“Doctor,” The nurse who I’d dubbed ‘the iron woman’ in my mind cut him off as he was really ramping into his explanation of omega and alpha biology. “Get to the point.”
Matteo whacked his forehead with the butt of his palm before smiling sheepishly at us, “Right, sorry. For now just be close, offer her your purr and your touch. No nookie though and believe me, we will know.”
With one final grin he and the other nurses filed out the room leaving us alone. Eloise’s trembling had stilled somewhat at the contact between our skin and I pulled her closed and pressed my lips to the top of her head. They’d cleaned her up some but her chocolate scent was weak underneath the lingering scent of chlorine and I had to inhale deeply to find it.
“Is this helping?” Ric asked as he tucked his face into the crook of her neck where his mark was and pressed a kiss to the skin there. He’d set his phone on the little table next to the bed so that he could see if any of the other guys texted him and had turned his attention to our dozing omega.
Eloise nodded, “Mmm, it’s nice like being surrounded by two hot water bottles.” She responded drowsily, “Could use some more purring though.”
“Your wish is our command.” Ric’s chuckle evened out into a loud purr and Eloise’s sigh of contentment pushed me to start my own rumbling purr which blended into Ric’s like a lullaby. The monitors attached to Eloise’s body finally seemed to even out and her blood pressure, which had previously been too low for my comfort, finally began to steadily tick upwards.
For the first time in the last twenty-four hours I had the feeling that everything was going to be okay.
45
I was in and out of consciousness for I don’t know how long. Everytime I forced my eyes to open there were different members of my pack in the room or in bed with me. It was usually a combination of Leon or Gage with one of the other members of the pack. I thought I heard the doctor saying that it was best to keep a bonded alpha as close as possible, but I was half-asleep at the time so I could be wrong. I noticed after the second or third time that I woke up that nothing actively hurt anymore—I was sore as hell but the cramps and trembling were all but gone leaving behind a soreness in my ribs and hips.
This time when I woke up I finally felt rested and when I opened my eyes I was staring straight at Link’s sleeping face. He looked exhausted, deep purple splotches were present under his eyes that hadn’t been there when I’d last seen him and his blond hair was sticking straight up off of the side of his head. I realized, with a croaky laugh, that his hair looked very similar to that of the back end of a duckling.
My laughter must have been louder than I’d thought because Link’s eyes flew open, “You’re awake.” His voice was thick with sleep as he blinked his eyes rapidly as if that would help him wake up any faster.
A pair of arms came from behind me and Owen’s voice joined the conversation, “Welcome back to the land of the living, Ellie. Don’t you ever scare us like that again.” He pressed a kiss to my cheek and I could feel stubble and when I turned to look at him I found a very rumpled looking Owen with, I could hardly believe it, the beginnings of a beard! He was always so clean shaven that it felt like I was looking at a completely different person.
So if Owen was growing a beard and Link’s purple under eyes were anything to go by… how long had I been out of it?
“How long was I asleep for?” A note of panic was in my voice and I forced myself to sit up—something I would not have been able to easily do at the start of all of this because of all of the wires that they’d attached to me. I could still see the sticky residue where the wires had been taped to my body but all that remained on me now was a heart monitor and blood pressure cuff. Of course, sitting up caused a sharp pain to radiate out from my lower torso and I hissed in pissed.
Link and Owen were sitting up now too, Owen shoving pillows behind my back and Link rearranging the wires left on my body so that I could recline against the pillows as the pain faded as quickly as it came now that I was sitting still.
“You need to slow down El,” Link scolded me gently as he grabbed his phone and tapped out a quick message, “You’ve got a couple of cracked ribs from the heat cramps.”
Owen rearranged the fuzzy comforter that was laying across us so that it was tucked around me like a mother hen, “You’ve been out of it for almost a week. You had a fever coming in and it finally broke about forty-eight hours in. Gage, Ric and Leon were with you until about an hour ago. We forced them to go home and shower and eat, they were starting to look worse than you were.”
He held up a little pink cup with a straw and I drank gratefully as the room temperature water soothed my scratchy throat. I digested the information that I'd been out of it for almost a week slowly.
I knew that I would need to ask the question that I’d been asking ever since I was dragged away from the picnic spot by Volkov’s men. My last memory of Dominic was a confused, pained look as red spread across his shirt and pooled underneath him.
“... did Dominic die?” My voice was small and I forced myself to look down at my hands, afraid to see the answer on either of the beta’s faces. I couldn’t imagine going back home without our frenchman. Even if he had messed up he was ours and that meant something.
“Eloise,” I squeezed my eyes shut as gentle fingers gripped my chin and pulled until I was facing Link, “Look at me.”
I didn’t want to open my eyes and see the answer in those expressive green eyes like I knew that I would. But I forced myself to open them, my throat already becoming tight with tears. It took me a minute to see that what was in his eyes wasn’t sadness or grief. He was smiling.
“Dominic is going to be just fine,” A whoosh of relieved air forced its way out of me as Link continued, “The bullet was only three centimeters away from his heart but he had a great surgeon and they expect him to make a full recovery.”
Suddenly I was crying big racking sobs that tugged on my sore ribs and made it hard to breathe. Two sets of hands soothed their way up and down my spine as Link and Owen whispered that everything was going to be okay.
“In fact,” Owen said after I’d finally calmed down, “Dominic woke up two days before you.”
The door to the hospital room opened and Gage and Leon entered followed by Ric who was pushing someone in a wheelchair. Leon and Gage moved out of the way and I could see that the person in the chair was Dominic who was grinning at me.
I moved to jump out of the bed but several sets of hands stopped me, “Gorgeous, stay in the bed, we’ll bring him to you.” Ric pushed Dominic the rest of the way and I reached for him and nearly fell out of the bed anyways as I hugged him tightly, eliciting a grunt from the alpha.
“Mon coeur, I am so happy to see that you are awake but maybe hug a little more gently?” Dominic wheezed and I immediately released him holding my hands up.
“I’m sorry!” I opted for taking his hands in mine and leaning over, despite my screaming ribs, and pressed a kiss to his lips that I hoped told him all of the things that I was feeling. Once I finally laid back into the pillows I shot Leon a look and pointed at him, my mind going back to his last words to Dominic.
“We can’t kick him out, Leon. No way. He’s a part of our pack for better or for worse. If you kick him out I will spend the rest of our lives complaining.” I let my statement hang in the air.
