Page 32 of Claimed By the Psychos

Juniper is obviously an omega. That one's easier to understand, but me…

I catalog my surroundings without moving, a skill honed by years of waking up in places where the wrong twitch could mean death. Medical equipment beeps steadily beside the bed. The room smells like antiseptic. But underneath it, I catch traces of alpha pheromones. Multiple alphas. The ones from the club.

My muscles tense involuntarily, and Juniper stirs against me, making a soft sound that's half-whimper, half-sigh. Her eyes flutter open, hazel irises unfocused for a moment before they sharpen with awareness.

"Felix?" Her voice cracks on my name, and then she's sitting up, hands flying to my face, my chest, checking for damage. "You're awake. You're actually awake. I thought—fuck, I thought you were going to die on me."

"Takes more than a couple bullets to put me down," I rasp, throat dry as sandpaper. My voice sounds like I've been gargling gravel, but at least it works.

She makes a sound that's somewhere between a laugh and a sob, then promptly bursts into tears. Not the delicate tears of someone playing a role, but the ugly, body-shaking sobs of genuine relief. Her face crumples, and she buries it against my chest, fingers digging into my shoulders hard enough to hurt.

I let her cry. My hands find her hair, stroking through the tangled strands while my mind races through implications. We're alive. We're captive. We're being monitored—I can feel the weight of surveillance even if I can't see the cameras.

"Did they hurt you?" The question comes out sharper than intended, edged with the kind of violence I usually keep locked away.

She shakes her head against my chest. "No. They've been... weirdly nice, actually. Like they're trying not to spook me or something." She pulls back, wiping her tears on her sleeve ina gesture so purely Juniper it makes my chest do something uncomfortable. She drops her voice to a nearly silent whisper. "They don't know, Felix. About what you are. I made sure."

Relief floods through me, though I keep my expression neutral. The synthetic pheromones must have held even while I was unconscious. For now. If they knew I was an omega masquerading as an alpha, this situation would be infinitely more complicated.

"How long was I out?"

"Fourteen hours." She settles back against my side, careful of my injuries. "The doctor said you lost a lot of blood. The golden-haired psycho gave you a transfusion."

Jackal. The one who held a gun to her head. The thought of his blood flowing through my veins makes me want to vomit, but I push the revulsion down. Survival first, disgust later.

"They haven't interrogated you?"

"They've asked questions. I didn't answer." She taps patterns on my chest, and I immediately recognize it as Morse code.Safe for now. Being watched. Play along.

A knock at the door interrupts my response. We both tense, Juniper's hand automatically moving to where she'd normally keep a weapon. The door opens to reveal the silver-haired alpha from the club. The doctor. His blue eyes are calm, professional, but there's something else there too that makes my hackles rise.

"Good to see you're awake," he says, voice conversational like we're old friends instead of attempted murderer and victim. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I got shot and pumped full of drugs." I don't bother hiding the hostility in my tone. "What do you want?"

"To check your wounds, make sure there's no infection setting in." He takes a step forward, and Juniper literally growls at him. The sound is pure omega territorial instinct. "I was hoping we could speak privately for a moment."

"No," Juniper says immediately.

"Juney." I touch her arm, feel her vibrating with tension. "Go get some coffee."

She turns to stare at me like I've lost my mind. "Felix?—"

"I'm not going anywhere." I keep my voice steady, reasonable, even though every instinct screams to keep her close. "Five minutes. That's all."

She looks between me and the doctor, clearly torn. Finally, she slides off the bed with obvious reluctance. "If you hurt him," she tells the doctor, voice sweet as arsenic, "I'll use your own scalpels to turn you into modern art."

The doctor's lips twitch. "Noted."

She shoots me one last look—be careful—then stalks out of the room like a cat who's been forcibly removed from her favorite sunbeam.

The door clicks shut, and suddenly the room feels smaller. The doctor moves closer, but maintains a respectful distance. Smart man.

"Do you normally let people who try to kill you roam your base freely?" I ask, genuinely curious about their security protocols. Or lack thereof.

He actually smirks. "Neither of you can take a breath without being monitored. She knows it, you know it, we all know it. Seemed pointless to lock her in a cage when she'd just pick the lock and come right back here anyway."

Fair point. Juniper's lockpicking skills are legendary, and her separation anxiety where I'm concerned borders on pathological. Not that I'm any better.