Omega's Run (29 page)

The Alpha Wolves MC. A motorcycle club made up entirely of wolf-kind? Not a bad idea at all. The girl turned and on her right side, was another small patch with the word ‘nomad’. Brilliant idea, really.

“Heard you two had some trouble?” I looked away from the girl and turned to my right, finding that Chloe had come up beside me while I was staring and another woman had approached her. Almost as tall as me and blonde as anyone I had ever seen before in my long life. Her hair was similarly tied back in an intricate braid, huge set of tits pushing out the front of her leather vest like they were trying to escape.

In her hands she had a pile of clothes that she held out to Chloe and it was only then that it really registered that we were both still naked. We hadn’t been in a position to grab our clothes from where we’d left them in the hall back at the Red Cross and I snorted slightly, amused by the thought of how confused the human workers were likely to be when they arrived tomorrow morning to find the clothes piled in the hall.

The lady gave me an odd look but I just shook my head and gave her a tired smile, remembering Williams’s admonishment to play nice. “Just something funny I thought of,” I said. “Sorry.”

She pursed her lips as if she didn’t entirely believe me but she shrugged it off and held a thin sun dress out to Chloe and the rest of the pile she handed to me. “Best we could do on short notice,” she said looking me up and down. “And you’re a big one, but I think the pants should fit you well enough.” She turned and pointed down another hall on the left hand wall from where we came in. “There’s showers down that way if you guys want to clean up and get changed. We’ll have some food out here when you’re ready and you guys can let us know why the Bloody Old Tool got us all up at four in the morning.”

I arched an eyebrow at her and she grinned. “The Pres’ name is O’Toole,” she confided in a whisper and I snorted out another laugh. The appellation definitely seemed to fit. We accepted the clothes, Chloe offering a few quiet words of thanks and made our way down the indicated hall.

Cleaning up was quick. I didn’t want to waste time so I showered off the blood and got out from under the scalding hot spray as quickly as I could. The pants did fit well enough. They hung a bit off my hips but not too bad and the included belt made sure to keep them from dropping any further. The boots were another story. Easily two sizes too small I set them aside and turned my attention to the last article of clothing that had been brought out.

It was a leather vest, identical to the others but new, obviously never been worn and without the patches and decoration that the other members of the pack wore on theirs. I shrugged and pulled it on. The leather felt good against my heated skin and it settled well, molding comfortably to my upper back and shoulders. A glance in the mirror told me that I really struck quite the intimidating figure in the jeans and black vest. The cut of the vest meant that the scarred omega symbol branded into my chest was completely visible, almost like it was on display. I’d been riding bikes long enough to know that the various clubs and bike gangs called the vest a cut, and losing your cut was tantamount to a mortal insult to you and to your club. The wheels in my brain started turning but I pushed the thoughts aside, letting them percolate on their own in the back of my mind as I went back out to the front, preferring to keep my focus on Ava and our new friends.

Out front I found the rest of them waiting. Already cleaned up and changed into new clothes. Of the lot of them I was the only male to be given a cut, and I wondered briefly about that before shrugging it off and finding a seat at a long table in the center of the room where the rest were sitting. A simple spread of food was laid out on the table along with two large metal tubs filled with ice and beer. I reached out and snagged one of the beers and a roast beef sandwich as William looked up from his food.

“They’re working on her now,” he said before I’d even settled fully into my seat. “The Galen says he’s going to do his best but it’s a bad wound, Man.” His tone was somber and I nodded, appreciating the honesty as much as it seemed to twist a knife in my gut at the same time. I kept going over the events that had occurred in my mind, over and over, looking for somewhere where I had screwed up. What had I done wrong? What could I have done to stop her from getting shot in the first place?

“Worrying ain’ gonna change nothin’,” a nasally voice came from the far end of the table and I looked up at O’Toole, sitting at the head of the table directly across from me with his pack and my people between us. I hadn’t even realized he was there. He looked none the worse for wear, not surprising as a wolf-kind. He would have recovered from the bruising that I gave him in record timing but I still felt a twinge at the fact that I’d attacked him at all so I stood, keeping eye contact with him the entire time.

“I would like to apologize for attacking you. Ask anyone that knows me and that kind of behavior isn’t like me. I tend to keep a level head but that’s no excuse. I’ll take any punishment you may want to dish out but please also know, I am an Omega.” I jerked my thumb at the brand on my chest, so well displayed by the vest I’d been given. “My actions shouldn’t be held against the Washington Pack in any way as I have been banished from the pack. Any punishment should be directed to me, not to them.”

Everyone remained silent, staring at the two of us. I’m pretty sure Chloe was holding her breath. After a long minute he stood, his chair scraping unnaturally loudly across the wooden floor and leaned forward, planting his hands on the table in front of him.

“I’ve known Markus fer a long time,” he said. “And its cause o’ that familiarity that yer even here in tha first place. I want that understood before anything else.” I nodded. “Otherwise, don’ think anything of it.” That had me blinking in surprise, and a bit of confusion. “I get it. Ye were worried fer yer girl. Can’t figure out why a man such as yerself got mixed up with a Hunter of all t’ings, but I get it. I apologize fer insulting her.” He wiped his hands one over the other, like brushing dirt off his palms and spread his arms out. “Far as I’m concerned, we’re square. Deal?”

“Deal,” I blurted out, amazed that so little had come of my outburst.

“But,” he continued, a glint in his eye. There was the other shoe. “If’n ye think yer gonna come inta my place again, and talk ta me like tha’? Think again. Get me?” There was a hard edge to his voice and as he spoke his eyes grew flat and cold. The eyes of a killer that I recognized all too well.

“Understood. Thank you, again, for your understanding and I promise you, it’ll never happen again.”

He suddenly blinked and his eyes shone with mirth, a broad grin splitting his face nearly in half. “Well,” he said. “Then we ain’t gonna have any problems now.” With that he sat back down and resumed eating as if nothing at all had happened. I caught the tall blonde’s eye as I sat; noting a patch on her cut that said her name was Valkyrie. She shot a glance in O’Toole’s direction and then rolled her eyes.

Conversation flowed well enough between the rest of them while we waited, but I focused on eating. Mechanically so. I couldn’t taste the food and worry continued to gnaw at my gut as Chloe and William filled O’Toole in on what had happened at the facility. They also explained the other two facilities that we attacked.

“We’ve all heard of tha Hangman, before. Obviously, he’s like tha boogey-man for wolf-kind,” O’Toole was saying some time later after the food had all been cleared and beers had been handed out. I had two empties sitting on the table in front of me and a third in my hand as I picked at the label on the dark bottle. “Most of us have never even seen a Hunter up close, to be honest. Only Valkyrie and I have ever fought them before. But the daughter of the Hangman became an Alpha Bitch, huh?” He gave Chloe an admiring look at that and raised a hand to his brow, as if tipping a non-existent hat in her direction.

“And ye went an’ scored a blow to the Hunters tonight, eh?”

William nodded and set his beer on the table. “A pretty decent one. We’ve destroyed three labs worth of information, and samples, as well as rescued as many as forty test subjects from the other two labs. The one here in Colorado only had the two we brought in with us. I glanced around and realized that the girl and her friend weren’t at the table. The chew toy was probably still unconscious and I imagined she was sticking close to him until he woke up. That was likely to be an interesting conversation. I wonder if he even knew anything about wolf-kind, or if the hunters just snatched the poor guy off the street.

I was the first to hear it, having been waiting for something, some sign from that end of the building. The door opened leading into the medical suite where I’d left Ava and I caught the tang of blood, that coppery scent drifted down the hall and into the room and as the footsteps started, heading our way, the rest of them suddenly caught the scent and heads swiveled in unison to face the hall.

I leaped to my feet, my chair bouncing and scraping away from me before it suddenly fell over with a loud clatter. Half the occupants at the table jumped; startled by the sound, while the rest just stared at the hall with me, waiting for whoever was walking out.

“It’s Gale,” somebody muttered.

“How’s she doin’, Doc?” O’Toole asked as a young looking woman stepped into view. She was wearing hospital scrubs with a large apron over it, blood staining her sleeves and down her front. With a heavy sounding sigh she reached up and pulled the scrub cap off her head revealing that her hair was as dark as mine but shaved close to her scalp, barely a quarter of an inch long. Piercing green eyes, lidded with exhaustion regarded us all before settling on me.

“She’s asking for you,” she said to me and I blinked.

“How do you know it’s me?” I wondered aloud.

“Biggest dude in the room with an Omega branded on his chest, she said. You’re the only one here that fits the bill.” I motioned to William to follow me and started across the room in long, ground eating strides. William caught up to me just as we reached the Galen, Gale, I assumed, and she turned to accompany us down the hall.

“We’ve got to offer it,” I muttered and William nodded, his face tight, unreadable, but I had the impression he wasn’t thrilled by my suggestion.

“Did you get the bullet out completely?” William asked and Gale nodded.

“It wasn’t easy, and I flushed the wound as carefully as I could. Luckily it was silver coated and not solid silver; it didn’t break up much and didn’t hit any bones either. But she’s got some serious internal injuries. I really don’t think she’s got long but she’s stable right now.”

William sighed when we reached the door and he placed a hand on Gale’s arm. She glanced down at his hand, one eyebrow raised slightly, but she didn’t seem offended. “You go in,” he told me, ignoring her for the moment. “Talk to her.
Tell her
, Remus.” His gaze was intense, boring into mine. “Don’t leave anything unsaid, trust me… Then make the offer. We’ll be waiting here when you do.”

I nodded, but didn’t trust myself to say anything and opened the door, closing it quietly behind me.

The room was dark; lights dimmed to a low glow that gave me more than enough light to see by but didn’t cast everything in harsh detail. Ava looked small in the center of the bed, hands laying to either side at her hips with a thin sheet and a blanket pulled up to her armpits. It scared me that she looked smaller than normal. Like the life, the presence that made her so big had dimmed to a barely noticeable level.

Machines beeped and pulsed steadily, measuring her heart beat and respiration and who knew what other things doctors measured in a patient just out of surgery. Her eyes were closed so I quietly grabbed a nearby chair and pulled it forward so I could sit at the side of the bed. Her eyes opened when the leather vest I was wearing creaked as I moved and she blinked at the ceiling for a moment before turning her head to focus on me. A small smile turned up her lips and I took one of her slender hands in mine, engulfing it in my grip.

“I love you,” I blurted out before she had a chance to say anything or before I could lose my nerve. My stomach twisted and roiled, a whole flock of butterflies prancing their way about my insides and I pushed forward. “I don’t know when the hell it happened but it did. I’m in love with you and I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose you. I already lost my pack and William was right. Banishing me gave me the chance to find something new, something I could build on for myself. And that’s you. That’s us...” I trailed off, uncertain what else to say as she just stared at me, expression unreadable.

“I’m glad you said it first,” she whispered a moment later and I felt my eyes widen as the shock ran through me like a bolt of lightning, lighting up my nerve endings. “I wasn’t sure how you felt, honestly. Or how
I
felt. It’s been a long time thinking of your people as little more than animals, you know? And finding myself falling in love with one?” She shook her head at the very idea and I nodded, not sure I could trust my voice at that moment. “I realize, that there’s a lot I was lied to about, and a lot I just plain got wrong. I’ve seen a lot in your pack that I respect in a human family, something I haven’t had in a long time.”

“You could,” I muttered and she smiled wanly.

“Maybe. If I survive this. But I’m not sure I will. Gale wasn’t exactly optimistic about my chances.”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t know how incredibly stubborn you are.” She chuckled weakly for a second before it turned into a hacking coughing fit and the door opened behind me. The scent of pine needles and disinfectant rushed into the room accompanied by the sharp tang of burning metal as Gale and William both swept into the tiny room. William stopped at my side while Gale went and poured a small glass of water from a pitcher sitting on a table against the far wall. She helped Ava sit up slightly, adjusting the bed so she could drink and after a few minutes the coughing subsided.

“Tell her, Remus,” William whispered and Ava turned her attention back to us.

“Tell me what?” she asked. “I thought we’d already gone over the big bombshell. Your idiot brother went and fell in love with a Hunter. Isn’t that hilarious?” Her smile was small but mine damn near split my face in two. I was in love with a Hunter. I really didn’t know how or when it’d happened but it was true and I didn’t give two shits about what anyone else thought about it. I loved Ava,
who
she was, not
what
she’d been. She wasn’t a Hunter anymore, hadn’t been for a while.