On cue, a second headache throbbed in counterpoint to the one I’d already been nursing. A fresh sense of dread settled over me.
“Heath?” Knox asked, still holding his wrist. “Are you coming out of it, finally?”
I bit my lip, wincing as my teeth closed over a spot that had already been bitten repeatedly over the past few days. Heath’s silent presence shifted imperceptibly inside me, becoming less animalistic. More human.
Blind protectiveness gave way to confusion... then worry... and then distress.
Against my will, my eyes slid up the length of the alpha’s dirty, battered body until I met a wide-eyed green gaze. Shell-shocked and blindsided by the awareness of what the two of ushad done under the influence of our captors’ drugs, Heath stared at me in utter horror.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Heath
NO. JUST...NO. I dragged my gaze away from the small form huddled in the corner, wrapped in a dirty blanket. This couldn’t be what it looked like... what itfeltlike.
I was buck-ass naked. My entire body ached like I’d gone ten rounds in the boxing ring with Jack Dempsey. Dried sweat crusted on my skin as though I’d been feverish. The sour scent of old blood and infected wounds turned my stomach.
And the small, alien presence tucked inside my head was—
No.
I wasn’t thinking about that yet. I did my best to wall off that soft presence, pushing it away from the rest of me so I could pretend it didn’t exist. Because, if it existed, that meant—
I shook my head sharply, even though the movement made my brain slosh around like the last pickled egg in a jar of brine.
Stop.
Instead, I focused on the other impossible thing in the room; doing my best to ignore the little whimper of distress that came from the corner. A familiar hand clasped my forearm. The clean scent of smoky cedarwood pierced through the funk of blood and jizz and sickly-sweet omega stress pheromones.
“Knox?” I asked, hating how small and raw my voice sounded—like my throat had been scraped into sandpaper from screaming.
“I’m here,” my pack alpha said. “Everything’s going to be okay, you two. Although there’s likely to be some rough patches between here and there.”
Cautiously, Knox let my arm go. Without that grounding touch, it became harder to block out...everything else. Memories clamored for attention.
A metal table.
The wide, terrified eyes of a baby omega jammed against the metal bars of a cage as he tried to get as far away from me as possible.
The feeling of another alpha’s vertebrae snapping beneath the force of my grip.
In the corner of the bedroom—and inside my head—soft sobs tore at me like dull knives ripping flesh. I clenched my jaw and built the walls around that presence thicker and higher, until I thought I might collapse under their weight.
“I...” Jez’s voice, thick with tears, wavered alarmingly. “I need Gage. Please get Gage.”
