Page 22 of Omega Ruined

"What the fuck?" Slender fingers caught my hand and he tugged me up to face him. "Don't hide from me."

"This is too much," I managed to croak. "You can't just… just buy omegas!"

"What did she just say?" Vale growled.

Chapter thirteen

Mate

"Did you buy our mate?" I roared, stalking toward Kienan. My mind, it was already fading to the gray fog that always took over.

"We need an omega to help you and Dean," Kienan said quickly. He stood his ground, dark eyes locked on mine.

I growled again. "No. Mate."

Rip him to pieces. Challenge the alpha. Destroy him. A whimper pulled me up. My omega. She needed me.

I turned and saw her on the floor. She looked terrified. My mate was scared. Pale eyes widened when I stepped closer.

"Protect."

Without waiting for a response, I crouched and scooped her into my arms. My lip curled. Too light. She needed food. But first, comfort.

Lemon filled my nose. I buried my face in her light hair. So good. My cock hardened, but I ignored it. Nest. Then food. A grumble rippled through me. Who would watch her? I couldn't be in two places at once.

"FOOD!" I snapped at the two alphas behind me. Then I ran upstairs. It was too easy. She weighed nothing in my arms. To be sure, I barked, "Food!" one more time.

My room. It would be her nest. Full of her alpha's scent.

"Don't hurt me, please," she said quietly.

I stiffened. "Never." The promise sank into my bones. Never hurt your mate.

My room was simple, but the bed was soft. I put her in the middle and started to wrap her up in all the blankets. More blankets. More pillows from the hall closet.

Scents. Mates need scents. I pulled shirts from my laundry and piled them on top of her. A sniff mixed lemon and birch and stone. Good.

My mate. She was finally here.

Chapter fourteen

A Nest

Vale had terrified me when he landed right in front of me, but then he'd scooped me into his arms and he was as gentle as he was fierce. Bounding up the stairs, he barely jounced me in his strong arms. Then we were in his room and I was shaking as he gently laid me in the middle of his bed.

Prepared for him to rip away the simple, translucent gown I wore, I lay very still. But he didn't even touch me again. Instead, he grabbed the edges of the comforter and wrapped them around me, like I was a burrito. Then he picked up another soft blanket from the foot of the bed and tucked it around me before running out of the room and returning with even more blankets and pillows that obscured his face until he dropped them on the bed and started to carefully arrange them around me.

I couldn't move much in my cozy wrap. This was so different than the one that the guard had wrapped me in. This was meant to be cozy and comforting.

Vale kept shifting things around, a frown on his face as he concentrated. It gave me a chance to really study one of the alphas for the first time. He was handsome, but thinner than theothers I'd met. His hair had been shaved on the sides, though it was now overgrown. The top was a shaggy mess of bright pink. He had dark eyeliner around his eyes and snakebite piercings. He looked nothing like any other alpha I'd seen, but he was definitely attractive.

The scent of damp stone and birch drifted over me as the alpha worked to perfect something. I thought he was building a nest and this was confirmed when he disappeared into the bathroom and brought back an armful of dirty shirts. These were artfully tucked around me until his scent absolutely surrounded me.

"Good." He peered at the only part of me still visible, my face. "Good?"

"Good," I responded. And it was. I felt safer than I had in a very long time. Even in a house full of alphas who had just paid for me to be kidnapped. There wasn't a lot you could say to that, but I wasn't scared. In fact, I was getting really sleepy. My eyelids drooped.

Vale immediately noticed. "Wait. Food." His stilted manner of speaking seemed odd, but I could see he was struggling with something. His eyes were focused, but almost foggy, like he couldn't quite remember where he was. I was pulling his main focus.