Chapter 41 Taking Precaution

• I wake up feeling queasy in the stomach and a thudding heartbeat. When I stir under the blankets, I almost think with a sinking heart that last night’s rendezvous was perhaps just a dream, a delusion of my bereft mind. But then, I feel the telltale twinge between my legs, the sore ache in my lower back and the tingling of my mating mark. It wasn’t. The thudding in my chest calms slowly, and a relieved smile etches on my lips but it doesn’t remain for long as the nauseous feeling overtakes. I am forced to sit up, my world tilting for a moment from a sudden dizzy spell before I manage to get off the bed on somewhat shaky legs. Astrid and I both want our mate to be by our side, but for some reason, he is neither in the bedroom nor outside. I can’t feel his presence.
• Pushing back the sinking feeling, I stumble my way to the ensuite bathroom. As I am heaving on the toilet bowl, feeling bile and water force their way up my throat, a soothing arm wraps around my shoulder while another twists my hair up. Astrid calms down with Isaac’s arrival while I continue to retch. My eyes sting and my head hurts.
• Isaac continues to rub his hand up and down the length of my back in a soothing manner. When I am done, he picks up my almost limp form and sits me on the double sink countertop. The cool marble top soothes my bare sweaty thighs. I realize that sometime during the night or at dawn, he had managed to get me back into one of his t-shirts. My cheeks burn but my heart fills with warmth. I peer at him but he has already exited the bathroom and soon he comes back with a small world and wets it. He methodically begins to wipe my face with a wet towel and then hands me a glass of water. I am too wired out to notice him puttering about. I simply take the glass and slowly sip the ice-cold water. The queasiness is beginning to subside as Astrid tries to soothe and calm my body.