Page 116 of Knot All is Forgiven

"You have to be patient with me, okay?" He takes a slow, measured step towards me and cups my cheek. "Don't write me off yet."

It's so close to what I want to hear him say.

So close.

But not it.

"I can't let myself hope for a maybe, Simon."

While I've been busy baring my soul, Jordan was busy waking up. Like the goddess she is, she doesn't bring up the intimate conversation she no doubt overheard. Instead, she starts to cough.

It's fake. Incredibly fake. But Slime doesn't seem to notice.

"Oh my God, peaches," he coos as he rushes to her side. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay." He pulls her into his arms, and she falls into them, but not before giving me the saddest look I've ever seen over his shoulder.

I perch on the edge of the bed and cover her hand with mine, studiously avoiding her IV. "Jordy, baby, what happened?"

Simon scooches over on the bed, allowing me to move closer to our Omega. The three of us sit side by side, facing the window with its ugly pink curtains.

"Mr. Woods had a problem with me being an Omega and not telling him. He had expressed a passing interest in me when I was still presenting as a Beta and was furious I didn't give his pack a chance before bonding Icarus." She rubs absently at the bite on her neck, and I try to keep my brain from wandering down the path of imagining where my bite would rest.

"He was trying to say that there have been complaints about my performance, and I told him I was done talking until an HR representative was there. He started calling me Omega, trapping me against the door, and barking at me." She looks around the hospital room and sighs. "And then I woke up here."

"You went into Omega drop," a deep voice says from the doorway. The older Alpha, Dr. Carr, comes in with Russ and Cyrus behind him, smiling at my Omega. I feel myself bristle, pulling her tightly to my side.

I know he's not going to hurt her – he did her exams while she was still out. But still, he doesn't need to look so happy to see her.

He rolls his eyes but holds his palms out in an attempt to calm me. "I'm not a threat to your Omega, Mr. Stargazer. Jordan, can I examine you?"

She nods, scooting back on the bed away from Slime and me to allow him to listen to her heart and do a basic physical examination. When he seems satisfied, he takes a step back.

"Okay, so far so good. But before we get into it, Jordan, can you tell me what happened?"

Chapter forty-four

After recounting the storyI just told Simon and Rafe, Dr. Carr flicks through his tablet with a frustrated expression.

"What is it?" I ask quietly. Cyrus and Vick are standing frozen behind the doctor.

Vick looks worse for wear. His hair is all over the place, his skin sallow, and there is a twitch in his left eye I've never seen before. He looks like he's hanging on by a thread. When my eyes clash with his emerald ones, I push as many soothing emotions as possible down the bond, watching his shoulders relax a fraction.

Reaching out to my Alpha, I urge him to sit with me. Cyrus follows like a duckling, and then all five of us are piled on this small hospital bed.

"How long ago did you wake up?" He asks.

"About five minutes," Rafe answers.

"You were down about three hours, Jordan," the doctor says gently. "That's a dangerous amount of time to be in Omega drop. During that time, your cortisol levels are elevated, adrenaline runs rampant in your body, keeping you in drop, and your blood sugar stays at a critical level. I am concerned about the potential for kidney damage and the effects on your reproduction system."

My stomach bottoms out, and I grip the closest hands to me. Cyrus and Vick squeeze mine in response, settling me.

"My reproductive system? This could hurt my chances of having kids?" Though my words were quiet, I feel every Alpha around me stiffen at them. We've never really talked about kids as a group, considering we're barely a group, but it's something I need to know will be an option one day.

"No, nothing that serious," he insists. "You can expect your heats to be erratic for a few cycles. Maybe early, maybe late, perhaps several small ones. There isn't much research on Omega drop because the medical industry has neglected Omega physiology historically, but I've seen it a few times in my years."

"We can handle irregular heats," Icarus says gently. His grip tightens on mine. "But we need to run some tests on her kidney function."

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