Page 33 of The Butcher

“Is your Pap an alpha?”

“Well, yeah, but?—“

She narrows her eyes and crosses her arms against her chest. “And were your Grampa George and your Gramma Lily omegas?”

I nod slowly and lean away from her. “Yes, Nan, but?—“

“Then I think I’m pretty goddamn qualified to determine the designation of the dying female you brought in, especially while I was elbow deep in her blood.” I open my mouth, again, but she raises her hand. “Ah, don’t you say one thing to argue. You can’t anyway, and not just because I know an omega when I see one.”

Lifting my hands in defeat, I slump against the chair and sigh. “You win.”

“Damn straight. Now you sit here and stew on that while you keep an eye on her. I need to pee, eat, and see where the hell Pap is because if he hitched a ride with Nash and your father, I’m gonna lose my mind on three men who’ve forgotten who the real head of this family is.”

With that, my grandmother storms out of the room but doesn’t slam the door, no matter how much she wants to. Instead, she pulls it closed slowly and carefully, glaring at me the entire time, right up until her pretty, wrinkled mug disappears.

God, that woman is scary.

Scary, and usually right.

Turning slowly, I focus on the woman’s face, trying to see what Nan saw, knowing it wasn’t about that particular sense at all.

A fucking omega.

The first one to come to Obsidian since that goddamn tragedy took place.

We aren’t stupid enough to think the only omegas out there are the ones who are being trafficked or kidnapped or whatever, but the ones who aren’t must know about our town, and they steer clear of heading this way because of how close we are to the ranch.

Randomly finding one in a ravine doesn’t exactly count as arriving on purpose, but she’s still the first in a long fucking time, and it’s adding another layer to an already fucked up scenario.

I sigh as my eyes move over her face, tracing the lines that aren’t swollen, following the bruises along what must be a pretty bone structure. Scooting the chair closer, I look at her vitals on the machine across from me, watching the steady rhythm of her heart, the oxygen level that is definitely too low, the random spikes in her BP that indicate she’s feeling pain.

I yawn and scrub my hand over my skull trim, the weight of the last twenty four hours starting to press down on me, and when I blow out a breath only to do it again, that’s when I smell what Nan must have.

Poppies.

Specifically red poppies, fresh ones blooming at the height of spring.

Breathing deeper, my eyes slide shut as more of that scent fills my lungs, invading my senses, and seeping right down to my bones, and?—

“Fuck.” My eyes pop open as I shoot to my feet, the wingback flying backward and crashing into the card table, everything that was sitting on top of it now scattered all over the floor.

I trip over the chair as I stumble toward the door, my heart rate spiking the same as the female’s, her monitor beeping loudly as her breathing picks up speed. My back hits the wall and I scramble for the knob, feeling around behind me until the fucking thing gooses me in the ass and the second it’s in my grip, I turn it so hard it busts right out of the wood holding it in place.

“Bram?” Clayton says as he quickly rounds the corner, nearly slamming into me as I all but run toward the back porch. “Bramley, what’s going on?”

I burst through the screen door like a bat out of hell and start running. I have no idea where I’m going or what I’m doing, but I push my legs as hard as I can until I feel like they might collapse.

Dropping to my knees, I draw in lungful after lungful of the crisp winter air, trying desperately to get the scent of poppies out of my nose, but it’s too late.

Not only am I going to smell that scent forever, I’m going to feel it.

In my body, my bones, that fragrance is burned into my very soul, and there is no escaping what that means.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t escape, period, and there has to be a way to do that because the chances of the first fucking omega I’ve seen in fifteen years being my goddamn scent match are slim. Slim to fucking none, even if fate is getting a kick out of watching this go down.

I don’t need a fucking match, and that match doesn’t fucking need me.

Chapter Eight

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