Page 11 of Omega Hunted

Ours to watch.

“He’s not ours.”

I shoved him back so hard my jaw locked, and my scar burned. The road kept rising. Snow was coming down again, heavier, settling on his hair where his face was tucked into my throat, settling on the back of my hand under his thigh, melting where his body pressed to mine, and freezing on every patch where it didn’t. My shoulders and calves burned. None of it mattered. I ran.

I slipped on a patch of ice and nearly went down, caught it at the last instant with my hip against the bank, forced myself upright, and ran on, the snow burning on my naked skin, my feet aching with the cold. The omega made a thin sound. He burrowed closer without waking, seeking warmth or safety or both, and my wolf reacted.

Mine.

The possessive surge hit so hard I almost stumbled. “Hold on,” I ordered, without knowing whether the words were for the stranger or for me. “Almost there.”

The gate.

I came up the long drive at a hard run, the man in my arms making a wounded noise I tried not to hear and shouldered through the back step into the kitchen. The warmth hit me at the door after miles of ice.

Up the staircase, two at a time, slipping on the tiled floor

My bedroom on the second floor was the only one in the house with a working fireplace. The door opened under my shoulder, and I laid him on the covers, and then for a beat I couldn’t move, because his eyes were half-open and finding mine as he gripped my hair and reached for me with blind instinct, choosing me as the safest thing in reach.

“Let go,” I said gently, but his grip didn’t loosen. “I’m right here. I’m not leaving. Let me make a fire.”

His fingers finally released me, and my wolf whined at the loss. The fire went up faster than any I’d ever built—kindling, paper, two logs, the long match, the draft pulling clean—crackling inside ninety seconds. By the time I turned back, the omega was on his side with his eyes closed, and that small instinctive curl, that worse-than-shivering stillness, did something to me too, and three strides took me back to the bed.

“All right,” I said. “I apologize in advance, okay? I’m going to get you out of these wet things. I’m going to be quick, and I’m going to get you warm. Please don’t fight me. I won’t hurt you.”

He didn’t fight at all, but he didn’t help, either. The pajamas peeled off him with the tear of wet cloth, and underneath, his body was small and pale and so cold the skin was the wrong color. There were abrasions high on one shoulder and across his hip from the crash, and his swollen belly was right there. I scraped back his long hair, not blond, but the palest silver-white, and covered him with the bed covers, then the wool throw from the foot of the bed, and I dragged the blanket off the chair beside the fireplace. His knees came up toward his belly—bundle posture, drilled into me a long time ago, for shock—and I tucked him in.

His pulse was too slow, and the baby moved under the blanket—a small, distinct shove against my forearm where it crossed his belly.

For one second, I forgot where I was.

Forgot the snow. Forgot Ronan and the ORT. Forgot the stranger in my bed.

Help him.

I crossed to the unit in the corner and opened the second drawer. What I needed was hidden beneath a false bottom, not because anyone was likely to find it, but because old habits ran deep. I yanked out the charged burner phone and switched it on.

The phone held one number, the only one I’d ever needed it for. On the third ring, a voice I hadn’t heard in far too long answered with caution. The one man left in the world I trusted with my life, and now with the terrified omega in my bed.

“Hello?”

“Brec? It’s me,” was all I said.

A long silence followed—did I need to explain who I was? Had it been that long?

“Alpha?” His voice cracked a little on it.

I’m not your fucking alpha, my wolf snarled hard enough to scrape the inside of my skull.

“I need medical advice.”

“You…Cass…” Another silence, then, “Are you okay? Are you hurt⁠—”

“Pregnant omega crashed his car on my property. He was in the snow for a while.”

“A what…? A pregnant… Fuck. Yeah. Yeah, okay. What’ve you got?”

I gave him what I had from my stranger. Pulse. Color. Core temperature, best guess. The cut on his forehead. Pajamas. The curl. All of this I could deal with after an accident. Hell, I knew how to deal with hypothermia, with a head wound, and I’d checked for broken bones and breathing, but a baby? I had no idea how to handle that other than pass an omega in need to a medical team.