Page 29 of Claiming the Pack’s Omega (Riverwell Omegaverse #2)

Maybe that’s the difference. Plenty of the alphas I serviced were handsome, in a conventional sense. I’d never offer them a fraction of the consideration that seems to come so naturally, when it comes to Stone. Or any of the members of the Graylock Pack, if I’m being completely honest with myself.

“I was worried about you,” Stone says softly, his brows drawing down. His gaze is imploring, like there’s more meaning to what he’s saying than just those words.

“Worried?”

God, it’s like I can’t even string together a proper sentence.

“Yeah. I didn’t like thinking about you being alone with the kinds of men that were there at that house," he says, his jaw clenching.

“They’ve never hurt me, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I shrug. “I was too valuable and too cooperative to ever be physically hurt. It was the people who bought my time that I had to be careful around.”

His hand clenches into a fist in the grey comforter at my words.

“They must not have thought you were valuable enough to protect if they sent you into a room alone with me, knowing what I did.”

“And what did you do?”

“I incapacitated five of their guys before they managed to get to me.” He glances away, as if he doesn’t want to expose me to the thought of violence.

It’s sweet. But also unnecessary. I’m no stranger to violence.

Sure, I don’t like it, but still.

Maybe he has that expression because of that borderline panic attack I had in front of him back at The Warehouse. But that wasn’t necessarily because of the violence. It was more from the blood.

“It’s probably why they were so pissed off when they were interrogating me,” Stone continues. “They could barely get a hit in when I was fighting back, so they decided to take it out on me when I couldn’t.”

My gaze gets caught on the bandages around his wrists. Bandages I know cover ugly welts from where the ropes dug into his skin.

“I believe that,” I say, letting out a huff of laughter, a sad smile tugging at my lips as my eyes trail over all the places I know he’s injured, even though I can’t see them through his T-shirt. “I’ve seen you fight. I know what you’re capable of.”

His jaw clenches as he stares down at his hands.

I don’t know what possesses me in that moment, but I reach up, tracing my fingertips lightly against his neck until I’m running them through his buzz cut hair. It’s grown out a bit since a few weeks ago, when I first met him.

It’s just as soft as I imagined it would be.

“I’ve never once been afraid of you,” I murmur softly, before pulling my hand away and standing up straight.

His gaze is heavy. I can almost feel it against my skin as if he were actually touching me.

I avoid his gaze. I don’t know if I can be held responsible for my actions if I look into his eyes, especially if they’re as dark with desire as his scent is telegraphing.

Milo makes a quiet, almost nervous noise that snaps me back to reality. I forgot we had a bit of an audience.

“Now then, some of your medications can’t be taken on an empty stomach,” I say, changing the subject. “What kind of food are you feeling?”

It takes him a few seconds to come up with a response.

“We’ve got some frozen food in the freezer. Could you pop a pizza in the oven?”

“An entire pizza?” I ask, raising an eyebrow in surprise.

He jerks his head in a little head-only shrug. Good, he’s not moving his shoulder this time.

“You do have… well, a lot of you to feed,” I say, waving a hand up and down his bulk.

“Yeah," he laughs. “You could say that.”

“Okay, one pizza coming right up.”

Milo’s phone buzzes in his pocket, drawing my attention to him. He winces as he reads whatever message is on there.

“That work?” Stone asks him.

“Yeah, there’s an outage. Someone has to go look at it.” Milo glances up at me, his amber eyes sad and a little guilty.

“Go take care of it,” I say, flashing him a reassuring smile.

He melts with relief the moment he sees my expression. He seems to need a lot of reassurance from me. Considering that’s only a smile, on my part, I’ll give him all the reassurance he needs.

He pauses. “Are you sure?”

“Seriously,” I say, waving a hand at him. “I can make a frozen pizza.”

“Okay,” he nods. “I’ll be in my room if you need anything, okay?”

“Sounds good.” I turn back to Stone. “I’ll be back with your pizza. Then you can take your meds and get some rest.”

“Thank you, Wildflower.”

“No need to thank me,” I shrug. “It’s just a frozen pizza. I’ll be right back.”

It takes me a few minutes to figure out how the hell to work their fancy oven.

I swear, some of the times it beeped at me, it was mocking my inability to use it. I’m used to the old gas oven we had back at home where you just turn a knob and pray. Not the fancy double oven model with a shit ton of buttons.

The timer goes off and I take one of the kitchen towels hanging on the handles of one of the ovens and take the pizza out.

Now we have a problem. I have no clue where they keep their utensils. I glance around the kitchen, trying to figure out which drawers they’d keep it in. I don’t want to go snooping. That feels wrong. I’ve barely been in their house an hour and now I’m going to rifle through their shit?

I’m tempted to run back upstairs to ask Milo, but I don’t want to bother him.

That’s when the silliest idea ever comes to mind.

“Steve, what drawer is the pizza cutter in?”

“ Second drawer to the left of the sink ,” the robot assistant says over the speakers.

“Perfect!” I say, opening the drawer and pulling out the pizza cutter. “Thanks, Steve.”

“ You are most welcome .”

Glad Steve likes me. I’d never be anything less than nice to those kinds of robots. Who knows when they’re going to take over the world?

A couple minutes later and I’m headed up the stairs with a steaming plate of hot pizza and a few paper towels tucked under my arm. Turns out these guys don’t have napkins.

I mean, neither did we, at our home, but that was more so because we couldn’t afford them, when paper towels worked just fine. I think the Graylock not having napkins is more so because they’re… well, a pack of guys.

“I come bearing gifts,” I say, when I open the door to Stone’s room.

He glances up from his phone, a tension around his eyes that betrays how much pain he’s in.

“Thank you,” he says, taking the plate and instantly shoving a slice into his mouth. He manages to fit in two thirds of the slice in one go.

Damn. What else does that mouth do?

I think he’s too preoccupied with his pizza to notice me turning away to hide my blush. Or at least I hope he’s too preoccupied with the pizza.

I busy myself with collecting all the different pills he needs to take and placing them on the nightstand.

“Why’d you refuse pain meds at the hospital?” I ask him, once he’s on his last slice of pizza.

He wipes his hands and mouth with the paper towel before setting it on top of the dirty plate. It’s like he’s trying to buy time to avoid answering the question.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me,” I say, holding out all of his medication and the plastic water bottle.

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you," he says, shaking his head. “It’s just a long story.”

“I get it,” I shrug, crossing my arms over my chest as he takes a swig from the water bottle before downing all of the pills at once.

“I can tell you one of the reasons, though," he says, looking up at me. “I wanted to be fully conscious when I got to see you again. I had to see for myself that you were okay.”

I blink at him.

“Damn, you were really worried about me, huh?”

“I was.”

“You should’ve been more worried for yourself, considering the fact that you were going to be tortured more and then killed, if I hadn’t stepped in.”

“You’re probably right, but that doesn’t change the fact that one of the biggest things running through my head was you.

” He says, his deep blue gaze unwavering.

“I’m going to pass out now, but I want you to know that I haven’t forgotten about what you’ve told me.

About the Sorel family. About the danger you were in.

We’re going to talk about that, eventually, Wildflower. ”

“Oh yeah? Then we’ll just have to talk about your past and the reason why you don’t like hospitals and freak out at the mention of matching names,” I snap back, instantly getting defensive.

“If that’s what you need to feel safe enough to talk about your past, then sure," he sighs, his eyes starting to flutter shut.

Guilt hits me like a truck. He’s being so nice.

“I’ll let you get some rest,” I say, stepping back and leaving his room like my ass is on fire.