Page 12 of Omega Hunted

“How pregnant?” Brec was all business.

“He’s big?” Yep, that was about as useful as I could get.

“Baby’s heartbeat?”

I allowed my wolf front and center, and he preened as I placed my ear to his stomach and heard a strong, fast heartbeat underneath the stranger’s steady one. “Fast but strong.”

“What type of shifter?” he asked.

That was easy enough; my wolf knew instinctively. “Cat.”

“What kind of cat?”

“I don’t fucking know, white hair, pale green eyes, small, Brec, just help me fix him!”

“Okay, okay, focus.”

“I am focused!”

“Listen up,” Brec began with steady patience. “Don’t warm him fast. Body warmth, not heat. Skin to skin if you have to.”

My wolf whined, and I went completely still.

The last person I’d shared a bed with was Raff.

Three years of sleeping alone, waiting to die. Could I be that close to an omega again? I glanced at him, curled under three blankets and shivering himself toward organ failure.

Fuck.

Brec was still talking. “No bath or hot shower, and no hot water bottles, no alcohol if he comes around. Watch his pulse—if it gets erratic, no moving him, no propping him up, no letting him stand if he wakes. Depending on how far along he is, his blood volume varies; the placenta acts as a temperature buffer that works in both directions. Is he in pain?”

“Unconscious. Sleeping. I don’t know.”

“He needs a hospital.”

“The bridge is out; we’re stuck here.”

“For how long?”

“I could get out, but you know he can’t fucking shift, and we’re in the middle of a storm and closed down for winter! Fuck, I don’t know.” God, I sounded as if I was losing my shit.

“Okay, okay. The head wound. Is he still bleeding?”

“No, it’s stopped.”

“Okay, usual procedure for watching him for⁠—”

“On it.”

“Cass–”

My wolf was impatient; he wanted the omega safe. “I’ll warm him and call you back.”

“Cass, wait⁠—”

I hung up, and the fire burned, and the room warmed, and I carried out every instruction Brec had given me, and then there was nothing for it.

The thought of climbing into bed beside another omega felt wrong in ways I couldn’t begin to untangle, but the omega was unconscious, dangerously cold, and this wasn’t about me.