Page 39 of Captive Omega

No.

I mean to change the world.

Chapter 11

Resa

The stairs nearly defeat me.

I consider sitting and shuffling down them on my ass to save my throbbing feet, but I manage them. All I can say is whoever invented the balustrade deserves every award going because they are a saint. I hobble into an ultra-modern black and white kitchen, immediately ducking as something hurtles toward me.

It slams into the wall beside me, setting off every instinct to run.

I’m half out before I realize a pancake is sliding down the wall.

“What—” I swallow my panic as the pancake hits the ground, “—the hell.”

A man in his late forties or early fifties, sitting at a long black wood table, lowers the plate he’s holding up with a sad sigh.

“See. Told you your aim was off. I’ll show you how it’s done,” Vaughn tells a man with platinum white-blond hair and dark brown eyes standing beside him at the stove. “Grab a seat, Resa.”

The white-haired man looks at me and his expression is apologetic. “He’s a show-off, in case you didn’t know. And, uh, sorry about the pancake.”

With my heart still racing and two alphas at the dining table, I hover in the doorway, not keen to enter. “Is no one getting that pancake?”

“Lex!” I jump when Vaughn yells as he pours pancake batter into a smoking hot silver skillet.

Garrison has his head bowed over a newspaper. He turns a page, muttering, “Volume. Vaughn.”

A guy with shoulder-length pine green hair in a baggy white shirt and knee-length blue skater shorts rises from the table. He’s busy typing on his cell phone, but he shoots me a rapid glance. “Morning.”

I back up as he approaches. “Morning.”

He stops texting long enough to scoop up the broken pancake from the floor and tosses it into the trash before returning to the dining table.

Vaughn is busy at the stove, and I’m still not eager to sit at that dining table. I have his emergency knife in my right hand, but I have an alpha covertly watching me.

Blaine, my other scent match, is in a mustard yellow turtleneck. He has the neck pulled up high, but it doesn’t quite hide the scar on his cheek.

It looks like a burn scar. Old, but a bad one.

As he butters a piece of toast, his black-rimmed glasses slide down his nose, and I get the unmistakable sense he’s paying more attention to me than his task.

“Plate!” Vaughn booms.

I jump again.

Garrison mutters something inaudible and pinches the bridge of his nose.

The older man, who sighed sadly before, lifts his plate high as Vaughn flips a pancake and it lands with a splat.

“That’s how you do it.” Vaughn beams as he places the pan back on the stove and triumphantly flicks the heat off. He walks over to the dining table, taking the plated pancake from the older man’s hands and motions me to the black leather bar stools at the kitchen island. “You’re over here, bloodthirsty omega.”

I blink. “What?”

“It’s the knife.” Blaine pushes his glasses up with his index finger, and although he looks in my direction, he doesn’t meet my gaze. I didn’t notice it before, but his voice is too raspy to be natural, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s because the burn on his cheek extends down his throat. “Don’t worry. It’s a compliment.”

My attention swings back to Vaughn.

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