Page 6 of Untamed Omega

“Yes. I…” Kellan’s face turned paler by the second.

“Go on,” I coaxed. “I can handle it.”

Locke chose that moment to walk in. Locke often came off as cold or aloof, but he was intuitive. He reached for Kellan’s hand and drew him away from the table. “Omega mine, come on now. Let’s get out of our healer’s hair so he can help this man.”

Kellan cast me an apologetic look, but I offered him a sympathetic smile and they left without another word. Dipping a soft cloth in warm water and antibacterial soap, I cleaned the omega head to toe. Scars that resembled cuts and burns turned up everywhere, and his feet were damaged badly. He’d likely been barefoot in the facility, and the forest floor and whatever roadways he’d been on hadn’t done them any favors. He needed nutrition and fluids, but he might not be able to hold down solid food. I needed to get a better selection of items in the vehicles that might pick up escapees to help them start to rehydrate. What they liked to snack on during their vigils did not suit someone like this omega. He’d been hurt too badly, half starved. Kellan told me he’d had adequate water in his captivity, but it didn’t seem as if this one had.

My bear roared inside me. He was angry. We were all angry. How dare they. How fucking dare they.

The omega didn’t even flinch as I inserted an IV line into the curve of his inner elbow. I added a small bit of pain medicine. It wouldn’t take much to help him with his lack of weight. When he woke up, we would have to make sure he ate. Otherwise, a feeding tube might be in order. I didn’t want to do that to him, but I had to make him well.

After setting up the IV, I covered him with a warm blanket. In this state, even his animal could do little to keep up his temperature. I added a heating pad for good measure. Then I pulled up a chair beside him and held his hand for the rest of the night.

Chapter Six

Sam

Warmth on my face woke me from a dead sleep. Sunshine crept over the bed where I had fallen asleep. I’d called it a table in my mind, thinking of it as a medical office, but now that I was more focused, I realized it was basically a bed, but the medical equipment on a table along the wall still made me feel uncomfortable.

Reggie, who brought me here, had called it a sanctuary. But I didn’t know him or anyone else in this place. Wherever it was. Disorientation had been my life since the day I accepted that ride from a stranger who offered me a bottle of water from his cooler in the back seat. He hadn’t even selected the bottle, just told me to help myself. I took two sips and passed out, not waking up until the gates to the lab had closed behind me. Rather, I assumed they had, but the door to my cell certainly had. I never saw the route or what direction we went.

Either every bottle in that cooler held the same drug, or he was playing a game and seeing who Fate wanted to send to torment. But it had to be the former because Fate didn’t play games like that. I’d had my own encounter with Fate not long before the tragedy took me away, had been on my way to have a meal with my mate when my car stalled out on the side of the road. In such a hurry to get to him, I’d made a decision that ruined it all.

And I had some blank spots in my memory. Confusion that made it hard to remember details from before I was taken, mostly just emotions like guilt and loss. A scent surrounded me, one that was bringing those emotions to the front of my mind.

But I couldn’t place it, and that fact frustrated me beyond my ability to cope. It was important that I remember, butremember what? My captivity was solid in my mind, vivid even, but that was not where I wanted my thoughts to live. I had not been saved so I could dwell on the past.

I felt ready to move forward and hoped to do it without these annoying gaps in memory.

“Well, look who’s awake.” The healer came into the room and approached my bed. “And I bet you’re hungry.”

“Starved.”

“Then how about some breakfast?”

Chapter Seven

Markus

“Good morning.” I entered to find my patient awake. “I brought you some scrambled eggs, lean ham, and toast. A few beautiful ripe berries. It will be easy on your stomach.”

“Hello.” The omega’s voice was ragged. We hadn’t actually had a chance to meet last night, and I hadn’t asked Reggie for his name Though I’d given him bag after bag of fluids, the omega still sounded parched.

His Adam’s apple bobbed. Most people thought that hunger was a rumble of the stomach, but it really was felt in the back of the throat. “I…bathroom.”

Of course. All those fluids. “Yes. I’ll help you.”

I walked him to the bathroom and supported him while he urinated. While I gave him as much privacy as I could, I had to stay close. He looked like he might topple over any second.

When he was back in bed, I observed his breaths. The beat of his heart. Tested his temperature and blood pressure. All were low but normal for someone with these kinds of injuries and starvation.

“Do you think you can eat?” I asked.

“Yes.” I brought the plate over and he went after it with gusto. Poor omega.

“Slowly, okay? I know you’re hungry, but we don’t want you to have a stomachache.”

“I overdid in the truck last night and made myself sick.” He nodded. “I can’t even remember the last time I had strawberries. I think I forgot what they taste like.”

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