Page 10 of Knot All Is Lost: Part 1

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She’sanOmega!

This precious gift curled up in my arms, beaten to hell, was none other than an Omega. Some bastard had raised his hand against her repeatedly for who the hell knows how long. The second her scent hit me my Alpha urges took over and I needed to get her someplace safe. That room was too exposed, it was too close to the other people in the shelter. My little diamond in the rough was covered in bruises, fresh cuts on her face and hands, and her scent had been blocked for a long time if the strength of it was any indication.

Now her claims of her father trying to sell her made sense. I saw Nixon and Spencer in their shared office talking and I kicked the door open and slammed it closed with my heel causing my precious bundle to whimper and curl tighter within herself.

“Shh, Cambrie, you’re alright,” I whispered to her rubbing my cheek on her head, marking her with my scent.

Lifting my gaze I met the stunned expression of Nixon and Spencer as her perfume hit them. Nixon took a step forward reaching out for her but stopped and looked at me worried. I knew more than anything right now she needed a pack to ground her so I nodded. “Cambrie, I’m with Nixon and Spencer. They are members of my pack and I trust them with my life. All we want is to help you.”

She lifted her face looking at me with bloodshot, puffy eyes filled with shadows of past hurt. Giving me a sniffle, she fisted my shirt as she looked over at Nixon, who was standing right in front of me, gently resting a hand on her arm.

“Hello again Cambrie, this is Spencer,” Nixon shared, gesturing to his partner. “As Rafael said, we are all pack, who are here to look after you if you’ll let us?”

“Can you keep them from taking me?” she asked, her voice raspy from crying.

Nixon’s eyes flicked up to mine as his jaw clenched tight, the only sign showing how upset he was. “Cambrie, I vow to you we will never let someone take you against your will.”

She nodded and turned to bury her face once more in my neck. I took a seat in one of the office chairs and looked at my fellow pack members. “We need to tell the others, because there is no way in hell I’m leaving her here tonight.”

Nixon nodded as Spencer pulled out his cell and started typing something out to the others.

“How did I miss this, Rafael? She was a few feet from me for twenty minutes. There’s no way I would have missed the fact she was an Omega,” Nixon muttered as he squatted down next to me, wrapping a hand around her ankle.

Cambrie shivered in my arms but Nixon was already on the move heading out of the office. Spencer pulled a chair next to me so he was near her head. He gently tugged her long, braided hair out from under my arm and started to loosen it.

“Cambrie, I find when Marius, my other Alpha partner, is upset he likes it when I run my fingers through his hair. Would you like me to brush yours? If you decide it’s too much I’ll stop. You just say the word,” Spencer explained as he took the brush from his lap and started at the end of her blonde hair.

He worked on sections of her hair trying not to snag it too much but it was clear it hadn’t been brushed all that often. As it brushed against my hand it felt dry and brittle, not looked after. I relaxed my hold on her slightly and noticed the trench coat had opened to reveal her legs mottled with bruises. Reaching down I ran my hand over the socks wanting to make sure they weren’t wet causing her to feel colder than she clearly already was.

They were a little damp. I didn’t think they were too bad until I looked down at my hand. The dampness was from blood. It had been seeping into the wool but must have stopped since she didn’t leave bloody footprints everywhere. Slipping a finger into the top of the sock I started to push it down. Cambrie flinched and jerked her foot away.

I wanted to smack myself for acting without explaining what I was doing. “Little One, it seems your feet at one point have been bleeding. I would like to take a look at them, and clean them up to make sure they don’t get infected. Then we can wrap them and get clean socks and maybe some shoes. Will you let us do that?” I asked, looking at Spencer who’d stopped brushing as he listened to what I said.

Cambrie lifted her head, this time she seemed more settled. “He didn’t give me shoes when he dragged me out of the house. I had to run. There was no other choice, I couldn’t let him sell me.”

“You did the right thing, Little One,” I murmured, as my thumb caressed her arm. “The hard part is over, you got away, and now we will look after you. No one in my pack will cause you harm or do anything you don’t want them to. Like Nixon promised, we won’t let anyone take you unless you want to leave.”

She studied me with her haunting eyes, as if she could tell the truth of my words by what was written on my face. I’d seen this kind of self preservation skill before in people who’d suffered long term abuse. They became masters at reading body language and reading between the lines of what people said and what they actually meant.

“Everyone knows that I’m an Omega. What do I do now?” she asked, letting her body sag with the weight of the unknown. “I planned to stay here tonight and find more suppressants so I could hide but I don’t think I can do that now that you know, can I? You have to tell them about me and send me away to one of those government places because it’s the law. They won’t give me a choice where they send me, will they?”

“Let’s take this one step at a time, Cambrie,” Nixon interjected, having heard enough of Cambrie’s worries as he entered the room. “We have some connections with the CoF that might help us. I’ve made him aware of what’s happened so we will see what he thinks when we arrive at our home.”

I noticed Nixon not only had a blanket but a first aid kit as well, it seems Spencer was on top of things. The Alpha knelt before Cambrie, opening the kit and slipping on some gloves before he addressed her again. “Can I remove your socks?”

She nodded but carefully watched what he was doing, hissing as the sock stuck to sections of raw flesh. Now that both socks were off and I could see the condition of her feet I was shocked she could walk on them as well as she had been. There were tiny bits of gravel, glass, and other debris embedded in the wounds, while the rest of her skin was black from how dirty the ground was.

“Spence, I think it would be more comfortable for her if we could get a bucket of warm water to clean her feet with,” Nixon instructed, sending off his partner to gather what was needed. “Now Cambrie, what I’m going to ask next you might not like but I just want to make sure you aren’t hurt anywhere else. Can we take off the jacket?”

Cambrie recoiled in my arms almost as if she was going to climb out of my lap and over my shoulder to get away. Has someone done more to her than just hit her? No, she said she was to be sold, and a pure Omega would sell for more money than one that had been used.

“Easy, Little One,” I cooed. “Nixon is not asking for anything more than to remove the jacket, besides the blanket will be far warmer for you. None of us would ever dream of touching you or anyone else in that way if they haven’t consented, Cambrie.”

Stilling, she took a shaky breath and seemed to consider what I said. “Let me do it myself.”

Nixon moved out of the way, even though it made me cringe to see her standing on those poor torn up feet she did so. My first instinct was to pull her back to me as I saw how her hands shook as she reached for the knot holding the coat closed. Everything was screaming at me not to make her go through this but I held myself still, knowing a victim like Cambrie wouldn’t appreciate being smothered.

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