Chapter Thirty
Griffin couldn’t help notice the somewhat guilty looks he kept getting from Beau when the alpha thought he wasn’t looking.
“What is it?” he asked finally, reaching for Beau’s hand across the couch.
Beau clasped it tightly, his free hand moving to Griffin’s neck where the alpha’s bite still stood out prominently.
“I’m sorry about this,” he said, running a finger across the mark, the touch making Griffin shudder. “I got a little carried away.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said, squeezing Beau’s hand. “Besides, I kind of like it.”
The idea of having an alpha’s bite on his neck would have been abhorrent to him once, but he no longer lacked the confidence in who and what he was. Beau’s mark was a sign of their love, their passion, and not a symbol of ownership.
Beau’s guilt vanished, a grin brightening his face. “Me too. My bite looks good on you.”
He laughed. “You alphas are so predictable. There’s nothing more satisfying than an omega wearing your mark.”
“Unless they’re also wearing your clothes,” Beau teased, tugging at the T-shirt of his that Griffin was wearing.
Trying his best to look displeased, he smoothed a hand across the shirt. “Well, someone distracted me from doing laundry this week. Besides, it looks good on me, too.”
He found himself crowded against the back of the couch, Beau’s body flush against his.
“Yes,” the alpha breathed, his lips finding Griffin’s neck as he pressed hot, heavy kisses along his throat. His hands slipped under said T-shirt, fingers gliding in teasing strokes across his skin.
When he grasped the hem and started to raise it, Griffin lifted his arms willingly, more than happy to oblige. There was the slightest of twinges in his stomach, not quite a pain, but he pushed it to the back of his mind and focused on the attentive alpha pressed against him.
Griffin vividly remembered the first time he’d ever thrown up. Antoine and Virgil had wanted him to develop a tolerance for alcohol. Shifters, in general, could hold their liquor better than humans but omegas, being smaller and slighter, could rarely match an alpha or even a beta, drink for drink. He’d been taught many ways around it, sleight of hand to switch an almost full champagne glass with an almost empty one, choosing drinks that looked like something they weren’t. But that kind of approach could only take him so far.
He remembered the taste of the alcohol sliding down his throat. Wine, spirits, beer. Getting him drunk wasn’t the only lesson. First, it was learning what the different drinks looked and tasted like. How to tell a Merlot from a Cabernet. A craft beer from what was on tap. It went on for a week, night after night, until one night, the drinks kept coming. He got lightheaded, the room span, and he remembered his stomach lurching. He spent the rest of the night lying on the bathroom floor, pathetically grateful for the cool porcelain bowl every time a new wave of nausea roiled through him.
Which was why finding himself kneeling in the bathroom, bringing up the contents of his stomach for the third morning in a row, was more than a little disconcerting. There was no alcohol involved. Food poisoning… well, it took a lot to floor a shifter when it came to food, and he’d only eaten food from their pack’s kitchen. It didn’t leave many options bar some sort of illness.
He heard footsteps and tried to get to his feet, but another wave of nausea washed over him, and he sank back down with a groan.
“Griffin?” Shit, it was Beau.
“Be there in a minute,” he shouted back, swallowing hard to forestall another bout of retching.
The door creaked open.
“Stay out,” he tried to yell but his stomach tightened and he gave in, retching miserably.
Whatever else might have been said was lost as he warred for control of his body, hating it for betraying him. He felt a light, hesitant touch against his back and tensed. The touch disappeared, and when he finally emptied his stomach and sat back on the floor, taking deep gulps of air, he found Beau kneeling nearby, concerned, a cloth held loosely in his hand.
“Finn?”
“I’m fine,” he insisted, still a little breathless.
“You don’t look fine. Here.”
He held out the cloth, but Griffin ignored it, waving him away.
“Just give me a few minutes. I’ll come out and join you.”
Beau didn’t need to see him like this. Griffin didn’t want the alpha to see him this way. Beau got to his feet… and moved closer, dropping to crouch right next to him. He caught Griffin’s chin in one hand, and wiped the cool cloth across his forehead, down along his cheeks and then across his lips, the touch soft, wet, and cool.
“Beau, I’m okay, you don’t need to-”
A finger pressed to his lips, silencing his protest.
“Let me take care of you.”
Griffin tried to get to his feet. “I can take care of myself.”
A bout of dizziness hit, and it was only Beau’s arms wrapping around him that stopped him crashing to his knees on the floor. The alpha gently lowered him to the ground, then let go, Griffin giving an unconscious murmur of protest. Beau crossed the room to the sink, wringing out the washcloth. He returned, laying it across the back of Griffin’s neck. It felt good, the coolness contrasting the heat in his skin.
“Are you done? Or do you need to hang out here for a while longer?”
Realizing Beau wasn’t going anywhere until he did, he gave the alpha’s question due consideration. The nausea was still there but had returned to background levels.
“No, I think… I think it’s safe.”
He wasn’t expecting Beau to slip a hand behind his knees and pick him up, but that’s exactly what the alpha did, cradling him against his chest and carrying him from the room.
“Beau,” he protested. “I’m fine. I can walk.”
The alpha ignored him, bringing him to their bedroom and laying him down on the bed. He spent a minute rearranging the pillows so Griffin was propped upright. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed, lacing his fingers with Griffin’s.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing. Probably just something I ate.”
“Three days,” Beau said simply. “If it was something you ate, by now you’d be better or we’d all be sick.”
Griffin let his eyes close. He was rumbled.
“You knew?”
“Hard to miss the sound of you retching like that. I should have said something sooner. And you should have told me what was going on.”
“I didn’t want you to see me like that.”
He looked away, but Beau caught his chin, turning his head so he couldn’t escape the alpha’s gaze.
“Why not?”
“It makes me look… weak.” And he hated that. Hated to be seen in such a vulnerable position.
Beau tugged him closer, a hand pressed to the back of his head as Griffin let his forehead rest against the alpha’s shoulder.
“You believe I’ll think less of you because of it.”
It was a statement, not a question, and so close to the mark that Griffin tensed under Beau’s hand.
“You’ve seen me at my weakest, at my most vulnerable. Does it make you think less of me?” the alpha questioned softly.
Griffin lifted his head, meeting Beau’s expressive eyes and placing a hand on the alpha’s cheek. “Of course not. You’re so strong, you’ve survived so much. I feel privileged to know that you trust me enough to let me see you like that.”
“So why is it different when it’s you?”
“I’m not good at being vulnerable.” His voice was whisper soft, the words not ones he wanted to share. “Brings back bad memories.”
Beau’s hand carded through his hair, and Griffin sighed at the touch. How was it the alpha always knew just how to touch him?
“Finn, you saved me. I was broken, minutes from death, and you took the chance, braved the very real risk that I’d harm you and yours, and brought me back to life. Seeing you sick reminds me that you’re not a super-shifter, and that you and I aren’t so different, which makes you more amazing, not less, in my eyes.”
When Griffin tried to turn his head away, Beau stopped him, holding his gaze.
“Let me take care of you. You’re my mate. I’m your alpha. It’s what I’m here for.”
The plea in Beau’s voice, coupled with the sincerity of his words, had Griffin give in gratefully. He sank back against the pillows.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but something is.”
Beau smoothed his hair from his forehead before pressing a kiss to his temple. “I think it’s time we called in some help. Maybe a doctor?”
For a doctor, they’d have to go outside the pack. He wasn’t prepared to do that yet. There could still be a simple explanation.
“Let’s start with Damien.” As the pack’s nurse come healer come midwife, he was always the first port of call when someone was hurt or injured.
“I won’t be long,” Beau promised. “Do you need anything before I go?”
“A glass of water would be nice.”
“Coming right up.”
Beau returned with a glass of ice-cold water for him before leaving to get Damien. Griffin knew he should get up, get dressed, try to look the part of pack leader that everyone expected. But he was tired and off and worried.