“My leg, maybe?” he said, looking down at himself.
While Freddie took his vitals, I knelt down and started checking out his leg. Sure enough, it only took me a few seconds to notice what the problem was.
“If you can clear me, I'll get back to work,” the firefighter said, trying to bat Freddie away as he placed an oxygen mask on him.
“No can do, firefighter. You've got a giant twig sticking out of your calf.”
Sure enough, it was embedded a good few inches into the muscle. He’d probably done it while rolling down the hill and hadn't even realized it.
“Oh damn!” He laughed, his hand going to the back of his head. “Well, shit.”
Taking a pair of medical scissors, I cut away his turnouts. Usually, if we could simply remove them, we would because they weren't exactly cheap for the department, but considering that twig was jammed through it, I needed better access.
“You know when you call it a twig, that makes it seem small,” Freddie said, cocking his head to the side.
“What would you call it?” I asked innocently as I took a bottle of distilled water and started rinsing the area. “You know what? I’m going to give you a painkiller, but I think this is deep enough that the professionals are going to have to take this out.”
“Really?” he groaned. “That’ll take ages.”
“Yes, but we’d rather you get taken care of properly. Otherwise, you could get an infection, and then you would be off work forweeks.”
The firefighter thought about it for a moment. “Fine.” He sighed.
“Come on, we’re giving you a ride.” I laughed, clapping a hand on his shoulder playfully.
As Freddie was loading him in, something tingled through my spine, forcing me to stop. I couldn’t fight it, finding myself turning around. To my left, there was a group of orange-jumpsuit-wearing firefighters cutting back some foliage.
And there, looking right at me, was Preston.
His gaze was so intense, boring into mine. There was an unmistakable hunger in them.
I thought the bond between us had weakened, but one glance at him, and my stomach was doing somersaults. My omega whined pathetically to go to him, throw myself into his arms, stick my face into his neck and smell that scent again.
Only, I couldn’t.
Now that I knew the nature of his work, knew he was there undercover, there was no way I could risk him being discovered.
All we could do was look at each other for those few seconds, every instinct telling me to move while the sounds around me faded into the background.
I had to shake myself back into focus.
As we loaded the firefighter into the ambulance, my stomach twisted in knots. The heat spikes had faded after bonding with Nolan and Wilder, but that didn’t stop my omega from beinga horny bitch and demanding to spend time with one of her alphas.
Before I knew it, the door to the rig slammed shut, and I jumped, quickly going to the front of the cab and hopping into the back.
“You’re quiet,” Freddie commented as we drove to the hospital.
“Just distracted making sure this guy’s leg doesn’t fall off.” I laughed, but it sounded weak.
“My leg’s not going to fall off for real, is it?” The firefighter’s brows rose in surprise.
“I don't know. An amputation may be necessary,” I said lightly.
“Hailey, stop trying to traumatize the poor guy. Dude, you've gotta scratch, you'll be fine.”
The firefighter sighed in relief. “Girl, you scared me.”
I smirked back at him. “What can I say? Sometimes I like causing chaos.”
