🦋 ALTHEA
The fever had teeth.
My head throbbed and my back ached, but I wished that were the worst part of my body revolting against my will. But like everything else in my life, it could always be worse—and right now, it was.
My core ebbed like it had its own heart, walls clenching rhythmically around nothing. It forced my pulse into a sprint that exhausted me before I even rose from bed. Like I had dreaded—and in a way, anticipated—my heat had come. It hit like a fucking club to the noggin.
If food wasn't already unpalatable, now it just twisted my guts. The light from the windows had grown far too bright; the room swam before my eyes as if I'd downed a bottle of liquor.
