Page 7 of Watcher's Omega
“We have them here. When we’re finished, I’ll take you to the suite my parents stay at when they need to be at the hospital overnight,” Rhomas said and I arched a brow. He shouldn’t have been able to read my thoughts yet. “Showers that is.”
“How did you know what I was thinking?” I asked, ignoring the guard while the needle wiggled under my skin.
“You watched how much soot she took off your arm for your IV. I didn’t notice earlier or I’d have offered. I was caught up in your beauty and your tears,” he said, flashing me a sad smile.
My cheeks turned pink and the guard cleared her throat.
“Yes, Guard Tantra, how may I help you?” Rhomas asked. “Are you here to kick me out of the hospital for saving a life?”
“Uh… They’d have to call someone else for that. It would be a conflict of interest because I’m on your side. I just wanted to let you know that we arrested the fireworks shooter’s friend. He fessed up that his friend had meant to hit someone. Anti-vampire sentiments, I’m afraid. He threw around the slur ‘fang-fucker’ a lot. I’ve already informed the pack leadership. This is a hate crime.”
“After his bag finishes can you show Eamon to my parents’ suite?” Rhomas asked the guard.
“And where are you going to be that you can’t show him yourself?” the nurse asked, standing akimbo.
“In the Pit if I don’t change my ways,” Rhomas smirked at her and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
“I’m sure Kat can show him to the suite. I’m off duty, technically, and if you’re going hunting, I want in. My wife’s a vampire. You know that, right?”
“Lalala Lala Lalalaaaaaaaaaa,” Kat said, walking by with her fingers in her ears. “I’m singing my grandson’s favorite song so I don’t hear this nonsense hunt talk.”
I opened my mouth to say he couldn’t possibly be thinking of hunting the guy down. Only I shut it because that’s exactly what he had in mind. Part of me wanted to demand to go along with him but the other part of me knew I wouldn’t leave the hospital while Glenn was still admitted.
“Let me take care of it, mate. Injurious hate crimes are serious business and its every pack member’s job to put an end to such criminals,” he said, mischief playing in his eyes.
I had never wanted an alpha so much in my life. I would’ve let him claim me right there in the lab but I didn’t think Kat would appreciate it. My eyes shifted to that of my wolf and he peered out at our mate.
“You just hang on before you run off, though,” Kat said. “You have to eat some real meat before you run off to hunt. You’ve given a lot of blood, young man! I have some deer sandwiches in the fridge. Do you two want some as well?” Kat asked, looking back and forth between me and Guard Tantra.
“They do,” Rhomas answered for us and Guard Tantra nudged him with her toe. They’d been friends for a while. From the glimpses of Rhomas’s thoughts that I managed, they metbecause his parents saved her wife’s life when she had a rare vampyric blood disorder.
I ate my sandwich in silence, hoping that Glenn would live and eat lots of sandwiches. I’d kick his ‘friend’ in the shin later for leaving him in the fire like that.
Chapter Five
Rhomas
Hemlock Mountain
Melanie Tantra and I slipped out of a side door just as my dad left the OR. Jolly was still keeping an eye on him for me. Any hate crime is heinous, but I took personal offense to the ones against vampires. It was a vampyric wolf who crawled into my birth mother’s den to discover I needed help beyond what my wild pack could provide. Lots of my friends were vampires. Not to mention siblings I’d die for.
Melanie drove a pack issued SUV most days but that night we slid into her ‘soccer mom minivan’ because the asshole would expect two giants in an SUV to kill him. Bad guys never expected the minivan to bring their doom. Outside of her guard uniform, Melanie smelled angry. Her rage boiled under her skin.
I was angry too but my anger always came in one of two forms. The first was lashing out and devouring the threat. That was best for immediate, in your face, problems. Then there was how I felt now. Justice needed to be served and a threat needed to be removed from our territory. From the sound of it, the guy was from our pack. I’d like to say we were all raised better than that but that obviously wasn’t the case or Glenn, an invited scholarship guest, wouldn’t be in the hospital right now. Revenge wouldn’t solve the problem. The only solution was to ensure it could never happen to another member of our pack or another guest. Sure, we’d make it hurt more than it had to butsometimes you get what you give. Sometimes, we had to help the universe along in serving that up.
“His name is Thomas Jarden,” Melanie said from the driver’s seat. “Six two. Dark hair. Brows so wild that they’re almost a unibrow. He’s shown fleeing from the fire and several pack-owned security cameras have picked him up. He got into an altercation with the wolf he originally shot the firework at but he managed to escape with just a shiner and some minor bites. That guy claims that Glenn was only his fuck buddy but he didn’t know he was still on the roof. Needless to say he’s pretty sure Glenn’s not going to answer his calls. I don’t think he’s cruel just fucking stupid.”
“He best not come around my place. That’s where Glenn will be when he’s discharged. I can’t imagine he or Eamon will want to return to the apartment to live,” I said, as she pulled out onto the highway that connected the hospital to the mountain top main part of town.
“Eamon,” she said, drawing out the name in ridiculous syllables as if I was a lovesick fool. I was but that was beside the point. We were on a hunt.
“Auuutummmn,” I teased, drawing out her wife’s name. I hadn’t known them when they first responded as true-mates but Melanie was at the beck and call of her pretty vampyric wife to this day. So I could only imagine how smitten she was in the beginning.
“Eamon, I’ll avenge your friend and feed you his entrails on a silver platter before I gobble you up,” she teased me.
“Well, hell. You do know me after all,” I laughed.
“Dude, you are not dragging entrails anywhere,” she laughed.