Craved Mate: Cybermates by Ayers, Candace (good short books .txt) 📕

leaned close and used my nose to scan her neck, arm, shoulder…

“Hypoglycemia. She’s hypoglycemic.” Which made a lot of sense thinking back. Her symptoms of sweating, confusion, perspiration, and lack of coordination were all symptoms of acute hypoglycemia.

“Is she a diabetic, sir?”

“I-I don’t... I suppose. Yes.” She must be. “Just get her some glucose.” According to the identification badge clipped to her scrub top, I was talking to an RN named Stacey Thomas. “Please, Stacey.”

Nurse Stacey Thomas’s features softened and she patted my arm. “We’ll check her blood sugar right away and get an IV of dextrose going. Don’t you worry. Now, please return to the reception area before I get my behind chewed.”

I turned and headed back slowly, hating that Mel was being taken out of my view. My knees felt weak.

This was what it meant to care deeply for a human.

I slowly backed away, putting myself in a corner of the waiting room. I sat and hung my head in my hands, trying to keep the nausea from bubbling up in my stomach.

I gripped my head. I’d been in this exact room with Heather as she waited for Warren’s last surgery. I remembered her pacing, wringing her hands, pulling her hair, and praying to a god that she’d never spoken to before, all because her mate was human and easily broken.

Every time I shut my eyes, all I could see was Warren’s wheelchair, but instead of it being filled by Warren, it held Mel—slumped over, pale and sickly thin, as she battled for her life.

I managed to hold out until Nurse Stacey came out and confirmed that Mel’s blood sugar level had been dangerously low.

I went home and snooped through Mel’s purse. Sure enough, I found an insulin Flexpen and a glucose monitor. I gathered all of that and Mel’s remaining clothing and dropped everything off at the nurses’ station.

I considered stopping into Mel’s room, but at the thought of seeing her in a hospital bed, hysteria threatened to choke me, so I got the hell out of there.

I needed some breathing room before I ended up a patient there myself.

18

Mel

Waking up in a hospital threw me. It took me several seconds to process where I was, and several more before I put two and two together and figured out how I’d gotten here.

I remembered the best sex of my life, Mac turning into a great big wolf, then there was a fuzzy memory of feeling dizzy, getting up from the bed…then nothing. Ugh. I must have crashed. How stupid of me. I should have checked my blood sugar right after the exertion of sex.

I was released after a couple of hours. There was nothing wrong with me, not once my blood sugar was stabilized.

After a full twenty-four hours, a text, and a voicemail later, I was forced to accept that Mac was not that into me.

He hadn’t responded to my text. Or my voicemail.

I considered going to his home or the fire station to confront him face to face, but I refused to be that woman, one who didn’t know a brush off when she got one.

It hurt, though. I wish he’d just tell me why. Even a text—the hospital trip freaked me out, the sex sucked, you snore, anything was better than being ghosted.

He’d taken me to the hospital, dropped me off, and washed his hands of me. Worse, I hadn’t seen that coming.

A weight settled on my chest; an ache settled in my stomach. Both refused to budge. I didn’t know what it said about me that I cared more about a brush off by Mac than I did about ending an almost year-long relationship with Adam.

That one night with Mac had felt life altering. Beyond the sex, there was a connection. One I’d never felt with another soul before.

It was clearly one sided.

No.

I didn’t believe that.

None of this made sense. Mac had feelings for me. I was sure of it. No one was that good an actor. Yet Mac had dropped me off at the hospital and hadn’t looked back.

Maybe he thought I had something contagious, and was angry that I could’ve gotten him and Ame sick. No, that didn’t make sense either. He could have cleared that up with a text or phone call asking how I was doing.

One thing was certain. I should have taken better care of myself. But, to be fair, I had never had sex that had inspired so much physical exertion before, so I hadn’t thought to check my sugar level.

When Ben and Pierce decided to stay on the island an extra couple of days, Ingrid called off work saying she was sick. She claimed that if she was about to get fired anyway, she might as well stay and enjoy her last hurrah, as she put it. She didn’t fool me. I knew she stayed to have another shot at Pierce. She all but worshipped my brother, who was a pussy hound and nowhere near good enough for her.

When Pierce chartered a fishing excursion and took off this morning before Ingrid had even rolled out of bed, she was crestfallen. We met at Latte Love for coffee.

“Maybe we should go down to the beach.”

“Not a bad idea.” Ingrid smiled and looked me over. “You look like a day of lounging on a beach chair in the sun might do you good.”

“There’s a place called Bayfront Diner near West Public Beach that the locals say has great food. We could grab a couple of sandwiches and stop at a convenience store for some cold soft drinks and spend the day enjoying sun, sand, and surf.”

“That sounds amazing, actually.”

She went to her hotel to get changed and I hurried next door to Rise and Shine.

What a great idea. I couldn’t wait to feel the sun on my body. I was digging around for my swimsuit top when my cell rang.

It was Ingrid. “Mel! You’re not going to believe this. Pierce just came back from