Page 5 of Knot That Delicate

"Are we all secure?" I asked.

Dylan nodded as he stood at the end of the bed, crossing his arms, watching us with an intense expression as we dried the tiny omega.

"Who do you think did this?" he asked.

"I don't know," I replied. "Clearly some asshole of a man."

Dylan nodded. "I've triple-checked all the locks, and all of the cameras are now running on generator power, so we are secure. I've also set up mobile notifications, so if anyone steps within a mile of our land, we will know about it."

I nodded, relieved that we were going to be somewhat secure while we figured out where the hell this tiny omega had come from.

Dylan cleared his throat before speaking again. "I also took the liberty of taking some of the firearms out and placing them in easier-to-reach areas," he said as he turned around, slowly showing off the bulge in the back of his waistband, where he had clearly placed his firearm.

I hated to admit it, but getting the firearms out was probably a smart decision. We had no clue who was out in the woods. We had bought the cabin with the idea that no one would be around for miles, and over the years, we had never come across a single soul in the woods—other than the odd person who had gotten lost off a camping trail nearly twenty miles away. And even then, that was during the warm, sunny months. During the dead of winter, when the monsoons would hit, we were always on our own.

"Thank you," I said as I turned my attention back to the omega.

Dylan observed her for a moment before speaking. "She's so small," he commented. "Too small."

I nodded in response. "Her ribs are sticking out far too much. She's going to need to be fed properly."

Dylan hummed in agreement. "That's something I can do. I will get some of the beef out of the deep freezer and put it in the slow cooker. She needs some good food."

Asher chuckled lightly. "What if she's a vegetarian?" he asked, looking up at us with a smirk.

Dylan made a startled noise, like the idea that such a cute omega could be a vegetarian was completely abhorrent to him. We were very much meat-and-potatoes guys. We liked a good steak or chicken. Once, as a joke, we had gone to a vegan restaurant in the city, and I'm pretty sure Dylan had been eternally traumatised from the experience.

The alpha in question was furrowing his brow as he glowered at the small omega, like her mere presence was now offensive to him because she could potentially be a vegetarian.

"I'll make some extra vegetables," he said. "And some protein shakes. Yes, that'll be good. Protein shakes will work," he muttered to himself as he wandered out of the room.

Asher and I looked at each other before bursting into laughter. It was nice to have a moment of hilarity among the severity of the situation we found ourselves in.

The entire cabin smelled of earth and a vague fruity scent. The berry-type smell was coming from the omega, but it was hard to make out her exact scent, given the layers of dirt, sweat, and the horrible burnt smell of her fear that coated the room.

One thing I had learned as a medic was that fear had a distinct smell. Working in trauma meant that I had come across some of the worst cases out there, people who were experiencing the most horrific day of their life, and I could distinctly remember how their fear emanated in the form of a potent smell. It was something that hadn’t hit my nostrils in years—until Carter had come bounding into the cabin with a passed-out omega in his arms.

When he had first rushed into the room, I thought he was carrying a child because they were so tiny. But after a quick inspection, there was no denying that she was a woman. Not only a woman—anomega. Despite the layers of dirt, she was beautiful. Her hair was matted, and she was clearly underweight, but there was something about her that called to me. At the sight of her, every single alpha instinct I had suppressed over the past few years had rushed to the surface. I wanted nothing more than to pull her into my arms and protect her from the world.

I couldn’t do that, though. I didn’t know who she was or why she was here, but I knew one thing for certain: judging by the bruising on her face, she was injured. While Carter got to work warming her up, I started checking over her body. Each new bruise made my stomach drop further and further to the floor. She had clearly been to hell and back. Her body was littered with scars and marks, and there was a distinct pattern of bruising around her wrists and ankles. I handled her with the utmost care as I examined every inch of her body, but underneath the surface, a rage simmered like no other. I wanted to find the fucker who had done this and put him into a grave.

When Dylan had mentioned that he had brought out the firearms, I was pleased. I wouldn’t have hesitated to grab one of them and shoot whoever had put this tiny, fragile creature in this state. Of all her injuries, I was most concerned with one of her elbows, which had swollen to double its size, and one of her feet. The cuts on her feet weren’t that severe, but her left ankle had swollen significantly and turned a deep purpley-red colour.

"She’s going to have to stay off this foot for a long time," I told Carter as I gently inspected the injury.

Carter nodded. "I assume she’d been running for a while, judging by the state of her, so she probably tripped over a tree branch or something. You know how bad the woods are outthere," he said, the frown never leaving his face. His hair was slicked back from the rain, his cheeks pink. He had shed his coat and only wore his T-shirt and jeans, but he didn’t seem to care about the chill in the room; he only cared about the omega.

He wasn’t wrong. The woods that surrounded the cabin were dense, allowing us privacy and a kind of isolation we often craved.

When Carter mentioned painkillers, I started to do a mental inventory of what I had. I kept a fairly good stash at the cabin because I knew that getting snowed in or trapped by bad weather was a distinct possibility. Our second year of owning the cabin, we had been stuck for nearly six months, thanks to an epic snowstorm that had lasted what felt like decades.

I had painkillers and everything I needed to bandage up a bad sprain or dislocation. Broken bones would have been more tricky. I could potentially splint them, but that was also asking for trouble, because if I didn’t set the bone correctly, that could lead to potential issues in the future. The tiny omega had been through hell already; I didn’t want to add to her suffering by giving her lifelong issues with a badly set bone.

Her state of unconsciousness was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it was a relief because she wasn’t in pain while I was poking and prodding at her, trying to ascertain just how bad her injuries were. But, on the other hand, I couldn’t ask her how she got the injuries, whether she was allergic to anything, and most importantly, what her name was. I couldn’t keep calling her "the omega" in my head.

I turned to my pack mate, who was stoking the fire. "Hey, Carter, did she tell you her name?"

Carter placed the poker down next to the fire and turned to me. "She didn’t," he said. "I managed to tell her my name, but she didn’t return the favour." He laughed lightly. "She was sassing me more than anything."

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