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Bea, who still sat slouched in her borrowed chair, snorted.
“For god’s sake, don’t tell him that,” she said. “He’s insufferable enough as it is.”
I glared at her so hard my eyes burned. Crap—they reallywereburning, weren’t they? Looking away, I blinked rapidly, hoping neither of them would notice.
“Sorry, Bea,” Zalen said. “But I intend to remind him of what he did over and over for the rest of time. I imagine the others will, too.”
And... so much for him not having blabbed to anyone else.
“Fuck off,” I told him, still not looking at either of them. “Go away and let me rest. I’m an injured man.”
Zalen looked down at me as though he could see right through me. “Sure thing. I don’t know when the doctors will let the cops in to see you, but you should know that they’re already here at the hospital to take statements. You should also know that I made a somewhat less than factual nine-one-one call to getlaw enforcement to the warehouse faster. I told them I’d been held captive as well and had just escaped.”
I took that on board. It had been a smart play on Zalen’s part, if a technically illegal one. And it might just have saved our lives—or at least mine.
“Well, I wouldn’t know about anything like that, would I?” I replied blandly. “Since they must’ve been holding us in different rooms.”
“Good boy,” Bea said approvingly. “Now, I’m going to stick around and have a word with this doctor of yours. Zalen, you should go check on the other two. Especially if the pigs are sniffing around them.”
That was Bea... the picture of respect and decorum.
Zalen gave a small wince at the insult to St. Louis’s finest, thankfully out of her line of sight.
“Yes, you’re probably right.” His dark eyes fell on me, concern and affection that I couldn’t deal with shining from them. “Unless you need anything first, Byron?”
“Not a damned thing,” I told him, as though it was the truth.
Once he’d gone, Bea leaned forward, taking my hand in her cool, wrinkled fingers.
“Anything else you want to tell me before the police and doctors start swarming this place, whelp?” she asked.
I closed my eyes against the burn that wouldn’t go away, my throat clogging. There wasn’t... and yet, somehow, words were forming behind my lips without my permission.
“I shot a man,” I whispered.
Bea went still. The soft sound of her breathing paused for a moment before returning, even and steady.
“Was he threatening you? Or someone else?” she asked.
I nodded wordlessly, not willing to trust my voice.
“Then it was justified,” she said, with utter certainty. “And you’re not allowed to talk any more nonsense about how youdidn’t protect your omega. Which reminds me, when do I get to meet this young man?”
I remembered the way Zalen had corrected her earlier—omegas, plural. Abruptly, I couldn’t deal with any of this. Not for a single second more.
“It’s complicated,” I managed.
“Somehow, I don’t really think it is,” Bea said, her tone laced with irony. “But you’re right. You need to rest, not flap your lips to keep an old woman happy. I’ll watch over things while you sleep; you just relax.”
Right. Because there was nothing more relaxing than lying in a hospital bed with an I.V. stuck in your arm, and your leg held together with bandages and thread. I drew breath to tell her so, but it suddenly felt like too much work.
I was fast asleep within moments.
The doctor came in at some point to ramble on about wound care, and infection, and the possibility of permanent nerve damage. In due course, the police showed up to question me about the kidnapping. I made very sure to identify Blake Berlusconi and SSG by name, while keeping the rest as vague as I could manage, citing injury and blood loss.
Bea ambushed the pair of detectives as soon as they opened the door to leave. “There won’t be any charges leveled against the victims, will there?” she demanded, her tone so belligerent that it verged on a full alpha bark.
“That will be up to the district attorney, ma’am,” said the female beta detective. “But just between us, it sounds like a clear-cut case of self-defense. I wouldn’t worry.”