Page 8 of Untamed Omega

The healer. He was so kind and smelled so good. I almost felt like I’d seen him before. After breakfast, he tucked me in, pulling the warm, soft blanket up around my shoulders and settling back in the chair next to the bed.

I wanted to talk more, but the food seemed to have sent me right back into the exhaustion that had been my regular state for as long as I could remember. My eyelids weighted, they closed, and I fell back to sleep, the comfort of my surroundings lulling me into the first true rest in months or years…however long it had been since I’d been free.

The scent that surrounded me helped me to relax as well, although my brain insisted we could not trust anyone. Ever. These people seemed to be nice to me. They were feeding me well and making me comfortable, but did they have an ulterior motive? The person who kidnapped me seemed nice, too.

Late in the afternoon, I woke up to find that the healer had left. No doubt he had a lot more duties than watching over me, so it shouldn’t bother me that he was about doing them. The room I lay in had windows along two walls, so while I didn’t have the full sunlight I had when I woke in the morning, it was still bright and cheery. Plumping the pillows behind my head, I settled in to try to make sense of everything that had happened in the last day.

The whole thing with the lights at the labs was very odd. In the craziness of escaping, I hadn’t had time to think about it a whole lot, but lying here all by myself, I had to consider how many moving parts there had to be in order for the entire wing to lose power. Especially now that I remembered overhearingthe white coats mentioning that there was a backup generator in case of any problems.

And the man who helped me? Had he been responsible for the outage, or was he part of a larger group?

“Hey, I see you’re awake.” The other omega entered, lifting a hand in greeting. “Have a good rest?”

I moved to sit up, but he waved me back. “I have, but I feel like I could sleep another twelve hours. What a slug.”

“You’re not a slug. It took months for me to feel like myself, so don’t be thinking you need to be up and about right away.”

“I’ve been lying here thinking about what happened, and I just don’t understand any of it.”

He sat in the chair where the healer had been and leaned back. “Be more specific.”

“There is a lot, isn’t there, from the moment I was taken until now, but I was trying to take in what happened to me specifically from when I woke up in the dark.”

“I guess you told Alpha Reggie some of it, but I don’t know very much. If you want to go over it with me, maybe I can help you make sense of it? My own experience was a little different, I think. I’ve heard there were a few others who made it out when I did, but I don’t believe that was the case with you.”

I sucked in a breath, ashamed. “I never even considered the possibility. They kept us so isolated from one another that I don’t know how many others were in the wing with me. I hadn’t seen another captive in a very long time.”

“So you woke in the dark? Was that unusual?” He crossed one leg over the other and rested an elbow on his knee. “Because constant light was not one of the tortures I endured.”

“Completely unusual. And there were no white coats around, not even any of their helpers. Where did they go?” I told him all about how the man found me in the dark and got meoutside. “I never saw any other omegas, even then, but wouldn’t it be weird to go to all that trouble just for me?”

He shrugged. “I don’t pretend to understand my escape either. I’m just so grateful that I did get out and meet my alpha. Locke and our baby are worth going through anything to get to. I hope your life from this point is as good.”

We talked awhile longer about our experiences at the labs. I wouldn’t have trust in anyone anytime soon, but it was comforting to speak with someone who had been in the labs and could empathize with my experiences.

After we’d spoken for a while, Kellan stood and stretched. “It’s just about dinnertime. Would you like to come with me to the alpha house for a bite? You’ll get to meet a lot of the group that way.”

“I do want to meet them, but I’m not sure I can manage to walk.” I slapped my knee. “Shine that. I can do it. What’s for dinner?”

Chapter Nine

Markus

There were things a shifter in my position didn’t do. While Locke had never called himself the alpha, he was—like it or not. And since he wasn’t the alpha, I also had no official position.

Someone with no place in a hierarchy shouldn’t be doing what I was about to do.

There was a chance my call wouldn’t even be taken. If I were Reggie, I certainly wouldn’t.

“Hello.” Brewer, a former member who’d joined Reggie’s pack, answered on the first ring. Except now I couldn’t find my words. “Markus?”

“Yes. It’s me. How are you, Brewer?”

He chuckled. “I’m fine. What can I help you with?” Brewer had never been a man to mince words.

“I was wondering if your alpha had time to speak with me.”

“Why?” he asked quickly. Locke told us that Brewer was quickly rising in the ranks of Reggie’s pack. He was a full-fledged beta now. That said something about how far he’d come. He was once a pompous pain in my ass.

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