Page 24 of Omega Hunted

“Here.”

I lifted my head.

He placed a glass of orange juice and a mug in front of me and stepped back.

“Vitamin C.” He nodded at the juice. “And I found this at the back of a cupboard.” He looked at the mug with a frown. “It’s green tea, is that okay for you?”

For months, my jailers had brought me chamomile tea every morning and night and waited as I drank it along with taking my vitamins. It was good for the baby they said, and even though it made me sleep, made my connection to the cat side of me dull, I wasn’t going to argue with anything that might keep my baby safe.

I always knew it was drugged; I just didn’t have it in me to fight.

“Yes. Thank you,” I said, shakily.

He nodded.

I sipped the juice and then the tea, and outside the window the snow was still coming down.

Cassian cleared his throat, and I braced. “Can I ask you some questions?”

“Like what?” I knew I sounded suspicious, but this alpha might want to know things that would make me vulnerable, like my family name and who the baby’s father was. I was already at the middle of a potential war, and I had no one on my side.

“How pregnant are you?” A pause. “Do you need a hospital, even if we can’t get to one right now.”

“I’ve got another eight, maybe ten weeks. And you can’t make me go anywhere,” I said, defiant, because goddess, if he wanted to take me somewhere—anywhere—I wouldn’t be able to fight him.

He frowned. “Are you saying no to medical care only because you’re an unbonded omega?”

Under shifter law, my baby’s nearest biological alpha had legal claim, and betas barely registered in laws written around alpha authority and omega reproduction. It didn’t matter whether it was my family or the father’s. The law didn’t care who’d hurt me, or who loved her. It only cared about blood.

My throat tightened.

Cassian knew that. Every alpha did.

The law would never be on my side.

If nobody else had found me before Asha was born, Cassian would have become the nearest alpha to take temporary care. The law would hand him my baby to do whatever he felt was right, because he was alpha and I was an omega, and nobody would ask what I wanted. Nobody ever asked omegas what they wanted. He could give Asha to my brother, or worse…

My hands started shaking.

I clenched them against my stomach, but I couldn’t stop. My heart hammered so hard it hurt, every instinct screaming that I’d said too much. That I’d handed an alpha exactly the information he needed. He knew I was alone. He knew there was no one standing between him and my baby.

Terror clawed at my throat.

I couldn’t read his expression. Didn’t know him well enough to know whether he was horrified by the law or already weighing what it would give him. Life had taught me that the worst monsters didn’t always look cruel. Sometimes they smiled. Sometimes they spoke softly. Sometimes they waited until you trusted them.

My stomach twisted. “They’ll find me,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “One birth record, one hospital file, and they’ll know exactly where to start looking and once they know where I am…” I swallowed hard. “It won’t matter what I want. They’ll say they’re acting in my child’s best interests. They’ll say an omega can’t raise a baby alone. They’ll take her, and everyone will tell me it’s legal.”

Something hardened in his expression. “I’ve never agreed with that law,” he said quietly. “No omega should lose their child because they aren’t bonded to the alpha sperm donor.”

He fell quiet, his gaze dropping to the fire as he thought it through. I could almost see him fitting pieces together, searching for a way around laws that sounded as though he’d hated them for a long time.

“If I can talk to Ronan, I can get him here,” he said at last, “and he can smuggle you over the border before the baby’s born. Different jurisdiction. Different laws. We’ve done it before, through the Haven Network.”

My head came up so quickly it made me dizzy. “So, you do work with Haven?”

Hope flared, and it hurt.

If there was an underground, if omegas escaped this way, maybe people could keep us hidden. Maybe there was somewhere beyond Center 14, beyond my brother, beyond every law that had decided I belonged to someone else.