Page 50 of Omega Hunted
Then, very quietly, he sighed.
I turned around.
He stood in front of the window over the sink, staring out. My grey sweatshirt was long but tight around his belly. Both hands pressed flat, he was stooped, and I sensed he was tired and angry, and I thought maybe he’d been crying.
“Are you okay?” I asked, and he didn’t reply. “I mean… is there anything I can do?”
“I can’t sleep, and I’m huge, and my back hurts, and it’s the middle of winter, and the bridge is out, and people want my daughter, and I hate this.” His voice didn’t break, which somehow made it worse. Then he bowed his head. “I don’t hate her,” he added quickly, “I know what matters is that she’s okay, and she is, and I know that. But I’m so tired.”
My wolf strained in me. Help him. Make it better.
I crossed the kitchen, and he didn’t flinch when I turned him gently by the shoulder and tugged him to me.
He went still for a second, hands trapped between us, his belly against me. Then his forehead dropped to my chest.
“Of course you’re tired; you’re making a baby.” I kept my arms loose, enough that he could step back if he wanted to. He didn’t. “You’re exhausted, and you hurt, and that’s different.”
He was quiet for a moment. His hands had moved from his belly, and I could feel them now, one on my chest, not gripping my shirt, just resting there.
I sat down and drew him with me. He let me—didn’t fight it, didn’t overthink it, just came down onto my lap with a sigh that could have been relief. I settled him to my chest and kept my arms around him and said nothing.
He was warm. Heavier than he looked. My wolf went very quiet.
No one takes our family.
Outside the window, the snow was steady; the kitchen was warm, and Soren’s breathing had slowed from tight and shallow to something easier. I let him snuggle in for as long as he needed it, and I tried not to rest my lips in his hair, or smooth my hand down his back, or do anything that crossed a line.
What the hell was I thinking?
My bond scar burned low and deep beneath my ribs.
I should have been thinking about Raff now.
I’d asked my wolf if he’d forgotten Raff, but was that what I was doing? I should have been remembering the future we’d planned, this old house we’d chosen together, the books stacked in boxes upstairs, his clothes in the spare room. I should have been focused on the omega I’d lost.
Instead, I was sitting here with another omega in my arms, listening to him breathe. It wasn’t possible to touch what I’d had with Raff. Nothing would ever replace him. But for the first time in years, I wasn’t staring directly into the hole he’d left behind. My attention wasn’t fixed on my grief or my guilt or all the reasons I should have died with him. It was on whether Soren was warm enough, or if he was hurting, or scared, or if he’d eaten enough.
For three years, I’d told myself I was still here because someone had to finish what Raff wanted. But was it possible that the house wasn’t why I’d stayed in the land of the living? Maybe whatever force had kept dragging me into another sunrise wasn’t holding me here for a reunion with Raff but for Soren. I could get him and his baby to safety, give him a future, and then maybe I’d be done?
We sat there long enough that my coffee went cold and I didn’t care, because bit by bit the scar in my chest stopped aching, as I kept one hand flat on Soren’s back and felt him breathe. I stared out of the window and tried to think about nothing at all.
This is everything, my wolf said and relaxed until he was nothing but a puddle of puppy sweetness in my heart.
After a while, Soren slid off my lap, stood up, and didn’t look at me.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be.”
He glanced at me then. Some expression moved across his face and then it was gone. He turned to the fridge, opened it, and stood there staring at the shelves as if he were trying to remember what he’d wanted.
“I’ll make us something to eat,” I said.
“I can help—”
“Sit down, Soren.”
A pause. Then he pulled out a chair and sat. I started making soup, and neither of us mentioned any of it again.
