Page 36 of Sanctuary
“Stubborn betas,” Ori groused.
“Stubborn omegas,” Patton countered, then grabbed Ori’s arm and pulled him over for a kiss. “Love you.”
“Love you too,” Ori said, suddenly shy. “Just… let me know if you get tired, ‘kay?”
“Sure.” He wouldn’t, but it made Ori happy, so he forgave himself the white lie. And he was getting his breath back already. “You set for another adventure?”
“With you? Always.” Ori’s smile shone like the sun as he finished closing up their bags. “Let’s go.”
C H A P T E R T H I R T Y - F O U R
A couple of days and more miles later than Ori wanted to think about, he woke up feeling restless and uncomfortable. At first, he thought it was his heat—the timing wasn’t right but he’d been told before that stress could change a cycle, and Lysoonka knew, he’d been stressed the past month. So maybe he wasn’t pregnant, which was probably for the best, given their current situation. Still, he had to bite back a whine of disappointment—not that Patton was around to hear it. His mate must have gone hunting for them. He had been talking about it the night before, but Ori was surprised that he hadn’t woken up when Patton disentangled them. That wasn’t normal for him, especially in heat.
No, it couldn’t be his heat. Besides, it wasn’t the same kind of restlessness that he associated with that hormone storm. Maybe he was just antsy to be anywhere that wasn’t Perseguir or worried about being out in the middle of nowhere.
Well, he could get up and get breakfast going; that would take his mind off things. He folded the blanket back and sat up, but the simple act of moving his foot to put it down on the ground sent a burst of pain like all the beatings he’d ever had shooting up his leg. The leg itself was hot when he touched it, and when he pulled the sock off to look at his foot, the heel— which had been tender yesterday and weepy—had turned bright red and hot like a sunburn. All around the still-raw wound, the skin had gone weirdly puffy, and a red flush was spreading toward his ankle and across the top of his foot. Gingerly, he touched the swollen parts and winced at the sting. Yeah, it was definitely getting infected. He’d have to try pouring boiling water on it to see if he could slow it down some, as much as his gut clenched in fear at the thought. But even scarier than the pain he knew would be coming was the thought of getting blood poisoning or maybe losing his foot or his leg because he didn’t catch this before it got any worse.
Patton came trotting back over the damp ground toward him, some sort of large rodent thing in his mouth. He dropped it at Ori's side, nosed him gently and licked his ear before moving away to shift back to his human form.
Ori started to pull his sock back on, but the pain as he tried to put it back on made his head spin and his stomach lurch.
"You okay?" Patton said behind him. Moments later, he dropped onto the ground beside Ori and began pulling his own socks on. "You don't look good."
"I think there's something wrong with the blister," Ori finally admitted. "I think it might be infected." He should have brought some stuff from the medicine cabinet when they left. Why hadn't he thought of that? He'd thought of everything else, it seemed.
"Let me see." Gently, Patton lifted Ori's leg and laid it across his own, pushing on Ori to turn so the back of his heel faced Patton. "Fuck, have you really been walking on that?" He looked up at Ori with, surprisingly, a dawning respect.
It felt good, a balm to his battered ego, but he couldn't let it go. "No, it was sore yesterday, but not like this." Then, he spoke his biggest fear, the one he was almost afraid to admit, except people died of infections like this, and he'd worked too hard and suffered too much to lose Patton or have Patton lose him. "I think we need to get something better than fresh water and aloe for it."
"You want that antibiotic stuff the humans use? I can go look for a store."
There were plenty of small towns around; it was likely that Patton could find it somewhere. But... "I think I'm a bit past that." He bit his lip. "I mean, we can try it, but look.” He twisted to pull his pant leg out of the way so Patton could see how far the inflammation had spread. “I think I need to see a nurse, or a doctor." He turned apologetic eyes on Patton. "No matter what, I want you to go to Mercy Hills. Even if they figure out that we’re not human and turn me in, I want you to go there."
"I think we just need to make sure they don’t figure it out," Patton gently pulled the cloth back down over the inflamed flesh. “We just won’t tell them who we are. It’s not like we want anyone to know we’re pack anyway, and would they really be expecting to see two shifter boys in their hospital room looking for help?”
“Yeah, okay.” Ori wasn’t going to argue with him—whatever happened would happen. He hoped Patton was right—it felt logical, now that Patton had said the words out loud, more logical than when Ori had been rolling them hopefully around in his head. But if the hospital did figure them out, his only chance of getting away from Perseguir or Jordan Bay later would be if Patton was somewhere else, preferably Mercy Hills, where they seemed to have taken a different stand on omegas and their destinies. He winced when he put his foot down on the ground. "I'll be okay for today. Might be slow, though."
"That's fine." Patton frowned at Ori's foot again. "Maybe we should stop here for the day. You could rest and I could run ahead in wolf form, find a road and follow it until I come to a town so I know where to take you directly." He turned his head to gaze off in the distance, talking to himself. "No, that's not a good idea. You're sick, we need to get you to a doctor as fast as possible. We'll just have to go slow." Patton turned back to Ori and cupped his jaw in one hand. “You up to a walk once we’ve eaten? I’ll carry the packs, you just need to look after yourself.”
“I’ll do my best.” He would, because when he saw himself through Patton’s eyes, he was two feet taller and as strong as an ox, and he wasn’t going to disappoint his mate.
Patton hugged him and pulled out his pocket knife. "I’m going to carry the water, too. It’s heavier than everything else.” He held the knife out in Ori’s direction. “You want to skin this while I look for something to build a fire with?"
"Sure." Ori laid his head on Patton's shoulder. "Thank you."
"For what?"
Ori shrugged. “For not leaving me here alone, maybe? I don’t know—I just kind of think that if this had happened back home, I’ve have been in a lot of trouble and no one would have thought of anything except how it was inconveniencing them.”
“Not your parents. They love you.”
Ori sat up with a sigh. “Yeah, they do, but I can tell they’re ready to have me move on so I’m someone else’s responsibility.” He picked up the rodent and eyed it critically. “You go, I’ll be fine here.” He’d never skinned an animal before—meat came already cut up when you got it from the storehouse—but it couldn’t be that hard. Just take off the parts you didn’t eat, right?
“Be right back,” Patton promised.
Ori sent him off with a casual wave, determined that Patton shouldn’t worry any more than he already was. A prickling chill raced over his skin, but he held back the shudder that tried to follow it, at least until Patton had disappeared around a rise in the ground. Then he pulled his sweatshirt close around him and bent to the awkward task of disemboweling their breakfast.
C H A P T E R T H I R T Y - F I V E
