She swore quietly, the sound carrying through his phone speaker as he settled back into his body. Her next whimper was a nervous one. He stroked himself slowly, feeling his own release against his still-hard cock, too distracted to be grossed out by it.
“I think your chain is beautiful,” he said on an exhale.
I think you’re beautiful, he wanted to add, because she deserved pretty words and platitudes, but she deserved clear boundaries even more. There wasn’t going to be a romantic relationship between them.
There couldn’t be.
The Alphas were his family, and he had bet his entire life on what they were doing at Ironside.
One wrong step with Isobel was all they needed to collapse the whole foundation.
Isobel grew still, pain lacing away the gentle aftershocks that shivered through her body. She clutched her stomach, the empty cavernous feeling turning into a cyclone of horrible, sharp agony. When Theodore had touched her, it had helped … a lot.
Maybe Gabriel was right about this particular side effect … but if he had thought that sexual pleasure would help her, he was so wrong.
“You aren’t in my head anymore, are you?” she gritted.
“No.” His tone turned sharp with shock. “What happened? You sound like you’re in pain.”
“It’s worse,” she groaned.
He swore viciously. “I’m going to hang up so I can get some things together. Do you need help getting out of the shower?”
“No.” She stood up to prove it, but her knees immediately buckled as pain travelled like an electric shock through her limbs.
“That’s a yes, isn’t it?”
“Kilian,” she whispered, curling into a ball, and hugging her arms around her knees.
He was silent for a moment, but when he spoke again, it was on a soft exhale. “Okay. I’ll send in Kilian.” He hung up, and she focussed on trying to draw in one breath after another until the door flew open.
“Hey, baby.” Kilian turned off the shower, kneeling in front of her, his hands gently lifting her face. “You okay? What happened?”
He was stroking her cheeks, his pale eyes wide with concern, his beautiful mouth cinched into a tight line.
“Pain,” she moaned. “In my stomach.”
“Okay. Shit. All right.” He yanked a towel off the rack, squeezing out the water from her hair and doing his best to dry her off without disturbing her position. “You feel warm.” His hand pressed against her forehead, a frown digging down the sides of his mouth. He switched out the towel for a fresh one, using it to bundle her up and lift her onto the bathroom counter. He caught her legs as she hugged the towel around herself, helping to lower them slowly.
She winced. “Sorry you have to take care of me all the time.”
“I like taking care of you,” he rumbled, narrowing his eyes on her face. “Take that away from me and you’ll find out what a stage-ten clinger looks like in an Alpha’s body. It isn’t pretty. You feel like being squashed into a pancake?”
She laughed, but it cut off immediately on a pained groan. Kilian extracted panties from the bundle of clothes she had brought into the bathroom with her, his fingers tucked into each side as he hooked her feet into them, his palms gliding up the sides of her shins, her thighs …
The pain doubled.
She fell forward, her forehead catching against his shoulder, a whimper tumbling out of her throat. He stepped between her legs, quickly lifting her with one arm as he tugged the underwear around her hips.
“Almost done,” he soothed, cupping the sides of her face, and kissing each of her temples. “You’re doing so well.”
He tugged the oversized shirt over her head, pretending not to notice that it was his, which just made her want to cry and hug him at the same time. He lifted up the silk shorts she had brought in, a brow arching.
“You can’t even see them under the shirt,” she defended.
“I’ll get something more comfortable.” He ducked out of the bathroom, and she caught a glimpse of Theodore and Gabriel on the other side before the door fell closed again.
When Kilian returned, it was with a pair of loose sweatpants that swallowed her legs and needed to be rolled five times at the hips to stay on.
“Let’s get you settled.” He gathered her up, striding halfway across Theodore’s bedroom, obviously intending to go into the hallway. She opened her mouth to protest him carrying her, and he cut her a sharp look.
“You don’t feel right.” Theodore appeared beside Kilian, his voice deep and uneven, his hand rubbing at his chest as he reached out to open the door for them. “Usually I can’t feel you at all.”
She glanced at Gabriel, but he was wearing his blank expression, only the slightest furrow between his brows. Guilt clawed at her, but it wasn’t her own. It was his. It scratched and tore its way into her chest, leaving her gasping as Kilian turned into the hallway, stalked to the common room, and carefully sat her on the couch.
Niko, Cian, Oscar, and Moses were already there, leaving plenty of space around the couch that someone had obviously prepared for her. They watched on quietly, Cian pausing whatever they had been watching. Elijah walked in with Mikel and Kalen, and she twisted her fingers together, completely at a loss for what to do or say with all of their eyes on her, their concern and confusion buffering against her already-tight chest.
As soon as Kilian set her down, Gabriel pushed him away. It wasn’t rough, but Kilian still arched both brows at him, his watchful gaze travelling over Gabriel’s tight expression before he backed off, muttering something low to Theodore, who was also watching Gabriel with a frown.
Gabriel placed a warm, fluffy thing in her lap, and she blinked down at it in surprise.
“Hot water bottle,” he grunted.
“It’s pink.” Her voice cracked with pain.
“And hideous.” He watched as she hugged it. “It was the only cover left, and I didn’t want to wait for more to come in stock in case you needed it.”
It really was hideous. The cover seemed to be made of thick sheepskin, frothy and fluffy and delectable to sink her fingers into, but it was quite a sight. Also … when had Gabriel ordered her a hot water bottle?
He extracted one of her arms from the pink fluff, wedging a cool glass of water into her grip, and then he was shaking pills out of a bottle, holding them before her mouth.
“Open,” he demanded.
She popped her lips open, and he dropped the pills onto her tongue, the fierce look still digging into his features. She washed the medication down and he took the glass from her again, tapping a thermometer against her lips.
“Under your tongue,” he demanded.
She let him take her temperature, which he seemed to note on his phone, before he pulled up a bag from the floor.
“I didn’t know what you might like, so …” He set the bag onto the couch beside her, and she peered into it, seeing a dozen different types of chocolate and candy.
“I …” He glanced to the side, not really looking at anyone—though everyone was definitely looking at him with varying degrees of curiosity and confusion. “If it’s what I think it is, sugar is supposed to help. There’s ice cream in the freezer. Do you want ice cream? I’ll get it.” He spun on his heel, stalking out of the room.