Page 24 of Captive Omega

He continues riffling through the contents of a bulging first aid kit he tipped onto the bed. “Thought you’d appreciate it. So how’d you wind up hurting your feet?”

“I had to do something stupid to escape,” I admit. Even now I struggle to believe I leapt from that window. If I didn’t have O’Brien at the door and Rupert’s blood on my hands, I couldn’t have done it.

He makes a soft sound in the back of his throat as he pulls out a pair of blue rubber gloves. “Doesn’t sound stupid to me if you got yourself out.”

If only you knew.

“I guess,” I concede.

“And the thing you were escaping from?” His tone is light, as if the answer means nothing to him.

I think it does. Sure, he saved my life in that alley, but do I intend to tell him my life story?

No.

A soft knock at the door interrupts me before I can think up a lie.

Vaughn swivels his head toward it. I just tense up.

“I brought some warm water and clean rags. We’re downstairs if you need anything.” It’s the older sounding alpha. Garrison. And I swear he puts more emphasis on downstairs than he needed to.

Vaughn tosses the rubber gloves back into the first aid kit and rises. He crosses over to the door and takes a steaming gray bowl of water and white rags from the towering alpha, who must feel my stare but never looks at me.

Garrison hands the water and rags over, closes the door, and that’s it. He’s gone again.

“I can do it,” I say, reaching for the rag and promptly tipping out of my chair.

“I’ve got it.” Vaughn nudges me back before I can fall and, after dipping a cloth in the water, wrings it out.

With soft, gentle strokes he soon reduces the bowl of clean water to a dark, dirty one. The city’s streets must be black for my feet to have been so bad.

I focus on his bent head. His hair is thick, a brighter gold under the room’s lights than it was on the streets and hits his shoulders, smelling faintly of coconut. Beautiful hair. So beautiful it makes me embarrassed about the state of my filthy feet.

“Thanks.” I pull my dirty, cut feet away from him before he realizes how disgusting they are.

“Wait a second.” His grip is loose around my ankle, but it stops me. He spends even longer studying the soles of my feet, brow furrowed in concentration. “I think I can see colored glass. That’s going to be a bitch to get out. Are you sure you don’t want a doctor?”

I don’t even have to think of my answer. “No.”

He gives me a brief look, then returns to studying my foot. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“You’re not worried I’ll use this knife on you?” I ask.

He releases my foot and resumes rummaging through the first aid kit. “Nope.” His eyes flick up. “This is going to involve picking glass out of your foot.”

“I assume that’s going to hurt?”

“You assume right. I’m efficient at quick and dirty fixes. Garrison is better at first aid. He had the patience to go through a proper intensive course, but a doctor would be even better.”

Garrison. The alpha in his mid to late thirties with the deep voice, commanding presence and the sense he was in charge. The one who didn’t seem to care that I have a fiancé I want to get back to. We’re scent matches, so he should have had a problem with it. A big one.

Which means he’s lying. I need to be careful he doesn’t trap me here.

“He’s not coming anywhere near me.”

No alpha is.

I’ve been missing for two years, and returning pregnant with another man’s child is going to be a big ask for Henry to accept. I didn’t have a choice, but this baby is mine, and there’s no question in my mind about keeping it.

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