Page 36 of Claiming the Pack’s Omega (Riverwell Omegaverse #2)

“I’ll have to keep an eye on this one," she mutters under her breath as she brushes her fingers against one of the deeper cuts they made closer to my hip.

“Does that one look bad?”

“It’s a little angry looking, but not anything that screams ‘we’ve gotta go to the hospital right now,’ you know?”

“I think you’d know a little better than I would. I trust you, Wildflower.”

She stands up from her position at my feet, grabbing the bandages before she starts covering all the wounds she’s taken care of so far.

“You barely know me," she huffs. “For all you know, I could take this opportunity to do something crazy and kill you.”

“Nah, you wouldn’t be able to do that,” I say, shrugging with my good shoulder.

She raises an eyebrow skeptically, finishing the last of the bandages.

“Really? I doubt it.”

I don’t know what possesses me to do this, but in a flash, I’ve tugged her down to the bed beside me and have her pinned underneath me as I hover on top of her.

Stupid? Probably, but I’m only using my good shoulder, so it’s not like I’m causing any permanent damage.

Momentary discomfort is a worthy price to pay in exchange for the way her pupils flare as she looks up at me and her body practically goes limp underneath mine.

“Doubt me now?” My lips tug into a cocky smirk that has her eyes rolling.

“Yeah, yeah, fine, you were right. Now stop it before you hurt yourself.”

“I’m doing fine. Great actually. How’re you doing?”

I shift my weight and my hard cock presses against her thigh. My boxers and her leggings do nothing to hide my attraction to her.

We both freeze.

“How are you actually doing?” I say, my voice low. “Just tell me to move and I’m gone.”

But please, please, please don’t.

She swallows hard, her startlingly gray eyes wide as she looks up at me.

“You—you don’t have to move," she says.

Hell yes.

Fuck yeah.

I lean down, running my nose against the column of her neck, soaking in her scent. I love the fact she’s in my bed right now. Hopefully my sheets will smell like her, even after she’s gone.

Her perfume is intoxicating. It takes on this charged sweetness I haven’t scented from her and it’s driving me crazy.

I’ve never smelled an omega this delicious.

What is it with her? It’s not just her scent or her physical appearance, it’s her . All of her.

It’s the way she wasn’t afraid to call Killian out on his shit.

All of us out on our shit, really. It’s the way she stepped up to take care of me, even though I’m basically useless to her right now, in the state I’m in, just so I could get out of that hospital.

It’s the way she’s drawn all of us out of our shells and the monotonous rhythms of life we’ve dug ourselves into.

I let out a soft groan when her hands come up to rest on my chest, her fingertips come up to dance along the untouched skin on my back.

“Is that a baton in your boxers or are you just happy to see me?” She says, immediately snorting with laughter at her own joke.

I let out a bark of laughter so intense it makes my ribs ache.

“Did you—did you actually just say that to me?” I say between gasps of laughter.

“It was bad, wasn’t it," she says, grinning up at me.

“Really bad,” I say, smiling like I haven’t in forever. “But that just made it better.”

“You’ve probably had a ton of shitty cop jokes thrown your way.”

“Totally, but you’re the only one I want to hear them from.”

There’s a silence between us that takes on this heavy note to it that has my gaze darting between her eyes to try and figure out what’s going through that head of hers.

“Really? You—you want to actually hear shitty jokes from me?” She glances to the side and bites her bottom lip. “Alphas—men in general—they don’t want that kind of thing from me.”

“Oh, Wildflower,” I say, my chest growing heavy with sadness. “I’m going to preface this with the fact that I don’t know you very well yet, but your body is by far the least interesting thing about you.”

Her eyes go wide as she blinks up at me, confusion clouding her gaze.

“I’m not saying you’re not absolutely breathtaking. And I mean, you can feel how attracted I am to you,” I say, nodding downwards at myself. “But you’re so much more than just your body. You know that, right?”

Her face crumples in a way that makes my chest rip apart. Her chin wobbles as tears fill her eyes and she shakes her head.

She normally carries herself with so much confidence that it breaks my heart seeing her like this, after saying something she should’ve been hearing from all the men she’s been with before.

“N—no," she says, reaching up and covering her face with her hands. “Don’t say that kinda shit. You—you’re lying.”

“I’m not lying,” I say softly. I’m tempted to reach up and pull her hands away from her face. She shouldn’t feel the need to hide from me right now, but I have a small feeling this is less about hiding from me and more from hiding from what I just said. “It’s the truth, I promise.”

“No one—no one has ever said something like that to me before," she whispers, her strained voice breaking, right along with my heart.

“I’m sorry that’s been the case,” I say, leaning down and brushing my lips up her wrist and against the backs of her hands. “I promise you, the pack and I will spend every day you let us proving that to you.”

She falls apart underneath me even more as I press light kisses against her skin.

I hold myself up above her for as long as my good arm can take it before I settle next to her on the bed.

She pushes herself up to her elbow, wiping away at the few lingering tears.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, you’ve been holding yourself up this entire time!”

“Trust me, when I’m better, I can hold myself above you for as long as you want me there,” I huff out.

She throws her head back laughing and I freeze. It’s enchanting, just like the rest of her.

“You’re crazy, you know," she says when she finally catches her breath.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just crazy how you can make me cry and then laugh like that,” she shrugs. “So quickly, too.”

“I hope that’s not a complaint,” I say, turning my head to face her as I settle in a position that’s comfortable for my newly-applied bandages and aching ribs.

“Nah, it’s just surprising.”

“What, you didn’t think I was funny when we first met?”

“No, dumbass, I knew you were a charmer from the first conversation we had," she says, rolling her eyes. When her gaze resettles on me, it’s intense and captivating. “I just didn’t expect this sort of depth to you, is all. For all I knew, you knocked heads around for a living.”

“Well, I aim to please,” I say. “So I’m glad you like what you’re getting, here.”

“Live to please, huh?”

I lift my good arm, spreading it wide. “You bet. It’s kinda my thing.”

Her lips tug up into a little smirk at my innuendo before her expression sobers. She pauses as if she’s trying to think through her next words.

“You can ask,” I murmur softly.

“What happened to your sister?”

The silence is heavy between us. It’s similar to the kind of silence that buzzes around me after a gunshot is fired when there was never supposed to be in the first place.

“You don’t have to tell me," she says, fidgeting with the comforter nervously. “It just… It just seems like it was weighing heavily on you earlier.”

“It was,” I sigh, staring up at the ceiling.

My sister and the abuse she faced was one of the biggest reasons I went into the police force. I wanted to help, wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. I wanted to serve and protect other omegas who may be stuck in similar positions to my sister.

But if I’m being completely honest, this whole undercover mission was one of the first few assignments I’ve done where I actually feel like I’m making a systemic difference.

Sure, I’ve helped people, but because of the issues that’re so deeply rooted in Riverwell’s history, there are so many other people I can’t help.

“You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to," she says softly. “Forget I said anything. I get not wanting to talk about shit like that.”

She makes a move to sit up from the bed and I gently wrap my hand around her wrist.

“Stay—” My voice cracks on the single word. “Please.”

Her eyes dart between mine, full of so many emotions I can’t even begin to read them, not when my head is already cloudy with the ghosts of my past.

“Okay," she says, laying so close to me I can feel the heat radiating off of her skin. She gets as close as she can to me without touching me, almost like she’s scared she’ll hurt me, so I settle for lacing our fingers together.

“My sister… she committed suicide when I was a teenager… she told us in her suicide note it was because her pack and bondmates were abusing her and I—” Fuck, what is wrong with my voice?

It wasn’t like there was any damage to my vocal cords, so why the hell can’t I talk normally? “I found her body.”

“Holy shit,” Reyna breathes out. When I glance at her, her eyes are wide, and her free hand is covering her mouth as she holds in her gasp.

“Yeah. It—it was a terrible time. I spent weeks in the hospital by her bedside. She was brain-dead, but our parents couldn’t—they couldn’t let her go.”

“That’s why you hate hospitals," she says, squeezing my hand.

I start brushing small circles on the back of hers with my thumb.

“Exactly,” I sigh. “Hate the noises, hate the smell, I hate all of it.”

“I’m glad we could get you out of there, then. I—I can’t imagine what that would’ve felt like if you were just left there until the doctors wanted to discharge you.”

I turn to stare up at the ceiling, unable to look her in the eye right now. My jaw clenches as I try and keep myself from breaking down like she just did. I’m a man. I’m an alpha. I want to be a protector. I have to be strong.

“Y—yeah,” I say, my voice unsteady. “It’s why—it’s why it seriously means so much to me that you were willing to step up to take care of me, even if you didn’t have to, so I could get out.”

She reaches up with her free hand and scrubs it down her face. Her sigh sounds surprisingly similar to a growl.

“You’re just making me mad at Killian and Theo all over again,” she groans. “Seriously, how could they even think about leaving you there, knowing your past?”

I shrug my good shoulder.

“We’re all kind of like that, to be honest. We bury our own shit underneath mountains of work, stuff gets lost to the wayside.”

“Still, they’re your packmates.”

“I’m not saying it’s right, or that I like it, but I get it. If we stop working, it means our demons and ghosts can sink their claws into us again.”

“I guess that makes sense," she sighs.

I finally turn to face her again, a small smile tugging at my lips. “I do have to say, I like you being a bit angry on my behalf.”

“A bit angry? Oh I was pissed as fuck in the hospital, I’m pretty sure I could feel my heartbeat in my teeth.” She has an adorable crease between her brows as she relives the memory.

I lift my free hand, ignoring the twinge in my shoulder and gently brush a finger between her brows.

“You’re adorable,” I murmur.

She blinks up at me, her eyes going wide.

“You—you’re not supposed to move that arm," she says.

“Yeah, you’re right, but alphas heal faster than betas or omegas, so I should be fine,” I say, shrugging.

“Don’t you think the hospital takes that into account when they make recommendations?” She says, rolling her eyes and pushing my hand away so it’s resting where it should. “Don’t hurt yourself on my account, okay?”

My expression grows serious.

“I can’t promise that,” I say, my expression growing serious. “Because I would. I’d hurt, if it benefited you.”

“Get hurt or hurt other people?” She whispers.

“Both.” I squeeze her hand in mine, her fingers feeling delicate and almost fragile under my touch. The thought of anyone trying to hurt her makes me rage inside, a bone-deep anger that begs to be let out one day.

She swallows hard and nods.

“Good to know," she says, glancing away. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“What’s the tattoo on your back?”

“It’s for my sister. She’s an angel now, so… yeah.”

“The biblically accurate angel is pretty cool, different than the kinds of angels most people get, you know?”

“I was an angsty teen when I got it, I sought out pain in all shapes and forms.” I leave out the fact that I’ve continued to do so every day since I found her hanging in the garage.

“I couldn’t stomach the idea of having her face on my body, not when—when—” I shake my head and clear my throat.

“It also just seemed wrong to put another face there when it was supposed to be for her, you know?”

“I get it," she says softly. “How many hours did it take? Probably a shit ton, that thing is huge and it’s so detailed.”

“Seventy hours,” I say. “So a long time on the table.”

“Damn. I’ve always wanted a tattoo, you know.”

“You should get one.”

She stares wistfully out my bedroom window, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Maybe I will.”