’t think, can’t see anything else. It crushed down on top of me, feeling like an elephant slowly smothering me as it sat on my head. My breath came in shorter and shorter pants, the simple act of exhaling, of inhaling, creating shifts in my body I couldn’t bear anymore. Then the nausea began.
“No, no, no…” I whispered, sending up a prayer to the goddess of periods to give me a fucking break. It was bad enough that it felt like someone was randomly stabbing a great carving knife into my womb, that I knew a nightmare of massive blood clots and a ten-day long period was on the horizon, but this? That sour curdle in my stomach that seemed to enjoy a symbiotic relationship with my pain, each egging the other on until I couldn’t bear it anymore.
I fell to the floor at the first lurch, wishing frantically I’d thought to keep one of the guys here. A sodden, heavy feeling inside me shifted, but I couldn’t worry about what mess I was leaving. I forced myself up, grabbing for the door as my mouth filled with bile. One hand slapped down on the door knob, the other on my mouth. A gurgling moan was all I got out before I went slamming down the hallway and into the bathroom, dropping to my knees before the toilet, shoving the seat up. The smell of bleach and piss and chlorine in the water assaulted me in ways I never experienced at other times, right before what little was left in my stomach came hurling up.
Bam, bam, bam.
I thought it was my heartbeat at first as it thundered in my ears, trying to suck back in oxygen as my throat was consumed with the act of ridding me of my stomach contents, but when I pulled back and flushed, sucking in breaths, the sound still came. I tried to twist my head to one side, but winced as soon as I did so. Then I heard the crashing sound.
I was at my most vulnerable. Naked and sitting on the floor, my breath stinking of vomit and the pain in my head roaring to grand new heights. The effort of expelling what was inside me made my headache tip over into poor fucking agony, my eyes half blind and hazy when I looked up.
And he appeared.
All I saw was his boots first and then his jeans before he dropped down to my level.
“Lily…”
That softness in Logan’s voice, it broke me in ways other things hadn’t before now. I didn’t want him here, so I tried to scrabble back, to clean up the mess and to cover my body all at once.