Page 36 of His Stolen Omega

Attachment?

What a bother.

Chapter 8:

“What’s the last thing you remember?” a female voice, sounding distorted, pierced through Elm’s fog.

He groaned and shook his head, dragging himself out of what felt like a deep sleep. The lights hurt his eyes and he blinked against them, raising an arm to block it out. There was a clatter, and the metal cuff around his wrist pulled, drawing his attention to it.

Elm was on the mattress in the cell, still chained to the wall.

Like an animal.

He growled—admittedly, not helping his case—and then rested his eyes on the female alpha ten or so feet away.

“Come on,” she said. “Stay with me. You’ve been in and out of it for about an hour already.”

“An hour?” His voice was raw and scratchy and he winced when he heard it, though he supposed he should be used to sounding like he’d spent six years screaming his head off by now. Hell, maybe he had. “How long?”

She knew what he was asking, that he wanted to know how much time had passed since he’d last been conscious, but she frustratingly ignored him, repeating instead, “The last thing you remember, synthetic?”

“I’m a fucking person,” he snarled, anger bubbling over. He was sick of this. Sick of being here, treated like their own personal lab rat. At least they’d put pants on him. The last thing he recalled, he’d been naked and begging Levi to take him. “You can’t treat people like this! You can’t treat me—”

“Oh?” she cut him off snidely. “And who are you, exactly? Out of all of Kian’s siblings, you aren’t even the useful one. The twins can fight, understand politics, and are in control of their omega instincts.”

“I was literally beta weeks ago!” he reminded.

“Actually, it’s been over a month now.”

Elm froze.

“Want to tell me what you remember now?”

He wanted to take that pen out of her hand and shove it through her eye, actually. Which was an entirely new feeling, and one he wasn’t sure he liked.

Because she had a point.

Out of Kian’s siblings, he was the useless one.

Elm could fight—he just hadn’t been given opportunity—but it was true his skills were a far cry from what he was sure Shiloh and Sloane were capable of. He didn’t know, since he didn’t know them, but it made sense. As a beta, he’d make for a terrible bargaining chip, so even though Kian had put guards on him the second he’d returned to planet as the Dominus of the Eumia, the guards never really had much to do aside from following him around.

The most danger Elm had come into in the past year had been when he’d accidentally cut himself with a sculpting tool and bled on the clay he’d been working.

Pike had pulled a bandage from his back pocket.

It’d been kind of funny.

Betas were boring. Average. They led uneventful lives free from the toxic pull of pheromones and the need to breed like demonic bunnies on steroids.

“That bastard left me empty.” Elm remembered the discomfort, and when that discomfort had turned to pain. How the cramping had been so bad, he thought he’d crack teeth from clenching his jaw so tightly. How he’d leaked everywhere, from his dick and his ass, and how he’d caved—embarrassingly early—and begged the alpha to mount him. “The mattress is different.”

“You ruined the old one,” Fiora confirmed. “What else?”

“That’s it.” He blew out a breath. “I remember him watching and doing nothing as I suffered through my heat, and then nothing. I must have passed out.”

“You slipped into a coma, actually.” She shrugged when his eyes went wide. “Nothing to worry about. You’re awake now.”

“I was in a coma?” He glanced around the cell. “Why the hell wasn’t I brought to a hospital?!”