Page 19 of Ginger Omega
“Maybe we should try talking, omega,” I said. It came out harsher than I wanted, but she held secrets. Secrets that she thought would make us angry? Not want her around? It would be so much easier to tell us what was going on, so she no longer had to run or look over her shoulder.
“What in the ever-loving fuck is going on, Katie?”
Every time we said that name, it was like a tiny betrayal. That wasn’t her name. We knew so little about her, we were calling her by the wrong name.
“I’ll go back with you. To the house. Let me put some clothes on.”
Nothing about telling us the truth or admitting what the hell was going on. But going back to the house was a start.
On the way back, I pulled out a bag from a nearby tree. We kept a hoodie and some shorts there in case we needed to shift and be presentable to a human or someone who stumbled onto our lands. I offered them to her.
When her head emerged from the top of the hoodie, she stared at me. “What?”
“No matter what is going on, you have us,” I told her. “Anything.”
She scoffed. “You can’t know that, Vaughn.”
I cupped her face and rubbed some dirt away with my thumb. “I do, omega. You can trust us. I know it’s hard and you’re scared, but we’ll work through this together.”
Holt cleared his throat. “Let’s get inside.”
Pushy alpha.
“Yeah, okay. Inside.”
Chapter Seventeen
Poe
Katie came down the hall with Holt next to her. He must have convinced her to come clean. The omega’s eyes were red and swollen. Her cheeks were flushed. Shoulders slumped.
Utterly defeated.
My heart cracked open for our omega.
I knew right then and there that I’d burn the world down if it meant never seeing her like this again.
Vaughn and I sat in silence, waiting for them to tell us what was going on. The remnants of our dinner were still on the table. The smells of food lingered in the air, secondary to the nerve-wracking scent of fear.
Katie took a seat and Holt stood, arms crossed. Maybe he thought she might run again.
“Tell us, Katie,” I pleaded. As soon as she told us the truth, we could work through it and get on with our lives.
Katie closed her eyes. “First things first. My name is not Katie. It’s Karissa.”
Vaughn wasn’t fazed at all. “Karissa suits you better. Tell us everything, sweetheart.”
“I’m broken,” she choked on the word. “I was mated before. Or at least the pack alpha assigned me to several different alphas. I hated it and them for it, but what could I do but obey? But none of the matings took, and I refused the last one. He was very angry, and I ran away. I saw him here today in the diner. He had to be looking for me.”
Jealousy and rage bubbled up inside me but soon was replaced by sympathy. This poor omega. Whatever she’d been through had clearly shattered her safety and security.
And her faith in…everything.
“Go on,” Vaughn reached out and took her hand.
She held it tight while she continued, “After the mating attempts, the next morning, I’d gotten up and my wolf wasn’t right. I couldn’t explain why. She was barely speaking to me. I went to the restroom and wanted to look at my marks in the mirror but they weren’t there. My skin was already healed with no trace of their bites.”
Holt and I shared a look. I’d never heard of an omega who had healed up bites before. Or bites that never scarred, but maybe Karissa’s story wasn’t as rare as I thought. How often had these attempts occurred and how badly had they scarred her on the inside?
