A cold towel is pressed to my forehead, and I moan my appreciation. She holds it there with one hand, then offers me a glass of water. I try to take it from her, but my hands are shaking so much the water splashes all over the long shirt I have on. The mating bond coiled against my rib cage throbs, sending a pulse of pain shooting down my spine. I rub the skin over my chest. My gaze darts to the woman.
“You’re bonded to an alpha.” It’s a statement, not a question.
I frown. “How can you tell?”
She jerks her chin toward the wound on the side of my neck. Only then do I become aware that it’s bleeding again. My entire side screams with pain, and there are splotches of blood over the cloth covering my chest. “A shower. I need a shower.”
“You are too weak—”
“Please.” I let the glass slide from my fingers so it falls to the floor and rolls away. Reaching out, I grasp her arm.
She tosses her dark-brown hair over her shoulder. Her jaw hardens, and those warm eyes glow with understanding. “Let’s get you up.”
She rises and helps me to my feet.
She’s taller than me. Muscles weave across her arms. She’s wearing dark pants and a shirt. There’s a whiff of dominance around her that marks her out as alpha…almost.
Except she isn’t. The delicate features of her face, her soft touch as she staggers with me to the shower, the fact that she took me in… The concern that rolls off her says she must be omega.
“How?” I force the word through a throat that feels that it’s been sliced with knives.
“How do I manage to survive as an omega in a city full of alphas gone rogue?” One side of her lips twists. “We have much to catch up on…but first.” She helps me into the shower, turns on the warm water.
Then assists me in taking off my shirt and props me up. She proceeds to bathe the mating wound which has softened and oozes pus and blood under the hot water. By the time she helps me back into the bedroom and helps me pull on a T-shirt and drawstring pajama bottoms, I am shivering and hot at the same time.
My chest hurts. The mating cord whines and throbs, and there is a pounding at the back of my eyes that feels like it’s going to rip through my brain.
I don’t protest as she half carries me to her bed and shoves me under the covers.
The bed smells of that strange alpha-omega confluence. How the hell had she managed that? Most omegas yearn, to be born a beta, or better still an alpha or at least find a way to hide their smell. While this woman hasn’t completely succeeded, her scent is confusing enough to buy precious seconds by throwing an alpha off track. Enough to give you time to escape in a struggle. A few seconds, that was all it took for him to capture me; to make me his.
She tugs the blankets all the way up to my chin. “Sleep, recover, and we’ll talk more about what brought you here and how we can help each other.”
Something at the edge of my consciousness prickles at that. “Help each other? How can we?” I mumble.
She runs a cloth that smells of something fragrant, something that slides into my blood, calming the mating bond. Darkness tugs at the edges of my vision and I slide under.
When I wake again, there is a man in the room. “Zeus?” I crack open my eyelids.
The shape moves. The light shines over his face, a lean face so handsome it’s unmistakable.
Indigo eyes glow at me. So familiar, yet different. His lips pull back in a smile that is so pleasant it coerces you to trust him. I am not fooled.
He’s the predator here in this room, but I am done with being prey.
I try to rise, and the room spins around me. My heart thuds against my rib cage. This can’t be happening. I didn’t just escape one alpha only to be cornered by another.
The same woman who’d taken care of me earlier moves to stand next to him. ‘‘You promised you wouldn’t shake her composure, brother.”
“Brother?” I groan out the word, then swallow down the dryness in my throat and ask the question I should have asked earlier. “Who…who are you?”
Silly, trusting me.
I’d never stopped believing in the kindness of strangers. I’d simply accepted her help, and now here I am facing the biggest enemy of all. Kayden. Alpha of the Scots.
He rises to his feet. He’s almost as tall as Zeus.
I’ll always measure any man I meet against the prowess of my own alpha.
My alpha? Where did that thought come from? Why do I still think of him as mine?
I try to sit up, but my arms can’t take my weight. The woman who hasn’t yet told me her name sits on the bed and supports me. I pull away from her, but my movements are weak.
“I’m sorry I had to drug you, but it was the only way to make sure that you’d stay.”
“And I thought I could trust you.”
“It was for your own good, I promise, Lucy.”
“Who are you? How do you know my name?”
“Reena Kane. I am Kayden’s sister.”
“You called him here?” I cough. My pulse thuds in my temples. How do I evade Kayden? Assuming I did manage to escape, where would I go?
By now Zeus has alerted his troops and is no doubt searching for me. He may already be on his way to the city. My mating cord twinges and unfurls, insisting that Zeus won’t do me any harm.
Why would my very consciousness already be one with him?
Why does my instinct tell me to trust him…more than the man sitting opposite me?
The man who’d promised to help me, who’d sheltered my family?
“Where are the other omegas?” I focus my gaze on him, ignoring the way his figure weaves in and out of the picture in front of me.
“They are safe and waiting for you.”
“Safe?” I chuckle and cough again.
Reena rubs my back, and once more I try to sidle away from her. She lets me move out of her grasp, and I fall back against the pillows. My shoulders shake with the effort, and sweat beads my brow.
“Well, by the looks of what happened, they are safer where they are at any rate.” Kayden takes a step forward.
The alpha scent of his presence grates on my nerves. This is not the man I want. This presence is foreign, intrusive. It is hurtful to me, to what I could one day carry inside of me.
My throat closes.
Zeus had wanted to impregnate me. Could that have happened already? The mating cord thrums with emotions, and tears well up in my eyes. There’s passion and joy and a need to survive that ebbs and flows inside me. I’ve never felt like this before. Helpless and yet also hopeful.
Knowing he will come to me.
If I let him find me, I won't be able to resist him. I'd let him take me again and again, and I'd enjoy every second of it even as I hate myself. It's inevitable that I fall pregnant if I am not already.
I cannot let an alpha who took advantage of my heat cycle to bond with me, also plant his seed in me.
I will not let any child of mine grow up in the shadow of the man who is so confused he doesn’t even know himself.
I must not let him near me again.
The mating cord pulses against my rib cage, insisting that I am wrong. But I shove it aside.
“Kayden.” I push back on the bed and this time sit up without any help. “Why are you here?”
“Isn’t that obvious? You want the safety of the omegas. I want this city.”