“I’ll ask the guys to send for an interpreter. Need to make sure you can communicate.”
For some reason the words fill me with fury. How long does he think he can keep me here? I didn’t escape the arena just so I could wait around in this shithole, communicating.
Except … I didn’t escape, did I? Caleb and Jaxon saved me.
No wonder all the other rogues seemed grateful. They don’t have what I have—a mate, left behind in the arena, without me.
“Hey. Take another breath, omega. You’re alright.”
I realize I’m standing, my injured ankle throbbing incessantly. Caleb catches both my wrists right as I attack, and at once, my feral streak dissolves into despair. I sink back into the chair.
“There you go,” he purrs. “Head between your knees. Just breathe.”
Just the sound of his voice is enough to sooth my raging omega, who’s screaming out for her mate, begging for someone—anyone—to mend the gaping wound of his absence.
Caleb puts his hand on my back, rubbing gently, before he rests something in my lap. A … notepad. And a pen.
“Think you can write your name for me?”
What, my legal name? Yeah, right. If he wants to find my family pack, he’s going to have to try a lot harder than that.
Caleb tilts his head as I write. “Faith?”
I put the pen down.
“Okay.” I sense him wanting to ask for more, but he thinks better of it. “Faith. Don’t worry. We’re going to get you the help you need.”
No-one can give me the help I need. But if he’s offering … my inner omega considers it, recalling the anchoring weight of his hand on my spine, and the soothing cadence to his purr.
Maybe it’s worth hearing him out.
Chapter Six
Caleb
Jaxon was right.
Rehab is going to be a fucking nightmare.
The omega from the ring—as beautiful as she is lethal—won’t last a day in any of the refuges. She’s unpredictable. Anti-social. And, as it turns out, non-verbal. It would be downright irresponsible to house her with other omegas.
Which begs the question: where do we place her?
“She can’t talk?” Jaxon blurts out.
I nod, scrutinizing my files. “That’s what I said.”
“But she’s not deaf.”
I look up at him. “Would you prefer she was deaf?”
“What? Of course not! I’m just confused. I didn’t think you could have one and not the other.”
Sirena, our head of intelligence, rolls her chair over to Jaxon’s desk. “Could be psychological, you know. Selective mutism is a fairly common side-effect of trauma.”
“Except it’s usually temporary,” I tell her.
“And?”