Chapter 11: I'm thrown awake from the horrid images in my mind. The sudden movement affects the clenching muscles of my stomach and my hand grips at the sensitive area us a bout of nausea runs through me. Within seconds warm arms are wrapped around me and everything moves so quickly the nausea comes up my throat and into the toilet I'm placed in front of. Ryder's hand holds my hair back as I retch up the liquid contents in my stomach, his hand moves from the small of my back to slide over the part of my stomach where I can feel the pain of my abdomen. "It's just the drugs baby, it'll go away when your body gets used to it." I'm sat in his lap leaning into his chest as he wipes at my mouth with a bit of toilet paper. Shaking my head at him I try to remember what happened in the haze of the night before. I remember Alexander and him telling Ryder to get me pregnant while I had no idea what was happening and the fertility needles that were given to me by Eleanor, the reason behind my reaction. Looking down I see Ryder's hand over my exposed stomach the faint pink line is all that's left of the wound that caused me so much pain for the first week of me being here and there is no flesh memory of the three needles entering my abdomen. "How long do I have to have them?" Ryder lifts me up to walk me over to sit me down beside the sink. He doesn't look like he wants to answer me as he runs a face washer under the cool stream of water he just turned on from the faucet. Stepping between my legs he wipes the cool cloth over my forehead. "Two weeks maximum depending on how well your body takes to it." He smiles at me when I lean into the cloth he holds to my face. "Better?" Nodding my head gently at him so not trigger another bout of nausea I try to push away his ever so caring hand but he just pulls it away and continues to wipe at the beads of sweat pooling on my forehead. He drops the hand from my head for a second to run the wash back underneath the cool water before he picks me back up to wrap me loosely back into the light sheets of the bed as he places the cool washcloth over my forehead. My eyes drop closed and he softly runs his hand over my cheek before he presses a lingering kiss to the tip of my nose. My eyes blink open lightly when his weight leaves the bed next my hip. The bed is still made on the opposite side of me and when I look over I see that he's laid back on the three seated couch, it's set up with a pillow beneath his head a sheet over the top of him. "Ryder?" He looks over at me when I push my croaky voice to carry across the room. "My wolf gets unsettled being away from you. I can't sleep when I'm not in the room with you, I'll keep a distance if it makes you uncomfortable but I'm not leaving." "Wi-will you sleep in the bed with me?" I don't try to push myself up from the soft mattress because the pain that I still feel in the tight clenched muscles of my stomach is getting unbearable. "Are you sure? I don't want to make you uncomfortable and if I sleep next to you my wolf and I are going to want to be as close to you as we possibly can." Watching him carefully I try to think of how I'm going to feel if I wake up being wrapped into his arms again. This morning when I felt the warmth of his arms around me I was shocked and there was only a sliver of unease in me but Maxon was in the room with us and I'm not sure if it was him that I was feeling threatened by. "I'm sure." I whisper knowing that he'll hear. He smiles a small smile before he moves over to the other side of the bed my eyes following his naked torso with every single step as the taunt muscles move in his abdomen. When he pulls the sheet back and gets in next to me there's still a wide space between us because of the width of the oversized king bed. Ryder's hand hits something above the bed and the dark curtains close over on both sides of us with the light of the crackling fire coming though the small gaps and illuminating the defined features of his face. My eyes start to close as I let the cool washcloth settle the fever that I'm running and try to ignore the pain from the fertility injections that I was given. The throbbing is minimised when I feel Ryder's hand slide into mine that's closest to me. I'm comfortable with this contact that he gives me with a small squeeze of his hand I welcome back the sleep. *** Jumping from my sleep again I try to even my breathing out not to alert my guards to the alarming pictures running through my mind that plague me every night. The curtains are closed around the bed and there is only a tiny bit of natural sunlight entering through the gaps. The warmth of what was keeping away the nightmares is gone. Ryder had woken me up this morning with a kiss to my forehead to wake me up early this morning, all I could do was groan and pull the sheet in around tighter to me. He had told me that he had to go to a meeting and then he left allowing me to sleep with a kiss back to my lips. The sound of my breathing must be easily heard now as Ellie opens the curtain and sits down next to me with a raise of her eyebrows. "Morning my queen," she says with a laugh. Shaking my head I allow her to help me to sit up. She's in a nice casual blue dress with blue polka dots, the sleeves reach to just above her elbows and have white cuffs to go with the white curved collar. Her dark hair is curled and pulled up into a ponytail, a white ribbon wrapped in a bow around the base of it.