Page 10 of Alpha Marked

"Shit." Not good.

River groaned and hung up. She ran her hand over the smooth metal and smiled. Hell knew she needed a good… time. She'd never been the one-night stand type, but even her favorite personal toy in her nightstand had burned out from overuse. She took the wolfsbane extract to keep her heats at bay like Cherry had taught her, but they'd never again gone away completely since being bitten by the rogue.

She'd done a ton of research in the last four years. The best advice she'd found was that when her heat cycle hit, she should take cool baths, use ice packs, and see how fast she could wear out the batteries in her little gang of vibrators. Her previous heat cycle had lasted five days, and she'd gone through a hundred dollars' worth of toys and three hundred dollars' worth of batteries. She couldn't imagine what a real heat cycle would be like. Oh wait, yes, she could; the memory of her first cycle burned into her skull and was one of the things that kept her remembering to take her suppressors and scent-blocking spray.

River peeled off her gloves and apron and trudged to the spray nozzle hanging in the corner. Bianca was right. She deserved a night off. She'd been working so much she'd barely had time to sleep over the past month.

She removed her overalls and stepped under the chilly spray. It pelted her skin like tiny missiles and made her nipples pucker. The urge to go up to her loft and take a proper shower trickled over her, but as the water went from warm to hot, the idea of running across her workshop naked and freezing was not half as appealing.

River leaned against the cement wall, letting her head fall beneath the spray. Damn, that felt amazing. She hadn't realized how tense her muscles had gotten until they started relaxing. How many hours had she been in the shop? Eight? Ten? Nope. Fourteen. She'd been working for fourteen hours. No wonder she ached all over.

Her mind wandered to places she didn't want it to go, but as she fought against the lull of sleep, she couldn't stop the memories from flooding back.

"Mom, it hurts so bad." River quaked in her bed as Cherry paced back and forth.

"Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit."

River's body trembled as another cramp ripped through her and shot straight to her core. She was dying. Why wasn't her mom doing anything? Did she want her to die?

River whimpered.

Cherry sprayed another round of air freshener and checked to ensure the window remained shut and locked and that the towels she'd shoved into the cracks hadn't moved.

River cried out as another wave of sharp pains shot through her.

Cherry sat on the side of River's bed and patted her leg. "It's gonna be okay, River. I'm gonna take care of everything."

The hell she was. So far, her mom had stunk up the room like flowers and made sure no one else knew she was dying.

"Do you hate me this much?" River barely got the words out without vomiting due to the overwhelming sweet floral scent.

Cherry didn't answer right away. "I… I don't hate you, River. I'm trying to help you, I promise. You don't understand right now-"

"If you wanted to help me, you'd take me to the pack doctor. Dad would do it. Dad would take me." River said accusingly.

Cherry opened and closed her mouth several times and turned away.

River stared at her mom through burning eyes so dry she feared they'd crack.

Cherry brushed her hand across her face and stood again. A soft knock on the door pulled Cherry's attention, and she ran to it.

"Yeah?"

"It's me," came a muffled voice from the other side.

"Did you find it?" The frenzy in her mother's voice was something River hadn't heard before. Her mom was the cool one. The strong one. The non-emotional one. Cherry was your girl if you needed something done or someone smacked into line.

"Yes," came the reply.

Cherry moved the towel out from under the door and kicked aside the blanket she'd stapled around River's door before unlocking and opening it no more than a crack.

An arm shot through the door holding several items River couldn't make out, and then the door shut.

"River?" came the small, scared voice of her little sister Bianca through the door. "I want River."

Her stepfather Strider must have said something to Bianca because she began to cry and bang on the door.

"Something's wrong with her. I can smell it. Mama Cherry let me in," Bianca cried.

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