Page 3 of Lost Wolf (Exiled Omegas #2)

I awake slowly, my eyelids heavy and refusing to stay open for more than a second. My whole body aches and my throat feels scratchy and raw.

Where…?

How…?

Groggily, I blink a few times, trying to clear my vision and the view in front of me sharpens into an unwelcome sight. I’m in a cage, the metal grating still a little blurry, but unmistakable as anything else.

My heart immediately starts racing even as everything else in my body slows and sinks into despair.

All that effort…

All that hope …

Useless.

I’m right back where I started all because I was too exhausted to stay on my feet. Or at least check for cars.

Maybe it’s time I finally gave up. I’m never getting out of here.

What does it matter anymore?

At least I got to see the sky one last time.

I sigh, shoulders slumping as I let go of the idea there’s any future for me but the one that ends like this, a prisoner in a cage. If I could cry in this form, I’d be sobbing. As it is, my eyes burn and begin to water, making the room outside the cage even blurrier. I press my back against the rear wall and curl into a ball, tucking my nose under my tail.

But one of my back legs doesn’t bend right, the limb encased in a rigid cast of some kind, which is… strange. Through some early trial and error, the humans know how quickly I can heal. Even if the impact with the car left me broken, the humans wouldn’t bother with a cast.

They never have before anyway. After all, what use is a cast when they prefer to observe the healing process?

I give my head a brisk shake to push away some of the lingering mental fog before cataloging my surroundings a little better than my blind despair allowed before.

Yes, I’m in a cage, but this isn’t the same one I escaped from. This one is much larger, the bottom slightly padded, and there’s what looks like a bed off in the corner. Here there’s enough space for me to stand up without hunching and actually walk a few paces to the other side.

Though there’s nothing that really tells me if I've moved up in the world or down, based on the improvements to the cage alone, I'm leaning toward the former.

And, now that I’m looking more closely, I can tell the room outside the cage is different too. Bigger and warmer, both in actual temperature and feeling.

Where am I?

The lights in the room are dimmed, so there isn't much I can see from inside the cage. I take a hesitant sniff, taking in the scent of a variety of other animals. A couple squirrels, a skunk, a hawk, and something mildly swampy smelling, reptilian maybe. Nothing larger than a fox I don’t think.

Though I have no idea quite how I know that beyond the knowledge being based solely on an unfamiliar instinct and maybe a hint of memory.

The various scents pull at the back of my mind, dragging an image out of the fog of my past, one where I’m in the woods, my small hand encased in someone else’s as we walk. The image isn’t much and there’s no context, but it’s still the clearest memory I’ve been able to recall for quite some time.

How long have I been here? Could the pieces of my past come back if my body is allowed time enough to be free of whatever drugs the humans injected me with?

The light in the room outside the cage flares brighter with a soft click and the sound of someone whistling reaches my ears. A young woman—human—walks into view holding a metal bowl. Her gaze catches on me and her eyes widen.

“You're awake already,” she says, her brows pulling together. Her soft tone and kind eyes calm some of my nervousness. She moves closer, her head tilting to the side as she stares at me. “Dr. Larson didn't expect you to shake off the anesthesia for at least another couple hours.” She frowns and glances down at the bowl in her hands. “I was just going to slide your breakfast in there while you were sleeping, but I'm going to have to check with the doc now.”

She places the bowl on the table across from the cage and disappears back through the doorway. My stomach growls an odd meaty smell tinged with something metallic hits my nose. Whatever’s in that bowl doesn’t smell the best, but food is food, and I can’t remember the last time I ate.

A minute or two later, the woman returns—followed by an older human man in a white coat.

No no no.

I shove myself as close to the back of the cage as I can, tail between my legs. How could I have been so stupid to fall for the woman’s fake softness? Of course this place isn't going to be any different. Maybe they're kind enough to give me a bed, but all humans are the same.

Especially the ones in the white coats.

The man frowns at my reaction and moves closer to the cage. Pulling my ears pack, I bare my teeth at him. The threat doesn’t stop him, not that I thought it would, and my heart races, the hair rising along my back, as he crouches down so he’s eye level with the front of the cage.

“Hey there, buddy, it's okay.” His voice is soft, like the woman’s, but he’s not going to fool me so easily. I maintain my defensive position and he glances over his shoulder at the woman. “I think he's just disoriented, but that kind of immediate fear reaction isn’t normal and doesn’t say anything good about whatever idiot decided a wolf would make a good pet.”

A pet? They think I’m an actual wolf? If they don’t know what I am could that mean… they might not be trying to hurt me? A confused hope wars with conditioned fear as my gaze darts between the two humans.

The woman steps up beside the man and brushes her fingers over the outside of the cage. “Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of you.”

The man studies me. “We're going to have to call in that wildlife specialist for an assessment to find out if we can ship this guy somewhere for a wild release or if he's spent too long in captivity to make it on his own. Based on my earlier examination, he's fairly young, but wolves don't always adjust well if they’ve been kept in captivity for any length of time.”

“Poor thing,” the woman says. “Do you think it's safe to open the cage to feed him?”

“I don't know.” The man's brows pull together. “A scared animal can actually be more dangerous than an aggressive one. We might need to sedate him.”

No. The last thing I need is any more drugs in my system.

I immediately relax my posture, my eyes darting to the bowl as my stomach growls again. Forcing myself down onto my stomach, I lower my head submissively and let out a soft, plaintive whine as I let my tail swing gently from side to side.

The man eyes me for a second, then gestures the woman forward with two fingers. “Hand me the bowl. I’m going to open the cage, but be ready just in case.”

Speaking softly to me, he slowly unlatches the cage door, opening it just enough to allow him to slide the bowl inside. I force myself to stay still until he latches the cage again.

“Good boy,” coos the woman.

The man sends her an exasperated look, his lips tight. “He's not a dog. Don't fall into the trap of treating him like one.”

She sighs. “What are we going to do if he can’t be rehabilitated and released to the wild?”

The man shrugs. “That's why I'm going to call Zeke. He’s the expert and he’ll know what to do.”

“Well, there's no time like the present,” she replies. She frowns at me. “I hate having to keep him in that cage. It's way too small for him.”

I chuff, unable to hold the soft noise back. If she thinks this cage is small, she should have seen my last one.

The woman stares at me. “I could swear that wolf can understand us.”

“Nah,” says the man. “That's just your brain trying to personify everything. Didn't you tell me that unused coffee mug looked sad the other day?”

She elbows him in the side. “Shut up.”

The man rises to his feet and extracts a cell phone from his pocket. He taps his finger on the screen before pressing it to his ear and walking to the opposite side of the room. He's too far away from me to clearly hear the other side of the conversation, but I do catch his side.

“We had a wolf come in late last night. Hit by a car out near the river.” He nods a few times. “No, nothing that we couldn’t handle. His right rear leg was broken and I casted it. Otherwise, he seems pretty healthy except for how underweight he is. I'm thinking someone kept him as a pet and then got sick of him when he didn't act enough like a dog. He's very alert.” The man’s gaze slides to me. “No, I don’t think he was used for fighting. He hasn't exhibited any blatant aggressiveness, though he was sedated when I first examined him and that is only just now wearing off.” He huffs. “Much earlier than expected.”

He pauses, listening to whatever the person on the other end of the phone is saying. “Okay. We’ll see you this evening then.”

I tune out the conversation and instead watch the woman as she distributes more bowls to some of the other cages around me. The man finishes up his phone call, and the two humans move about the room, caring for the other animals and mostly ignoring me.

At some point, my belly full, I relax enough to drift off, my body giving in to the adrenaline crash now that I’m… not safe exactly, but close enough for exhaustion to take over again.

I’m not sure how much time passes before another person arrives, the sound of voices startling me awake. The new arrival greets the two humans before walking quickly toward my cage, a frown pulling at his mouth. This person is more intense than the other two, his gaze steady but curious, and he moves with an inhuman grace.

Which makes perfect sense.

Since he isn’t human.

No, this man is like me .

And that realization sends an unexpected burst of terror through me, but as he draws closer and his scent reaches my nose that feeling fades.

Beta , my instincts whisper. Not an alpha. Not a threat.