Drake arched as a spasm cramped her lower abdomen. She flushed and sweat broke over her. “It’s starting again.”
“No, this is not the fever. Your system is flooded with hormones from the transition.” Sylvan cradled Drake’s jaw and rubbed her thumb over the corner of her mouth. “You’ll be all right, Drake. You’re Pack and we will all protect you.”
“Please…can you stay?” Drake whispered.
Sylvan shuddered, her wolf strafing her soul in a fury. Take her.
Forcing herself to leave her when what she wanted was to mark her, Sylvan rose and held out her arm to Niki. “I can’t.”
Drake curled on her side and watched Sylvan and Niki disappear, more alone than she’d ever been in her life.
Chapter Seventeen
“Wait for me outside,” Sylvan said to Niki. “I want to run.”
Niki regarded the closed door to Drake’s room. “You’re not going back in there?”
“Not now. She needs to be with a beta Were, someone who won’t incite her dominance instincts.”
“Like us.”
Sylvan hadn’t felt a challenge from Drake, but Niki didn’t need to know that. She tilted her head toward the porch. “Go. Then we’ll run.”
“Yes, Alpha.” Niki cast one more uneasy glance at the door, then loped off.
Sylvan followed Elena’s scent to the room the medic used when she stayed in the infirmary to be close to her patients. Before she could knock, Elena opened the door. Roger stood behind her, his arms loosely clasping her hips. He was shirtless. Elena wore loose pale cotton scrubs.
Both had fading bite marks at the juncture of neck and shoulder.
“Drake is awake,” Sylvan said. “She’s loaded with endorphins and pheromones. She almost challenged Niki.”
“She is dominant, then,” Elena murmured, absently running her nails up and down Roger’s arms. He rumbled and caught her earlobe in his teeth. “Is she showing signs of frenzy?” Sylvan remembered Drake’s hand caressing her abdomen, exploring her clitoris with her fingertips. She had come instantly erect and was still fully ready to release. “She might be soon, and she doesn’t understand what’s happening.”
“She can’t. She’s like an adolescent in a constant state of frenzy, but she’s totally unprepared for it.” Elena shook her head. “She must be in such pain.” Elena gave Sylvan a cautious look. “I can prepare her, but if she really is in frenzy, she’s going to need release with another Were soon.”
Sylvan growled. “She’s not ready.”
“We don’t know what she is,” Elena argued. “She’s unique in our experience.”
Roger rubbed his chin on Elena’s shoulder, a worried whine reverberating in his chest. “How do we know she won’t attack Elena? I should go in with her.”
“No, she’s already confused and she’ll want to dominate you,” Elena said gently, reaching back to caress his neck. “I am mated, and her wolf will recognize that.”
“We can’t be sure,” Roger protested.
“You can stay outside on the porch, where you can hear my call if I need help.” Elena turned in his arms and nipped at his jaw. “You’ll know if I’m in danger, mate.”
Roger closed his eyes and lifted his chin so she could bite his neck. He grumbled his assent.
Sylvan wrapped her arms around both of them, and Elena and Roger crowded against her. She stroked Elena’s hair and cupped the back of Roger’s neck. “Drake might have the urges of an adolescent, but she isn’t showing any signs of being rabid. I wouldn’t let Elena go near her if I thought there was any danger.”
“I’ll go to her now,” Elena said.
“Help her,” Sylvan ordered.
“And if she shows signs of needing true release?” Sylvan growled again, her claws jutting out. “Find her someone.”
Niki jumped down from the railing where she’d been crouched, waiting for Sylvan. The Alpha stormed through the door, her eyes already wolf-gold, her torso shimmering silver. Niki focused on the two purple crescents above Sylvan’s breast that hadn’t been evident when Sylvan’s wolf had been quieter.
“She bit you!”
“Let’s run.”
“Alpha,” Niki cried. “She could have infected you!”
“She didn’t,” Sylvan snapped, striding down the stairs toward the forest.
“You don’t know that. She’s dangerous!”
Sylvan whipped around. “Enough!”
Niki stopped abruptly, her body quivering. “You smell like her.”
“I’m covered in her scent from the transition. It’s nothing.” Sylvan wrapped her arms around Niki’s shoulders and leaned down until their eyes held. “Save yourself for a true battle, Imperator. This is not your fight.”
“You are my Alpha,” Niki whispered.
“I am. And you are my second. The wolf of my heart.” Sylvan pulled Niki close and rubbed her chin on the top of her head. “We need to find out what’s causing these fevers in humans and stop it before there’s open season on Weres. I need you by my side, Niki, now more than ever.”
Niki brushed her mouth over Sylvan’s chest, careful not to touch the bite mark. “Always, Alpha. Always.”
“I’m the Pack medic,” Elena said, slipping into Drake’s room and closing the door behind her. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m not so sure.” Drake sat up with her back to the wall and tucked a sheet tightly around her hips. She’d never been particularly shy or self-conscious, but her body didn’t feel like hers. When she’d first awakened with Sylvan and Niki pressed close against her, she’d been comforted. But she’d been aroused too, painfully so, and when she’d been compelled to touch Sylvan, her excitement had been unbearable.
She was still intensely aroused.
Elena smelled good. And she was beautiful. Her delicate features were framed by thick, long black curls that Drake wanted to run her hands through. Elena was petite but full-bodied, with luscious breasts and hips. Drake imagined skimming her mouth over the curves of her breasts and down the center of her gently rounded belly. Her clitoris jutted out and she growled softly.
“I don’t think you should be in here,” Drake said.
Elena leaned back against the door, watching Drake carefully.
“Sylvan says your wolf is challenging you.”
“Something is.” Drake laughed shakily. Her stomach ached as if she were hungry, but for much more than food. When she ran her hand down the center of her abdomen, her skin felt different. More sensitive.
Her muscles were tighter, harder. Her loins twinged and she winced with another sharp pain between her legs. “I’m…I’m having some control problems.”
“You’re an adult Were with an adolescent’s appetites and urges,” Elena said calmly. “It’s going to take a while for your wolf to find her balance. You’re likely to respond to every Were who gets close to you at first.”
“Everyone?” Drake asked. “I’ve never been attracted to males. Will that change?”
“Most of our young will couple freely until their late teens, when some become exclusive with one sex. You’re already an adult, so you may not find the males of interest now.”
“So I’ll only be aroused by every female I pass?” Drake thought of Niki naked and pressed against her, but Sylvan had been the one she had wanted to touch. Sylvan’s torso had been a landscape of perfect muscles sheathed in smooth skin and a tantalizing tease of silky pelt.
She breathed sharply at the memory and caught Sylvan’s scent in the air. Her clitoris twitched and she had an overpowering urge for sex. She stared at Elena’s breasts and her sex tightened. “This isn’t good. I’m not going to be safe outside of this room.”