Page 52 of Omega Hunted

I dragged Cassian’s hoodie from under my head to the back of the nest, then back again, then folded one of the softer blankets beneath my knees because the pressure in my hips had become a constant low ache that didn’t ease even when I lay down.

But finally, I stopped crying.

I was halfway through pretending to read the same page for the fourth time when I heard banging in whatever room was above me—likely an attic—and my cat lifted his head with that infuriating satisfaction he’d developed whenever Cassian was near us.

“Don’t.”

He hugged us.

“I forced him to,” I muttered.

Twice.

I heard Cassian moving around outside my room: the thud of something heavy being dragged across the floor, followed by a curse muffled by distance but still understandable. A cupboard opened, then closed. Something scraped. Another curse, quieter this time, as though he’d remembered I could hear him. Then, he appeared in the doorway carrying a television under one arm and a cardboard box balanced against his chest. It was not a small television, and Cassian had to turn sideways to get it through the door without catching it on the frame. I stared at him, then at the television, then back at him.

“Thought you might be bored,” he said, and carried it to the dresser opposite the nest and set it down with care, then lowered the box beside it and straightened, rubbing one hand over the back of his neck. “This could help.” He frowned at the cables in his hand. “Although I’m not sure which cable is which, so I brought them all down.”

“Don’t do it if it’s going to cause an issue,” I said. I’d seen alphas get irritated before. A sharp word. A clenched jaw. An expression warning everyone nearby to stay out of the way. Too often it didn’t stop there. Temper became shouting. Shouting became broken furniture, bruises, and fear. I’d spent enough of my life learning how quickly an alpha’s mood could turn and how little warning there was before it happened. My body tensed before I could stop it, old instincts surfacing hard and fast. If Cassian was angry, if I’d pushed too far, I needed to know before I made things worse. He shot me a confused glance.

“Are you doubting my abilities?” he teased.

I was horrified. “No. I wouldn’t… I didn’t…”

“I’m joking,” he said, then tapped his chest. “I’ve handled armed extractions, hostile terrain, and political disasters, and managed them all, but none of those involved six identical black cables and a remote with no batteries.” He crouched behind the dresser, disappearing from the waist up, and I heard him mutter something about manufacturers and sadism before one arm reached back into view. “Can you pass me the cable with the silver end?”

I hesitated, staring at the tangle of cables spread across the floor. My pulse had already started climbing. It was a stupid thing to get anxious about. What if I chose the wrong one? What if I broke whatever Cassian was trying to do? My fingers tightened around the first cable as I tried to work out which answer was the safest before finally holding one up. I picked up the nearest cable and examined it. “I’m sorry… I don’t… they all have silver ends.”

“Okay, we’ll try them in turn.”

It took longer than either of us expected, but Cassian was patient and talked to the TV as if it wasn’t an inanimate object, and at one point had a heated debate with his wolf, although of course I could only hear one side. He found batteries in a drawer, lost them under the instruction leaflet, found them again, and spent several minutes trying to make the television recognize a little black box. Eventually, the screen lit up, and Cassian sat back on his heels with quiet satisfaction, nodding when the menu appeared slowly, and he handed me the remote without standing.

“What do you want to watch?”

The question shouldn’t have been difficult, but it stopped me. I stared at the menu, at the rows of programs, films, and things with bright thumbnails and titles that meant nothing to me, and unease moved through my chest.

“I don’t know,” I said, and shrugged.

Cassian took the remote back without comment. “Then I’ll choose something I love, but which is highly embarrassing, so you have to be sworn to secrecy first.”

I shifted in the nest until I was more comfortable, tucking a pillow under one hip and smoothing the blanket over the curve of my stomach. “Okay.”

He hesitated on a title, then glanced at me with the first sign of actual uncertainty I’d seen since he’d carried the television in. “Seriously, if you tell anyone I watch this, I’ll deny it.”

He wasn’t threatening; he was joking. “What is it?”

Cassian pressed play before answering, and the screen filled with an aerial shot of a huge modern house built into the side of a forested hill surrounded by a tall wall, a sparkling pool in the huge yard. Dramatic music swelled, a voice-over announced that twelve shifters from twelve species had entered one shared territory, and then the title appeared in bold white letters across the screen.

The Den.

I stared at it. “This is your guilty pleasure?”

Cassian settled on the floor outside the nest, one shoulder resting against the bed frame. “Yes.”

“It looks like a reality show.” Not that I’d watched many, but I’d seen enough to be able to identify them.

“It is a reality show.”

“Is it good?”