Page 18 of His Reward (Omegas After Dark: Omega Auction #2)

Dr. Wendel squashed that fear before it could get out of hand by saying, “He’s still in a lot of pain, but there is minimal muscle damage.

Now that Lucien has regained consciousness, I would encourage him to start trying to get up and use his body as much as possible again as soon as he feels ready. ”

I didn’t feel ready. I didn’t feel even remotely ready. But I had the feeling I was in a use it or lose it situation.

“I can get up whenever you need me to,” I said, trying hard to muscle to a full sitting position from my half-reclined bed.

“Looks like we have a fighter here,” Dr. Wendel said with a wink. “Baby steps,” he went on. “Don’t forget to walk before you run.”

“I’ll settle for just walking,” I replied.

Dr. Wendel brought my father up to speed in less than a minute, then he and the nurse left to get on with whatever else they had on their plates.

That left me alone with Mom and Father.

“You heard him,” I said, moving my body as much as I could through the pain. “I need to walk before I run, and I need to run before I skate. The Winter Games are—”

“You’re no longer competing in the Winter Games,” Father cut me off.

I’d been working to sit up, but his words had me flopping back against the inadequate hospital pillow. “What?”

Father moved to check the beeping medical machinery, and without looking at me, he said, “I’ve withdrawn you from the Winter Games.

You won’t be in any sort of shape to compete in three months.

Your doctors say the kind of burns you sustained take years to recover from and that you’ll likely see decreased mobility on your left side because of scarring. ”

“I’ll what?” My father’s words and the callousness with which he spoke them was like a gut-punch to my already throbbing body.

Father finally looked at me, sighed, and said, “Your skating career is over, Lucien.”

“No, it isn’t,” I protested. A different sort of fire from the kind that had brought me down flared up in me. “I’m going to recover. I’ll be walking again by the end of the day. I’ll do whatever it takes to overcome this and get back into top form.”

Father shook his head and turned away. He strode to the chair and picked up Mom’s discarded book, looking at it with disinterest. “It would take too much time and effort. The chances of you winning gold now are nonexistent. I’ve already told the media you’re officially retiring due to your injuries. ”

“You don’t have any right to make that decision,” I said.

Unfortunately, the force of my anger had me coughing up a smoke-tasting lung instead of continuing with my argument, that it was my career, my body, and he didn’t have any sort of say in it.

Father snapped toward me, eyes bright with anger. “Have you even looked at yourself yet?” he asked.

I forced myself to stop coughing and lay still for a second. No, I hadn’t seen myself. I could feel the bandages, but there wasn’t a mirror in the room.

“Bea, show him,” Father said to Mom.

“Pietro, I don’t know if now is the right time to—”

“Show him!” Father demanded.

Mom flinched a little, sent Father a disapproving look, then crossed to her purse, which sat on a counter. She pulled out her cell phone, tapped the camera app, then brought her phone to me.

I wasn’t sure what I expected to see, but it was not my own face turned gaunt and pale.

I guessed only eating through a feeding tube for three weeks would do that to you.

But worse than that, most of the left side of my head was bandaged.

Thank God my left eye was perfectly fine and the burns hadn’t reached my mouth or nose, but I could imagine the same sort of raw, angry skin I’d seen on my leg covering the left side of my face.

I didn’t want to think what my ear might look like, if it was even there anymore.

I could vaguely hear on that side, but I’d assumed the reduced hearing was due to the bandages covering it. Maybe not.

“You’re disfigured,” Father said bluntly. “And you won’t have the same degree of flexibility or mobility on your left side. How do you expect to jump if you don’t have the extension needed to pull it off? Who is going to want to look at an ugly, disfigured omega competing on the elite circuit?”

Reminding me I’d have to work for something as simple as flexibility was one thing. Throwing at me that I was horrible to look at now was a whole different kind of low.

Those tears I was coming to hate so much were back to stinging my eyes in an instant, but what sent them over the edge was Boston appearing in the doorway at just that moment.

He knocked on the doorframe, then moved uncertainly into the room, his shoulders hunched slightly, like he was trying not to take up too much space. In his hand he held a single red rose.

“Hey,” he said gently. “Am I interrupting? Hannah said Lucien is awake.”

A couple things snapped clear in my head all at once. There was a vase filled with red roses on the room’s windowsill. Some of them looked fresh and new, the others looked faded, like they’d been there a while. And Boston knew one of the nurse’s name.

It hadn’t been my imagination. Somehow, Boston had been with me during my recovery.

I burst into ugly tears. I couldn’t help it. Even though he was more or less a complete stranger I’d only spent one super-hot heat with, Boston was and had been there for me. My alpha, who wasn’t really my alpha, but fuck it, yes, he was, was there for me.

“Hey, hey,” Boston said, walking quickly into the room. He deposited the rose in the vase with the others then came to stand on the left side of my bed, opposite my parents. “Is everything okay? Are you alright?”

“Honey, this is Mr. Boston Fielding,” Mom said, smiling adoringly at Boston. “He’s the firefighter who rescued you from the fire. He ran right in there, like a hero, found you, and carried you to safety. And he’s been here almost every day since then to check on you.”

I hadn’t thought anything could shock me more, but that definitely did it.

“You?” I asked, my voice shaking. “You’re the one who rescued me from the fire.”

“Yeah,” Boston laughed, sending my parents a tiny, guilty look before focusing on me. “Imagine that.”

I might have been souped up on painkillers, but I wasn’t so fuzzy that I didn’t catch Boston’s hint that my parents didn’t know we’d met before the fire.

“Thank you,” I said, tears streaming down my face. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re looking great, by the way,” Boston said, sweeping my reduced, bandaged form with caring eyes.

It was too much. Considering what Father had just said about how repulsive I was, hearing Boston say I looked great had me weeping like a baby, and coughing, of course.

“You’re upsetting him,” Father said sternly. “You should leave.”

“No, Pietro, you’re the one who’s upset him,” Mom said in the voice she used when one of us was in trouble. “I want a word with you in the waiting room.”

Father sighed in irritation. “He’s not supposed to have more than two visitors at a time anyhow,” he said, then headed straight for the door without giving me a backward look.

“You can trust Boston,” Mom told me as she inched toward the door to follow him. “He’s a really great guy and he’s been such a help and comfort to me. I’m sure you two will get along famously.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said, trying not to sob like a baby and failing.

As soon as they were gone, Boston rushed around the bed to my good side so he could take my hand. “Are you sure you’re alright?” Boston asked, wiping away the tears from my face with his other hand.

It felt so ridiculously wonderful to be cared for by my alpha that I couldn’t stop crying, even though I tried hard to smile at the same time. My heart pounded in my chest like it wanted to leap out and reach for him. I was safe now. My alpha was here.

And at the same time, I wasn’t safe at all. My life was ruined.

“My father just informed me that my skating career is over,” I wept.