Page 134 of Captive Omega

I wrap my arms around my knees. “Have you ever been punched in the kidney?”

“Once. Actually, by accident. Vaughn got a lucky shot in.” He winces. “I went down like a house of cards. He nearly died laughing.”

I can actually picture that happening right here. Though in my imagination Blaine is wearing what he is now, a turtleneck and black sweatpants. If he was sparring with Vaughn, that must have been before turtlenecks became his uniform.

Giving a shit about an alpha hurting is new. I look away, not sure what to do with my guilt that I’ve pushed him into giving self-defense lessons he didn’t want to. “Vaughn shouldn’t have set you up like this.”

“Don’t judge him too harshly. He’s trying to help.”

“Help?”

He nods. “This is his less than subtle way of helping me. Probably you too, given he knows it’s easier for me to teach directly than through someone else.”

“It sounds like something you’ve done before. Teaching.”

“It is. I taught Vaughn and… someone else.” His eyes slide from me to the drum kit.

Violet. Why do I think he was going to say Vaughn’s sister?

His scent snakes toward me then. Pine, sandalwood, and rich vanilla.

My fault. I’ve been getting better at breathing in through my mouth and out of my nose. But Violet distracts me and I inhale through my nose and want to crawl over to his side of the mat, press my nose to his throat and inhale some more.

I push myself to my feet and make my retreat before I give in to this growing need. Because I would not stop at inhaling. I would need to touch him.

I’m halfway to the door when he speaks. “It’s hard to stop feeling that way.”

“What way?” I peer over my shoulder.

He’s still not looking at me, and I’m not sure if he’s speaking to me as much as he’s thinking out loud. “That touch doesn’t equal pain.”

I know exactly what he means.

In my heart and in my head, the same certainty plays on repeat: all alphas will hurt me and they deserve to die. I can’t trust even one of them.

That has been my truth, my world, and my reality for so long. But that isn’t what I’m starting to think anymore.

Blaine touched me, correcting me in practice, even though he’s learned touch equals pain.

Maybe his conditioning is starting to crack the way mine is.

Chapter 39

Resa

My cell phone taunts me.

I tucked it in a drawer, even turned it off before I stuffed it in there, wanting to bury it from view, to pretend it wasn’t there.

I’m tempted to call Mom and Dad, to let them know where I am. But they wouldn’t stay away, and I’d be putting them at risk. Until Nathaniel Lang and O’Brien are rotting in jail, it’s not safe to go home.

I’ve also been thinking about calling Henry.

Not to yell at him.

Okay, maybe not only to yell at him.

It’s hard not to feel betrayed that I disappeared and he just moved on. Maybe he tried to find me or he thought I was dead. That doesn’t chase away the anger, though.

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