Page 57 of Omega Hunted

Soren’s scent hit first, then the nest, then his rapid heartbeat. He was sitting up, half-awake, both hands fisted in the bedding, not tracking the room yet, and he mewled in pain.

I stepped through the door.

The nest was deeper than I’d registered from the doorway, more layered and more deliberately made than it had been a few days ago, and I circled the outer edge while Soren tracked me with pale green eyes that were wet at the corners and not yet focused. He didn’t pull away. Didn’t make himself smaller.

I put my forepaws on the edge of the bed and looked in.

Hurting, my wolf whimpered.

Slow and careful, he shifted over, made room, and then patted the space.

“Please,” he murmured, and he wasn’t afraid. He’d been scared for so long, yet he’d made room for me, and for a second I froze, waiting for him to change his mind. Even my wolf hesitated because this was a big thing. “Your wolf. Please,” he said, and I was already working out the logistics, knowing how to settle without putting weight where it shouldn’t go, jumping in as lightly as I could, then curling into his side. Silent tears ran down his cheeks, and I had no idea what to do with them. Give me a target, and I could deal with it. Give me a threat, and I’d put it in the ground.

But tears?

I nosed at his cheek, licking away one of them before it could disappear into the pillow, and when another followed, I did it again.

My wolf whined softly.

Fix it.

As if I knew how.

“I’m so scared,” he sobbed brokenly, and I continued to press my muzzle to his skin, and finally his breathing evened as I nudged him and fussed over him, and his grip on my fur loosened.

The place where my bond with Raff had lived ached, and I knew exactly what that meant. Disloyal. Soren’s grip had loosened in sleep, fingers still curled in my fur. I lay still and let his warmth seep into me, hating that it felt good, hating that I was warm for the first time in three years and couldn’t make myself move away. The worst part was that some part of me had stopped listening for the pain of losing my bonded mate, and for a few minutes I’d forgotten to hurt.

I was too tired and too ‘wolf’ to fight sleep. Soren’s heartbeat was loud and even under my ear, and I pressed my muzzle harder into his shoulder. The scar was quiet again; the pressure eased so my chest didn’t seize when I breathed too deeply. What did I do with this? Raff’s voice, or my brain doing what it always did at the edge of sleep, conjuring him from exhaustion and guilt. Cass? You have a chance to heal. Let yourself help him.

I curled tighter into Soren’s side because either Raff or my subconscious had to be wrong. If I let myself heal, what happened to the part of me that still belonged to my bonded mate?

Chapter Nineteen

SOREN

The dream went from terrifying and all-consuming to gentle.

Not the usual kind, no locked doors, no sound of shoes on tiled floors. This was warm and dark and scented with something reaching back to when I was small, barely a kit, still imagining what a safe alpha smelled like. The instinct was there, hidden in my chest like something that never gave up, and in the dream I had it—the scent, the arms, the solid certainty of being held by someone who would not let go—and I slept like I hadn’t slept in years, huddled into warmth and fur, Asha quiet, my cat quiet, everything quiet.

I woke to human skin. Arms, not fur, and Cassian’s throat within reach of my nose, and I’d buried my face to his pulse point in my sleep. I was breathing him in without thinking; my hand rested on his chest, and I went still.

My cat was silent and pressed into me the way he did when he was certain of something.

I knew I should pull back. Shift away, put space between us, but instead, I pressed closer, enough that his arm tightened around me in his sleep, and I closed my eyes and breathed him in again, deliberately this time, storing it, memorizing it. I’d never had this. Not once. This was supposed to be terrifying; this was supposed to be the thing I’d spent my entire life knowing to fear—an unknown alpha’s arms, an alpha’s scent.

But it was the only true peace I’d ever known.

The tears came without warning, quiet and stupid, running sideways across my face into the pillow. Asha stirred against my ribs. My cat pressed harder into the warmth, and I let him, and I lay there crying in Cassian’s arms, and for a few minutes, I let it be what it was.

Cassian’s hand cupped my head. He wasn’t awake. His heartbeat stayed even, slow, the deep rhythm of someone still under, and I held completely still and let him, because I was a coward and I wanted it to last another few seconds.

His breathing changed. Then, barely audible, whispered into my hair: Raff. The tears stopped, and I didn’t make a sound.

Cassian woke in stages. The change in his breathing first, then the small involuntary tension of a body surfacing, and then the moment he registered me. The arms around me went rigid. For one held breath, we were frozen.

He stiffened, then inhaled, caught himself, pulled back, and I sat up to make it easier for him to leave.

“Shit, I—I’m sorry, I didn’t—” he pushed himself upright, getting his legs over the side of the nest, running a hand through his hair with the expression of a man trying to work out how he’d got here.