Page 230 of Captive Omega

“Yes, I know betas don’t chomp on throats, but I could do some chomping,” he declares, winking at me. “Just say the word.”

I grin at him.

A claiming bite was always something that terrified me. To be under the power of an alpha who could order me to do whatever he wanted was a fate worse than death.

But now? Now the thought of having their marks on me, of other people seeing them, and knowing I’m theirs and they are mine… That sounds like something I might want.

“Well, a bite might not be the worst thing that ever happened,” I say slowly.

“We’ll talk about it again.” Garrison’s eyes are intense. “After the baby is born and before your next heat. But only if that’s something you want.”

“Okay,” I agree. “We’ll talk about it again.”

“I like Nola-Grace Lucas,” Vaughn says.

“So do I,” Garrison agrees.

“And me,” Blaine says.

“I fell asleep on a lounger beside the pool one summer,” Garrison says suddenly. He’s studying the crib as he speaks, so he confuses the hell out of me. “It had been a long day, and I’d just finished up an exhausting case, so I was out cold. When something crashed on top of me, I thought I was under attack.”

He looks at me as Vaughn and Blaine stare at the ground, their shoulders shaking, which confuses me even more.

I lift my head from Blaine’s shaking shoulder and meet Garrison’s blank gaze. Where is he going with this story? “Uh, okay.”

He resumes staring at the crib. “My first instinct was to fight. I didn’t know at the time that Vaughn had thrown his new flamingo float toward the pool and it landed on me. So that was what I was fighting. Naturally, since this happened next to the pool, I slipped and fell in. When I eventually climbed out, Vaughn and Blaine had nearly killed themselves laughing.”

I haven’t taken a breath since he admitted to fighting a flamingo pool float. My face is hot, I’m fast running out of air, and I’m shaking as I desperately try to contain my laughter. When he looks at me, I nearly lose it.

“And that is the story of the flamingo float, which occurred on the day we decided to be a pack. Now you know the story we must all take to our graves.”

Those last words delivered with devastating seriousness nearly kill me. Vaughn and Blaine pointing their laughing faces at me is what finally breaks me. I laugh so hard tears stream down my face and my side hurts.

After I’ve stopped crying with laughter, Vaughn, Garrison, and Blaine make me breakfast and look at me like I’m superwoman when I build a dresser in under twenty minutes.

I spent two years imagining what my life would look like when I escaped my captors.

Nothing comes close to this.

Epilogue 1 – Resa

Two Weeks Later

It’s the weekly Lucas Security meeting, and Blaine is late.

It’s a concern. Though not for Garrison, who doesn’t seem the least bit worried.

We all went with him to his annual checkup last week, and he’s been quieter than usual ever since. He seemed to be getting better with touch, and we spend most nights together in my nest. But maybe it’s too much touch. Or too soon. Or his annual checkup opened up old wounds that have set him back.

When Sadie suggested a therapist she thinks would be a good fit for me, I didn’t immediately run from the room or shut the conversation down. I said I would meet her, just for a bit, and we’d go from there. Mostly because I’ve finally accepted that my nightmares aren’t going to disappear the longer I ignore them.

I told Blaine. Not about what I’d been through, but that I was thinking about seeing a therapist and he said he would think about it too.

What if it was me? What if I’m to blame for this?

“Blaine is never late.” Vaughn gives me a brief kiss and moves me off his lap and onto the chair beside Garrison. “I should?—”

“He’ll be here,” Garrison says. “Sit.”

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