he set her chart aside. “Then we will go from there.”
Calla inhaled when she was asked to inhale, said ahh when she was asked, sat still when he listened to her heart, and extended her arm when he checked her blood pressure. The entire time, she watched his face, but he never gave away any concern on his features. It drove her crazy sometimes, but she knew he’d always take care of her if she was ever sick.
A bead of sweat appeared on her arm as he turned away to place the cuff on the table by the wall, and she felt the exhaustion rear its ugly head. “I think I’m having a feverish moment coming on.”
Harold looked over his shoulder and nodded. “Tell me what you’re feeling right now.”
“Like my blood is trying to boil under my skin,” she replied, using the back of her hand to wipe away the sweat that’d built there.
Harold quickly grabbed the thermometer and stuck the plastic-coated stick under her tongue. When the thing beeped, he pulled it out and discarded the cap.
“Calla,” he sighed. “Have you had your first heat yet?”
Oh gods!
“Um, no,” she blushed. “I haven’t.”
“You should’ve had two already.” He frowned, showing a rare sign of emotion. “I think that’s what’s happening, and it’s just beginning.”
“Wait!” she barked. “No, no, no! I can’t be. How am I going to go to work?” She felt a panic attack coming on, but Harold’s gloved hand on her wrist stopped her from crossing her arms over her chest.
If she was going into heat, that meant…
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
“Calla, I need you to calm down,” Harold began, taking her hands into his. “This isn’t life threatening. It’s better than the alternative.”
The alternative being the infection some shifters could get that would eventually take their life. It was the one thing they had no protection against.
“What am I going to do?” she asked, looking at him for guidance.
Being in heat meant one thing…she needed a mate to make it go away immediately or she’d have to be sedated for five to ten days. The pain would be excruciating, and the need to mate would drive her insane.
“I can sedate you, but I need to know if you want to do that at your house or here,” he informed her.
“I don’t want to do it here,” she replied, knowing that males came and went from the clinic a lot, and she didn’t want any chance of being seen by Taze. If he knew she was in heat, he’d press the mating issue. The males couldn’t stand seeing their females in pain, and if she knew Taze, he’d be just as upset as the other mated males who stood by and watched their mates being sedated so they couldn’t conceive a child.
Hope had gone through heat over the years, admitting to Calla one night that they used condoms to keep from conceiving, but it didn’t stop the heat. It dulled it, but she was still in pain. At first, she’d rode it out with Ranger, but by the next year, she asked to be sedated.
“I know Savage has a cabin off the pride’s land. He and Mary Grace go there for peace and quiet sometimes.” Calla swallowed hard as she felt her panic rising. “He will let me use it. I know he will. We have to call him. I have to call him.”
“Take some relaxing breaths, Calla,” Harold cooed. “You don’t have to call him. I’ll do it for you, but first, I need to know if you are feeling any pain?”
“No, not yet,” she promised, mentally taking stock of how she felt. Her panther, on the other hand, was snarling inside her mind. The animal didn’t want sedation. It wanted to find Taze.
“Please hurry, Harold.”
Taze blinked as he came awake. A quick look at the clock said he’d been out for the entire day. He was off rotation for the night and planned on spending a lot of time in the training facility working off some of his stress. The rest of the night, he’d shift and prowl around the land to give himself something to do.
He told himself he wasn’t going over to Calla’s. As much as he wanted to give in to his panther’s need to touch her, his human side knew it was best to leave her alone. She would come to him when she was ready.
After grabbing a shower and some food, he jogged over to the training facility in the old Guardian’s