Page 155 of Captive Omega

“This tiny scratch?” he drawls.

I nearly smile, then I nod. “Okay. I’d like that.”

It’s a self-defense lesson. I’ll literally be learning how to punch someone in the kidney, yet it sounds like I’m agreeing to go on a date.

Maybe because we’re holding hands?

If someone told me I’d be holding hands with an alpha like this, I’d have laughed in their face until I fell over.

He smiles faintly. “And I’ve been meaning to get Vaughn back for the last one.”

“Is it hard?”

“Not hard. Like most things, it’s just about practice. First you have to…”

Chapter 44

Vaughn

Garrison stands in the hallway, eyes closed, head tipped back, and both hands stuffed in his pockets.

It’s a familiar pose.

Painfully so.

The location is different, a clinic instead of a hospital, but I got used to seeing him stand like this outside Blaine’s room when we weren’t sure if he would live or die.

We barely slept, and we came out the other end like husks of our former selves. It’s the reason Garrison decided to hire an assistant in the first place.

He struggled to find his purpose with Blaine still in a bad way. And me… I’d lost Violet, my little sister. When I wasn’t wishing I’d gone with her, I was trying to get Mom to speak to me.

She came for the funeral, left soon after, and never spoke to me again.

My fault, she said, clutching a soggy tissue at the cemetery. Her last words to me, as tears slid from eyes red rimmed from crying.

It took years for me to stop believing it wasn’t my fault. And only then, because I remembered Violet was like trying to tie up a tornado. What Violet wants to do, she will fucking do it. Some way, somehow.

So it was my fault she joined Lucas Security, but it wasn’t my fault she died. An alpha was to blame for that.

Roman and Frost have parked themselves outside the clinic. I didn’t ask them to. Roman stepped up next to me and told me to go inside. He’d take over the watch.

Frost said he’d do a slow saunter around the building.

When shit hits the fan, everyone pulls together.

I walk over to Garrison, lean on the same wall and rest my shoulder against his. “How is he?”

“Sadie said he was lucky. Five stitches. It could have been worse.”

I know.

I cut the vest off him and dug out the bullet buried in it.

“We nearly lost them,” Garrison says quietly. “If Blaine hadn’t moved when he did… I promised her she would be safe. That I would protect her.”

“Blaine, Resa, and the baby are okay.”

He focuses bleak eyes on me. “And the next time they aren’t?”

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