WILD

twenty four

Lorena didn't put up much of a fight when Orion brought her to the pack nurse and told him he wanted a checkup for her. However, she was a bit hesitant when he asked Orion to leave the room and then asked her to remove all of her clothing so that he could check her over completely.

Orion tried to let go of her hand and leave the room to give her privacy, but she held on tightly, making it difficult for him to go. He stopped pulling and sighed, running his hand over her sweaty forehead gently. "Lorena, please." She immediately felt guilty at the look of concern in his eyes. "Let him look you over. You don't look too well. I'm worried about you. You don't want me to worry, do you?"

She slowly shook her head and let go of his hand. He gave her a quick kiss on her cheek and left the room.

With Orion gone, she felt so exposed. She gave the nurse a dirty look and then crossed her arms over her chest. The nurse chuckled and looked back down at his clipboard.

"How are you feeling, Lorena?"

She scoffed. "Wouldn't you like to know."

The nurse playfully rolled his eyes. "I would, actually. It's actually my job to know, and if you want to get any better, you should tell me how you feel."

Lorena bit down hard on the inside of her cheek in annoyance. "I feel fine."

The nurse crossed his arms and sighed. "You don't look fine."

"Well thanks." The girl narrowed her eyes. "Who are you again?"

The short man grinned. "I'm Benny, the pack nurse. I want to help you feel better Lorena. First, we have to do a physical checkup and then I'm going to do a blood test. For me to do all that, you need to take your clothes off."

Lorena wanted to disobey and be stubborn until the nurse was forced to get Orion, but she didn't want to trouble her mate any more than she already had. She stood up and disrobed, throwing her clothes into a pile on the floor. She layed herself back down on the bed, irritated with the day's turn of events that led her here.

She blushed as Benny touched and prodded at her and almost fainted from embarrassment when he spread her thighs and helped put her legs into stirrups so that he could have a look down below. She groaned and threw her arm across her face to shield herself from any extra embarrassment she was feeling.

Thankfully, Benny was quick about it and didn't draw it out to make it worse for her. He hummed and stood up when he was done, taking his gloves off and helping Lorena put her legs back where they were. He walked over to Lorena's side again with a thermometer. He ran it over her temple and wrote the readings down on his board.

Once he was done with everything including her blood sample, he handed her a gown. "Put this on and I'll be right back."

She nodded, quickly covering herself. "Can you bring Orion in too?"

Benny nodded, smiling kindly. "Will do, Luna."

She got back into the bed, which was surprisingly comfortable, and waited. The room made her nervous. There was no decor and no television. It was just extremely boring.

The door opened and Orion came through, looking relieved. He sat down in the chair beside her and placed his palm on her head before quickly taking it away. "Benny was right. You're hot. Do you feel okay?"

She nodded. "I guess." It wasn't exactly true. She felt nauseous and she was breaking out into a cold sweat. "I'm fine."

Orion didn't believe her, but he knew that pressing her for more wouldn't end too well. "Good. Then maybe we can talk about what happened?"

Lorena scowled at him, crossing her arms over her chest. "No."

"Lorena, something was clearly bothering you, and you need to tell me so that I can resolve the problem immediately." Orion stared at her sternly. "Was it something I did?"

Lorena had to think about that for a moment. It could have been. She shook her head. "No! Of course not."

"Is the training too much for you? If you need me to pull you out of it, I will."

She shrugged. "I mean, it hurt that you didn't pick me, but no, training is fine." As she remembered that she hadn't been picked and Gen had, she grew angry again. She was slightly pissed at Orion for it, but he probably didn't even realize the feud that was going on between the two of them.

Orion sighed. "I'm sorry about that, okay? I didn't want you in any danger."

She scoffed. "Wow. So you're saying that I can't handle myself?"

"No, I just don't want to take any unnecessary risks. I need you here. If anything should ever happen to me, you should be able to take over for me. Both of us don't need to be in danger at the same time."

"That's stupid."

"To you." Orion rolled his eyes at the childish attitude she was giving him. "Now, back to my question: what happened today? You seem different. I'm not leaving you alone until you tell me exactly what's been going on with you. In detail."

Lorena refrained from growling in frustration. If she told him, he would confront Gen, only proving to Gen that she was weak and couldn't handle herself.

"I'm waiting."

"What's it to you?" She yelled. Orion was surprised at her outburst, which initially caused him to back down a little bit. After getting over his shock, he stood up, towering over her and making her feel like the omega she was.

"Don't talk to me like that. Watch your tone. I'm only looking out for you, Lorena. Why won't you tell me what's going on with you?"

"You don't really fucking care!" At that moment, Benny opened the door to enter the room, but after seeing the intense stare the couple was giving each other and feeling the tension in the room, he quickly exited and shut the door. He would just come back later.

Orion slapped a hand over his face. "Here we fucking go! Where did you draw up that conclusion, Lorena?"

"Because! You put me through this hell! You forced me to be your mate! I didn't want this. I want my family. I want to be free and run and have no rules and...you- you stole that from me! I keep trying to forgive you because I want to move on from this, but I can't! Not when everything I do here is wrong or when I have to figure out how to adjust to everything damn near by myself! You brought me here, but you put me in the care of someone else. I hardly see you!"

Orion was downright confused. "So you're mad because you don't see me as often as you'd like to?"

She groaned, dragging her hand over her face dramatically. "No! I'm mad because you don't take as much responsibility as you should! You brought me here and you don't help me or show me anything and you've subjected me to that bitch, Gen, and you humiliated me by not picking me and picking her instead! Fuck you, Orion!"

Her eyes widened as she noticed a cloud over Orion's expression. She knew she had been mean and she knew she said too much. Maybe she shouldn't have snapped at him like that. And she definitely shouldn't have let the situation with Gen slip out of her mouth. If Orion was as smart as the thought he was, he would realize that he wasn't actually the problem and Gen was, and that was a problem for her.

He sat back down, suddenly just as angry as she had just been.

"Gen, huh?"

Lorena paled.

"Tell me everything. Now."