Enforcing Boundaries

Chapter 22

Lachlan

I groggily groaned and blinked, trying to wake up. It had been like this for too long – waking with my throat burning from thirst and feeling like I had to fight for every ounce of consciousness.

Magnus was here sometimes, I knew that much, but the bed was too cold for him to be here now. Still, there was a glass of water waiting for me on the nightstand next to an apple and a granola bar I was sure he had left there. I gratefully chugged the water down and lay back, shutting my eyes and waiting for that persistent grogginess to drag me back under.

This time, though, it didn't. In fact, I almost felt like... I was waking up. Maybe. Just a bit.

"Are you okay?" someone asked. Definitely not Magnus. I focused on the source of the sound – Luin.

"Yeah," I said, and it was true. I felt kind of achy and my gums hurt like they'd been shredded, though they were whole when I ran my tongue along them. There were still tendrils of sleep trying to drag me under, but they weren't so insistent now and I felt like they were growing weaker by the second.

My nose burned and my head and chest ached. I could smell too much and my own body odor was hard to take. "How long was I out?" I asked.

Luin lifted one shoulder in a graceful shrug. "It's three days after you were infected. You've been in and out."

I thought back, trying to fit my brief snatches of waking to such a wide span of time. I could remember glasses of water, food being put in my hand, and occasionally making the grueling trip to the bathroom. I could not remember a single shower.

No wonder I reeked.

"I'm going to go clean up," I told Luin.

"I'll be here if you need me," he said.

The walk to the bathroom wasn't so bad this time. I didn't feel like I was going to fall over with each step and it felt like my legs could really hold me. I cautiously concluded that perhaps the worst of the transformation was behind me.

I had thought the shower would make me feel loads better, but instead it was confusing. Once the overwhelming scent of my unwashed body was gone, I realized that every smell was too strong, not just my own. It felt like it should be hard to process all the extra sensory information, but it was easy to choose which scents to focus on and which to relegate to the background of my mind.

I took in the scent of the water that streamed from my shower, but it was easy to tuck that away and focus on other, more interesting ones. My shampoo was a little on the harsh side, but it, too, was easy to dismiss.

The really persistent scents came when I made it back into my bedroom. I was already more used to this enhanced smelling and no longer distracted by how badly I needed a shower, and it became all too apparent that my bed smelled divine. The ache in my chest intensified and I sniffed at the air until I honed in on the source.

The blanket on top of my bed, the one that had appeared days ago, it smelled like... I didn't know how to place the scent, how to describe it. There was no comparison I could make because in my experience, it was utterly unique. I had never smelled anything quite like this and I had never felt the way it was making me feel. It awakened a need in me I never would have imagined possible before this moment, before feeling it myself. I clutched the blanket against myself and buried my nose in it, closing my eyes and taking in another pull of the scent. It was... warm, and even as it sharpened the pain in my chest, I felt soothed.

"I've been wondering when your new senses would kick in," Luin said.

I smiled a bit. "Enjoying the show?" He looked uncertain and uncomfortable, which just made me smile wider. "It's okay. I'm really grateful for you being here all this time."