Page 20 of Claiming the Pack’s Omega (Riverwell Omegaverse #2)

Stone

I fucking hate hospitals.

I’m this close to screaming and tearing my hair out. If they don’t turn off that incessant beeping heart monitor, I’m going to throw it across the room.

“Is everything alright, Officer Stone?” Betsy, one of the older nurses who’s been tending to me asks.

She glances at the heart rate monitor, probably seeing how freaked out I am, and frowns.

“You seem a bit stressed.”

“Is there any way you can turn that godforsaken thing off?” I bite out.

My free hand, the one that’s not attached to any of the machines or IV, comes up as I press against my temple, trying to ease the building pain behind my eyes that I don’t think is from getting my ass handed to me.

The only downside of moving that arm is the lingering pain that shoots up my shoulder. That was the one they practically ripped out of its socket. Technically, I shouldn’t be moving it at all, right now, but my other arm is occupied by Betsy drawing some blood for some tests.

“Oh, yes, sorry,” she says, hurrying over to the heart monitor and pressing some buttons.

I’m met with blissful silence.

I finally let my eyes close as I lean back against the pillows.

“No, I’m the one who should be sorry, Betsy,” I sigh. “I’m in a terrible mood right now, but you don’t deserve me taking that out on you. Thank you for taking care of that.”

“Of course, sweetie. That’s my job. You’re practically a hero. I do my job for plenty of people who are far from being heroes.” She pats my arm gently before flashing me a bright smile. “Press that button over there if you need anything more, alright? I’ll let you get some rest.”

I stare up at the ceiling, her words washing over me.

You’re practically a hero .

Like hell I am.

Heroes don’t fuck up and get caught.

Heroes don’t put the lives of beautiful, wide-eyed omegas in danger like I have.

Flashes of Reyna and her wide stormy gray eyes staring up at me—in The Warehouse locker room, by the fighting cage, in that shitty basement where they tortured me, with men ready to kill me right outside the door—consume my brain.

That’s not the only reason why I’m in a foul fucking mood though.

Even though the heart monitor has stopped its incessant beeping, you can’t get rid of the smell of the antiseptic they use to clean these rooms. It’s burned its way up my nostrils and buried itself in my lungs.

I’m all too familiar with the smells, the sounds, the soul-sucking nature of places like these. Of hospitals .

That’s what happens when your big sister is kept on life support after she tried to kill herself.

The words brain-dead seem to lose meaning when someone you love is lying in a hospital bed, just like the one I’m lying in, looking like they’re just sleeping.

That’s how my parents felt, anyway.

They kept Jade attached to all those machines for far too long. Those machines did everything: they breathed for her, pumped her heart for her, and they even got rid of her waste for her.

At the end of the day, was it really for her, though? Because at that point she was already fucking gone.

Her death was the number one reason why I entered the force. She killed herself because of the abuse she endured at the hands of her so-called “pack.”

Like hell was I going to let that happen to another innocent omega.

“Oh, good, you’re awake!” Theo’s voice snaps me out of my spiral.

I blink my eyes open. The smile that appears on my lips when I see my pack tugs at the bruises left on my face.

“Hey, man, good to see you,” I say.

My breath catches in my throat when I see who trails into the room after the three of them, right after Milo.

Reyna.

My eyes fixate on her.

She’s dressed casually, in a pair of leggings and a hoodie that seems far too thin for the chilly weather outside. All things considered, a lot more clothing than what I normally saw her in at The Warehouse, but she’s still as breathtaking as ever.

Her gaze is sharp and assessing, like she’s trying to see through the thin hospital gown they put me in.

“Hi,” I breathe out.

“Hi?” She huffs, crossing her arms over her chest and narrowing her eyes at me. “That’s all you have to say, after this whole mess you’ve gotten me into?”

I wince, which tugs at my bruises even more. She feels so fucking far away. At this distance, I can only catch a whiff of her deep, petrichor scent that my body seems to crave. I’m looking forward to the rainy spring season now.

I’d give anything to be able to stand up and be closer to her, right now.

“Thank you,” I say, shaking myself.

What am I doing? Getting lost in my head, thinking about how breathtaking I think she is, isn’t going to do anything to redeem myself in her eyes.

“I’m sure I wouldn’t have made it out of there without you,” I continue. “You seriously saved my ass.”

She narrows her eyes at me, her jaw clenching.

“Are you… okay?” She grits out, as if she can’t help but ask.

That’s a good sign, her checking up on me. Not all of her hates me. My lips tug up at the corner in a small smile. I can work with that.

“I’ve definitely been better, but I definitely would’ve been worse without the help.

Like my arm,” I lift it up a bit, wincing as pain shoots up into my shoulder.

“It’s still kind of fucked, but the doctors were saying earlier if I’d been hanging on it any longer than I was before you put it back in its socket, I never would’ve regained full function. ”

“They said, what? ” Killian growls, stepping forward, narrowing his eyes on me. “You didn’t fucking mention that.”

Reyna jumps a little bit, taking a wary step back as Killian’s dominance flows from him with his anger. She tries to hide it, but I’m used to watching body language, so I catch it.

So does Theo, who tries to move closer to her—maybe to comfort her—but she won’t have any of it. She shoots him a short glare and raises a brow as if to say “try me.”

I wince, turning my attention back to Killian.

“Forgot to mention that, did I?”

I purposely left that bit of information out. My packmates had a shit ton of stuff to deal with last night and this morning without having to worry about me. Plus, I was kind of out of it, from all the meds they pumped in my system that hadn’t yet worn off.

I declined the second round of pain meds because I wanted to be coherent for this conversation with Reyna, which my body is loudly telling me now.

“Yes. Yes, you did,” Killian huffs.

“Well, we haven’t even had a proper debrief yet.”

“I asked you what they did to you,” Killian says, his knuckles growing white as he clenches the bar of the hospital bed I’m in.

“And I told you, they interrogated me,” I shrug, immediately regretting the movement.

“More like tortured,” Reyna snorts. I notice she hasn’t moved. She’s still the closest to the door, like she needs the comfort that she can run away if necessary.

That instinct has probably served her well in the past, considering what I know about her past and what I’ve seen about the world she’s from.

Killian’s gaze shoots to Reyna and she stares right back at him.

“What did they do to him?” Killian asks, his voice pitched low.

“You don’t have to answer that, if you don’t want to, Reyna,” I cut in, narrowing my eyes at Killian.

She lets out a soft laugh under her breath.

“They dislocated his arm and strung him up like a Thanksgiving turkey. He was hanging from the ceiling, putting nearly his entire weight on it,” she says, nodding to my right shoulder.

“They carved him up like a turkey, too. There was a whole table with a spread of torture devices. That’s only what I saw too, they could’ve done more to him after I left. ”

“Holy shit, man, seriously?” Theo asks, his eyes wide with shock.

Now, all the members of my pack look like they’re trying to see through my hospital gown to see if I’m alright.

“Fine, if we’re doing the play-by-play, they also beat the shit out of me too, broke a few ribs.” I huff. “But the doctors say I’ll make a full recovery, okay?”

Reyna’s shoulders relax slightly as she takes her next breath.

I meet her eyes and she narrows them at me, as if she knows I noticed.

She was worried about me.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” I breathe out, not dropping my gaze from hers. “Thank you for trusting us.”

She bites her lower lip and stares out the window. “It’s not like I had a choice.”

Something about what she said last night comes back to me. Her shoulders shaking as she covered her face with her hands.

“What did you mean last night when you said you didn’t have a choice about being involved with the Sorel family?” I ask quietly.

The rest of my pack stays quiet, their gazes darting back and forth between Reyna and I.

I guess she must not have told them.

“You remember that?” She shifts her weight from foot to foot nervously, her hand making the sleeve of her hoodie fold under her grip. Her hands crossed over her chest look a lot more like she’s trying to protect herself, rather than putting up a fiery front.

“I do,” I say, making sure to keep my tone soft.

She may put up a tough front, but deep down, she’s afraid. I mean, who wouldn’t be, if put in her shoes?

She’s had to leave everything she’s ever known, with some pretty insane people probably looking for her.

“This is important, Reyna,” I continue. “We need to be able to protect you.”

“Fine,” she huffs, her gaze darting between the four of us. “You guys basically know fucking everything about my life, so what’s one more thing?”

Milo stares down at his hands, his shoulders curling in on themselves.

Damn, he must be beating himself up over that. I should talk to him later about it.

“I’m a whore. You know that, considering you sent someone in to buy my time.

” Her gaze shoots to Theo, who has the decency to look a bit embarrassed.

“The guy who ran the brothel I worked at wanted to start selling my heats, too, on top of the work I already did for him. That’s—” She clears her throat.

“That’s not something I’ve done before, and frankly, something I’m not interested in. They were going to force the issue.”

“This may sound like an insensitive question,” Theo says softly, like he doesn’t want to spook her. “But what have you done for your previous heats?”

Her knuckles go white from how hard she’s clenching her hands.

“You guys can’t arrest me, right?” She shoots an anxious glance my way.

“Of course not,” I answer. “Nothing you’ve done in your past is going to get you in legal trouble, I promise. I’ll personally make sure of it, if anything does come up.”

Her lips tug up in a wobbly smile.

“Looks like having a police officer think I’m hot has some perks,” she says.

My mouth opens and closes as I struggle to find a response to that.

I mean, yeah, I think she’s one of the hottest women I’ve ever fucking seen. You’d have to be blind to not think so.

Hell, I even think a blind man would find her hot if she let them give her a hug.

Crude, I know, but it’s the truth.

“I’ve been taking suppressants,” she says, her eyes on the floor. “They’re not heavy-duty ones that disguise my scent or anything, it wasn’t like I was trying to hide the fact I’m an omega, but I haven’t had a heat.”

“Like, ever?” Theo asks, his brows drawn down in concern.

We all glance at each other. That sort of thing can be dangerous. An omega’s hormones aren’t something that should be messed with, especially by something that was presumably a black market sort of drug.

“Isn’t—isn’t that dangerous?” Milo asks, speaking up for the first time in this conversation.

She flashes him a smile. A genuine one, though it’s a little sad at the edges.

“Maybe,” she shrugs. “It’s not like they were prescribed by a doctor, or anything.”

“We should get you to a doctor then,” Killian grumbles.

“What? No, I can’t afford that?—”

“We’ll cover it,” Killian interrupts.

She clenches her jaw and narrows her eyes.

“And if I say I hate doctors or something? Are you still going to force me to go?”

“I’m not going to argue with you about this,” Killian sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Oh, you’re not going to ‘argue’ with me?” She says, raising her voice, along with her hands to do air quotes.

“No, I’m not.”

There’s a knock at the door to my hospital room before the door opens, revealing four other alphas.

Reyna immediately steps away from the door, her gaze bouncing around, eyeing each of them up and down. Her eyes are wide with shock, and her hands are clenched into fists by her side.

The alphas from the Ward pack, the ones who came in last night and busted me out, step into the room.

“Hey, man! Good to see you up and awake this time,” Chase, the chipper blonde member of the pack, says, raising a hand to wave at me.

“Good to see you too, guys,” I say, nodding back at them.

Madden, the tall, muscled Southside member of their pack enters the room, holding the hand of their omega, Luna.

She waves at the four of us before her gaze lands on Reyna and she freezes.

Her free hand comes up to cover her mouth as she lets out a gasp.

“It’s you!” She whispers.

Reyna’s eyes go wide with fear and she does something none of us would’ve ever expected.

She turns, opens the window, and throws herself out of it.