CHAPTER 44
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“Itold you I was goingto break you.” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at the beta who was lying in a hospital bed with a broken wrist and three cracked ribs.
Turns out Cobb had definitelynotbeen prepared to catch me when I crash landed into him, and promptly passed out from the shock of the evening. I had to give it to him, though, because he had definitely broken my fall. I’d come out of the whole situation relatively unscathed with just some bruising on my neck and some minor burns. The bruise looked worse than it felt, but everytime one of my pack members caught sight of it a rage that rivaled the heat of the fire at the lodge burned in their eyes. I think that if they were able to, they would bring Jamie Jordan back from the grave and kill him all over again.
“My bones will heal.” Cobb assured me as he used his not-broken hand to squeeze mine, “Better to be a little broken than to lose you.”
“Hear, hear.” Theo, whose lap I was currently perched on, rumbled.
Aria was curled around Matteo who was resting. He had a pretty bad concussion from whatever Agent Smart hit him with, and we were waking him up every other hour on the doctor’s orders. Aria smoothed his dark curls out of his face, soothing him before catching me watching them and giving me a grin, “I agree. I prefer you to be un-crispy.”
“Pfft. You’d still love me even if I was as crispy as a burnt piece of fried chicken.” I joked and snuggled into Theo’s minty embrace.
“This is true,” Theo’s chuckle vibrated through my back and it was so close to a purr that the muscles in my body relaxed. “But we still prefer it if you are whole and healthy.”
There was a knock on the door, and a nurse came in. “Hi y’all,” she said in the cutest southern twang that I’d ever heard. “There’s a woman here from San Francisco, says she’s the head of the omega academy?”
The accented voice of an older woman came from behind the nurse, “yes, yes. Now that you’ve introduced me you can leave now. Thank you, nurse.” The nurse glared at the figure who came into the room, and I realized that it was Superintendent Bells.
The old woman was wearing an immaculately tailored dress suit in a deep navy blue color. Her sharp blue eyes took in the situation, roving over where Aria and Matteo lay and to where Theo and I sat together next to Cobb’s hospital bed.
“Good evening, or I suppose that it is morning now. I received a call from your superior, Director Cruz, that the man responsible for stalking Ms. Sinclair has been caught.”
“Yes, ma’am, he has.” Cobb’s eyes narrowed at the woman, “But why are you here? San Francisco is almost three hours away....”
Bells looked mildly uncomfortable, “I have come to retrieve our omega and return her to the academy where she belongs.”
Panic hit me like a sack of bricks, and I gripped onto the edge of Theo’s shirt for dear life. Theo began to purr, trying to calm me down, his fingers brushing our bonding mark to remind me that I belonged to Pack Simmons. Aria stood up from Matteo’s hospital bed so fast that the other alpha stirred from his sleep and opened his eyes groggily.
“What do you mean that you are taking her back?” Aria came to stand between us and Bells, putting her hands on her hips and looking like a total badass despite the fact that she was dressed in a pair of ugly blue hospital scrubs. “Tibby is staying with our pack. Permanently.”
Superintendent Bells frowned over Aria’s shoulder at me, “there are procedures when it comes to courting an omega. You and your pack aren’t even registered as potential alphas with our academy. I must insist on bringing Ms. Sinclair back to the academy, and you can take all of the proper channels from there.”
I didn’t want to go with her. I don’t know if I would be able to survive being trapped inside of that place again now that I’ve tasted what it was like to live outside of its walls. I couldn’t do it.
“I can’t go back.” I forced confidence in my voice, “I’m already bonded into this pack.”
I pulled the neckline of my scrubs aside to show the silvery mark that was on my neck.
Anger filled the old woman’s face, “this is an unsanctioned bond, Ms. Sinclair. This was not allowed by the academy at all—” I cut her off.
