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“Can we just get through this so Jude and Hazel can get some rest?” Crew demanded. “Or are you okay with making our beta, and a defenseless omega, suffer even more?”
Rhett winced and lowered his head, looking genuinely contrite. He pressed a kiss to the side of Jude’s head. “I’m sorry.”
“I had the hospital add Hazel to the pack suite,” Crew told him. “I know I should’ve asked for everyone’s input, but things with Hazel are complicated.”
“Complicated how?” Rhett asked, his tone curious and not accusatory, so that was something.
“Complicated in that he’s known her since she was a kid,” I replied.
Rhett’s eyes widened. “What?” He shifted a now sleeping Jude so the beta’s head was resting on his shoulder. “Did you?—”
“I had no idea the omega we were saving was Hazel until I came to the hospital,” Crew assured him, leaving out how I’d forced him to sniff her scent from my skin. “But here she is, and I’m sorry, but if I can stop her from falling into the government’s hands?—”
“You’re right.” Rhett’s voice was clipped but certain as understanding dawned in his eyes.
“Do I get a say in this?” Hazel asked hesitantly, peeking around me to look at Crew.
“Not if you think the government would treat you any better than that damned cult,” Rhett retorted as he shook his head.
Crew cleared his throat. “I told you, Haze, things have changed a lot in the last four years.”
He wasn’t kidding. The radical pro-alpha political agenda seemed hellbent on eradicating the individuality of omegas while making them wholly dependent on packs and alphas.
At this point, Hazel had no one. She was a beautiful omega who would be fought over by many packs until the one with the most money likely came out the victor.
“Trust us, sugar,” I murmured, squeezing her shoulders.
She peered up at me through dark lashes and gave the barest nod of her head, but it was enough to fill my chest with a rumbling purr that vibrated through the room.
Hazel’s green-gold orbs went comically wide for a second, and then she melted, turning absolutely boneless as she cuddled into my side and allowed my purr to comfort her.
It was the second time I’d purred in years, and both times now it was for her. Something told me that Hazel was the only one I’d ever purr for again. If my girl was afraid and distressed, my purr was the first in an arsenal of tools I would employ to soothe and protect her.
Hazel probably had no idea, but the second she accepted my shirt, she’d become mine. Ours.
This little omega never had a chance, and I was never letting her go.
23
Hazel
Once upon a time, I was able to sleep through a natural disaster.
No joke—I’d slept through an earthquake.
I only woke up because Calla had—at my parents’ desperate pleas—broken into my house to make sure I was okay. They were at work when the quake hit, and I’d been napping. When I didn’t immediately respond, they’d lost their minds.
But my ability to sleep like the dead ended when I was taken to the commune. Every noise woke me up—an owl screeching, a squirrel foraging under my window, screams that ripped through the night from some of the cabins…
Donovan liked to watch me sleep. I’d woken more times than I could count to him opening the door to my cabin.
Sometimes he would stand there in the doorway, those soulless eyes devouring me in the dark. I’d shudder and tremble, fear turning the air thick and cloying. Other times he would come and sit on the edge of my bed. Sometimes he’d pet my head like a cat and tell me all the things he planned to do to me. The plans he had for our future.
I always wondered if that would be the night he snapped. The night he peeled the sheets away from my stiff body and forced himself on me.
Every night I listened for his footsteps coming to the path that led to my door, giving me enough time to shove Logan onto his pallet on the floor on the nights we were huddled together for warmth.
I had no idea what Donovan would’ve done if he’d found Logan in bed with me, innocent as it may have been. A beta’s fingers had once been broken for touching the High Alpha’s omega, the poor beta guard becoming collateral damage for simply catching me when I’d stumbled and almost face-planted on the ground.
