“There’s a variety of suppressants out in the world, very few that are considered legal or advised for any long-term use. Most seem limited to once or twice a yearat most.”
Agitation marked Rhett’s delivery as he began to pace again. If I were to guess, he wasn’t angry—he wasterrified.
That had me taking a couple of slow steps forward to the sofa and sitting. “Just… tell me what you found.”
Rhett stopped pacing for a moment, his eyes darting between me and Roan, like he wanted to make sure we were both paying attention. The space between us had thickened, and I could feel the weight of every word he was about to say.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again, as if unsure how to start. Finally, he pushed through.
“Some of these suppressants, the ones that aren’t regulated or that people get off-market, they’re… they’re dangerous.” He raked a hand over his face, his usual confidence gone. “Long-term use, particularly if they're not dosed properly or monitored—can fuck with the body in ways that can’t be undone.”
My stomach twisted, my eyes narrowing. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear this, but I needed to. Ineededto know what was coming.
“Permanent damage?” My voice was softer than I intended, but the words were there, heavy and weighted. My doctor hadn’t mentioned that, but she had ordered extensive bloodwork, and she’d also insisted that I needed to go off of the suppressants for at least one heat.
Was this what she was looking for? Did she say nothing because she didn’t want to muddle the results?
Rhett’s lips pressed into a thin line as he nodded. “Exactly. Some of the changes are hormonal, neurological—shit like that. But there’s one problem that kept coming up in my search… It can mess with your body’s response to heat.” He grimaced. “In some cases, it can make itworse.”
I felt the air around me get even heavier, but I refused to flinch. The words were gnawing at the edges of my mind, but I didn’t want to hear them. I couldn’t.
Still, I asked, because I had to know. “How much worse?”
The man was going to wear a groove into the wooden floor, with his pacing. With a sharp exhale, he stopped once again. “I’m not sure. The studies I found were incomplete, but… they suggested it could make heat cycles longer, more intense. It can turn what should be a 24 to 36-hour flare into something that drags on for days. Or worse, become chronic.”
Days.
I didn’t know how to respond. My body felt like it was on fire, and everything in me was telling me to get up and run, to move away from this conversation, but I couldn’t. I was stuck in the thick of it, all of it, all at once.
Days.
I looked at Roan, his face unreadable, still as stone. I could see his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Every muscle in his body was tense, but I couldn’t read the expression on his face. It was like he was holding himself together by sheer force of will, just like I had been.
But the air between us had changed. I could feel the weight of it now, like the tension had spiraled tighter since the moment I’d opened my eyes. It wasn’t just heat I was dealing with anymore.
It was something else.
Rhett cleared his throat and continued. “You’re not the only one, Wren. This isn’t just a rare occurrence. People who’ve been using suppressants for years… they’re seeing the effects,especially if they were on non-regulated ones. It’s a growing concern, but it’s also dangerous territory. The more I looked into it, the more I saw how little we actually know about long-term effects.”
I swallowed hard, my throat feeling tight as I tried to process everything. The truth of it, the weight of it.
“They don’t have a lot of conclusive research,” I admitted. “The doctor told me that. Most… most people don’t use suppressants for that long.”
“No,” Rhett said, taking two steps toward me. “They’re not supposed to use them long-term, in fact, you should be getting regular checkups, bloodwork, and monitoring…at least having one to two heats a year to let your system reset.”
Oh, there was anger in Rhett now.
“How the hell couldyou,of all people, be so careless and stupid?” The question landed like a blow, and I didn’t have it in me to mask my flinch.
“Rhett,” Roan snapped his name like a command.
“I have a right to know,” Rhett argued, but he whirled and focused his temper on Roan. “We all do. She’s beenhurtingherself.”
That muscle ticking in Roan’s jaw increased in speed and ferocity. Jay shifted his stance until he was nearly standing between me and the other two.
“I didn’t know,” I said before anyone else could launch into this argument. “I still don’t.” The last came out far wearier than the first. “Your research is what? Internet articles? MD sites? Health journals?”
Arms folded, Rhett grimaced before he said something I didn’t quite catch.
