Page 16 of Fated to Her

“Time she may not have left. Three weeks of heat… I’m surprised she’s still alive as it is, Eli. Humans can’t survive with temperatures this high. If she wasn’t marked already, she would be dead. She should be dead, given she hasn’t let you mate her yet and hasn’t been around you for so long,” the man tells him.

My heart skips a beat. Am I dying as he claims? Could being in heat really be killing me?

“She is waking. I should go, but think of what I said, Eli. Either let Cyrus change her or—”

“We are not doing that to her. I won’t be a monster like him,” Eli spits at the man.

“Well, then she dies. Sometimes, Eli, you have to make a decision even if it means hurting the ones you love.”

“She will choose. If not, I will choose for her,” Cyrus says.

Eli growls, the noise rumbling through his chest making me jump, and I know they now know I’m awake.

Turning my face, I press it against Eli’s neck, breathing in his scent. His hand is rubbing up against my back. Then he stands. His hands under my thighs hold me against him as he walks off. Cyrus and the man are still speaking. Eli sits back down.

“Did you hear all that?” he asks.

I nod against his chest. “Am I really dying?”

He says nothing, his hand rubbing over my back soothingly. I run my hand over his bare chest.

“You should have called us. We would have come to get you instead of you driving in the storm,” Eli says.

“I tried. I had no cell service.”

Even awake, I’m still unwilling to move, the sparks rushing across my skin soothing the heat and the pain no longer unbearable.

“Doc said to give her these. They will help for a bit but not forever,” Cyrus says, coming into the room.

The bed dips and I open my eyes to Cyrus prodding my head, making me hiss. I realize I have a cut there. I try to touch it, but he pulls my hand away.

The cut is throbbing now he has pointed it out. Cyrus bites his wrist, offering it to me.

I take it, sitting up a bit and bringing it to my lips. His blood trickles into my mouth before I pull away from him while I still have my wits about me, knowing the effects of his blood.

Yet even the few drops make me want more, but I shove the feeling away, knowing it is just the effects of it. I touch my head to find the cut closed. I have no pain there.

Eli is staring at me with an indecipherable expression on his face. Then I realize I have no top on.

“That man didn’t—”

“No, you had a sheet over you. Besides, you had your back to him, anyway,” Eli says.

“And he is a doctor of sorts, nothing he hasn’t seen before,” Cyrus adds. Cyrus has some crushed herbs in a jar sitting next to him. He notices my stare, grabbing them.

“What’s that?” I ask him.

“Something to help your heat. I’ll make you some tea,” Cyrus says, hopping up before stopping. “Addie…”

“Not now,” Eli says, cutting him off.

Cyrus goes to say something else and Eli glares at him.

“I said not now,” Eli says, a warning in his tone. Cyrus nods, walking out, and Eli pulls me back down against him.

“You should shower,” Eli says.

“What time is it?”