Page 18 of Bonding the Band

I held my tongue, refusing to give her any details about how I had slipped away while he was asleep, totally disgusted with myself that I had basically thrown myself at him. Hendrix was busy being Apollo, the lead singer of Hard Knot Life. Even if I did manage to tell him, there was no way he’d be interested in a baby. Probably the best I could hope for would be some ass-kicking child support so I didn’t have to rely on my parents to give this kid a good life.

Thinking about him made my nausea worse. Apparently, reminding my body that he existed made it pissed off he wasn’t here.

“Meadow, I truly don’t want to scare you, but I’m not confident any of your symptoms are going to improve without your alpha. If you can’t find him, or you’re not safe to do so, then I would recommend starting to look for another one.”

I froze at her words. I didn’t wantanyalphas right now, let alone multiple. These were supposed to be my years of independence, when I figured out my life.

“There’s no other option?”

“Well, we don’t like to overmedicate during pregnancy, and most omegas tend not to need much medication for this, so the options are limited compared to betas. A safe alpha is always what’s best for the pregnancy. Do you perhaps have a friend who could assist?”

I bit down on the urge to scoff. I didn’t have alpha friends. I had Clover. Plus, the odds of me finding any alpha who was happy to hop on board when I was pregnant by someone who already had a pack was pretty low. I had to pull on my big girl panties and reach out to Hendrix. Once I knew for certain he wanted nothing to do with me, then I could look at other opportunities, but for now, I was kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“How much worse could it get?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. It’s difficult to separate the symptoms between what’s caused by the pregnancy and what’s caused by the bond separation. Only one responds to treatment, so I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. I should warn you that the medication can make you drowsy, so keep that in mind.”

She wrote me up a prescription after checking all my vitals to make sure there wasn’t anything immediately obvious going wrong. At least I had something to try, even if we weren’t confident it would do anything. Maybe the placebo effect would be extra strong and I could avoid the inevitable for a while longer.

I took my first dose in the bathroom at the clinic, scooping water with my hands to swallow the little pill. It was too much to hope for that it would magically fix all of my struggles, but I was disappointed anyway that there was no difference the second it touched my tongue.

I bought myself a ginger tea and took myself back to the dorm, determined to finish this paper, even though all I wanted to do was nap.

“Hey there, sleepyhead.”

I lifted my head that felt akin to a bowling ball, my cheek sticking to the pages of my book and my eyes bleary.

“You haven’t passed out that hard since finals last year. Feeling okay?”

I blinked up at Clover, rubbing my eyes and reaching for my tea, which was now stone cold. Fuck. Apparently the doctor had understated the medication’s drowsy effect. “I feel like ass.”

“What did the doctor say?”

I wrinkled my nose. “She gave me some meds that knocked me out but said I probably won’t get better because it’s pregnancy symptoms on top of bond separation. She wants me to find the father.”

“You say the word, and I am ready to go full Internet stalker on that man. He’s gotta have some social media I can snoop, so we can reach out.”

“Clover, he’s not going to want to.”

“You don’t know that. At least give it a chance. It’s not fair to you or him to assume he’s going to abandon you before he’s proven that one way or the other. If he’s going to be a dick, then you can haul his ass back to the country.”

“How the hell would I do that?”

“Well, it’s against most international laws for an alpha to leave the country without their omega if they’re newly bonded. Doubly so if the omega is pregnant.” Clover beamed. “We learned that in my family law class yesterday. You could sue his ass to kingdom come if he doesn’t step up.”

I was ninety-nine percent sure that would go terribly. If I dragged Hendrix off a world tour, I would probably nuke any chance of a future amicable relationship with him. “That seems a bit extreme.”

“What’s extreme is him not trying to find you after realizing you were bonded.”

“Maybe he didn’t notice.”

“How would a person not notice that? He should be tripping over himself trying to find you.”

“He doesn’t even know my last name.”

Clover rolled her eyes. “That’s not an excuse. How many Meadows can there be in Seattle?”

She did make a valid point, which only tipped the scales a little further into the probability of Hendrix wanting nothing todo with me. “We’ll talk about it later, okay? I really need to get this paper done.”

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