Omega's Savior (Omega Destiny, International Book 3)

by Kian Rhodes

  Like there was any shot in hell I’d risk eating it after so clearly pissing them off.

  Reclosing my eyes, I tried to clear my mind instead of dwelling on the accusation Paul had made. It didn’t work. When I finally heard Paul’s car start up, I sighed with relief. The sooner he was safe in Chuck’s care, the sooner I could go home and lick my wounds.

  The familiar drive was lonely and tedious, made longer than usual by the multiple stops that Paul made along the way for what I assumed were bathroom breaks. When we finally pulled onto the drive that led to the ODI compound, I was exhausted but still more than ready to push through the return trip – after helping Paul unload his car; after all, I was butthurt not a dick.

  Fate had other plans.

  I parked the truck in the spot next to Paul and took a deep breath to center myself before climbing out. When I opened them again, Paul was lying unmoving in a jumbled heap of limbs, his car door still open and blood seeping from his forehead.

  Bellowing for Chuck, I sprang from my seat and out of the truck, crouching next to Paul to check for a pulse as I scanned the open plains surrounding the compound. Finding nothing threatening, I scooped Paul into my arms and kicked the car door closed as Chuck appeared on the front step.

  “What happened to him?”

  “Not sure,” I grunted, shifting Paul’s weight higher against my chest. “I think he just collapsed. His pulse is strong but he must have hit his head.”

  “This way,” Chuck pointed me toward the small office they used for minor medical care. “I’ll have the nurse paged.”

  I laid Paul on the cot and stepped back, my brain warring with the Alpha instincts that demanded I care for him. “ I’ll go, then.”

  Chuck’s jaw dropped. “What?”

  I sighed. “He doesn’t want me around him, Chuck,” I admitted. “As soon as I told him about Laura, he stopped wanting anything to do with me. He didn’t want me to touch him or take care of him and then he took off without even telling me he was leaving. He left almost everything I’d bought for him and wasn’t thrilled when I found him, so I’m sure he wouldn’t want me here.”

  “But he needs Alpha contact for the pregnancy,” Chuck reminded me.

  “Yes, but it doesn’t have to be from me. Hell, there are even artificial pheromone sprays available that he can use now that he’s not in neglect.”

  “So, it’s not that you don’t want to help him, you’re afraid he wouldn’t consent to you touching him?”

  I nodded and Chuck sighed as a subtle change in Paul’s scent heralded an increase in his stress level.

  “At least stay until he stabilizes,” Chuck insisted. “I can’t get any pheromone replacement spray until he sees a doctor and he’s obviously in distress.”

  “Fine,” I groaned, pulling a chair up to the cot and taking Paul’s hand in both of mine. “But you’re going to take the heat when he wakes up pissed off.”

  When Chuck turned to summon the nurse, I bent down to nuzzle Paul’s neck and whispered in his ear, “You’re safe, baby. I’m here.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Paul

  I knew I was too tired to be driving. I also knew that I hadn’t choked down enough of the food at the diner to do much good. Add those factors to the anxiety and the fact that I hadn’t been close to an Alpha in what seemed like forever and it wasn’t really a surprise when I stepped out of the car and a wave of dizziness overtook me. I tried to grab for the car door and then everything went black.

  My next memory is of being safe and warm, flooded with the soothing scent that I automatically knew was my Alpha. If I was back in Sylas’s arms, everything was going to be fine so I breathed it in, secure in the knowledge that nothing bad could happen to me.

  I floated in and out of conscious thought as I soaked in the solid strength of the man holding me. When he laid me down on cool cotton, I tried to object but no words came out. Then the familiar voice that murmured wasn’t Sylas.

  “So, it’s not that you don’t want to help him, you’re afraid he wouldn’t consent to you touching him?” I imagined that Sylas had agreed, because Director Keir sighed and asked if Sylas would at least stay until I was stable.

  Why would Sylas think I didn’t want him to touch me? He was the one who pulled away from me, wasn’t he? I felt my anxiety rising again but my hand was quickly enveloped in Sylas’s, his touch helping to soothe me. Feeling calm wash over me, I sighed. As soon as I woke up, I’d make sure that Sylas knew that I’d never stopped wanting him. Satisfied with that plan, I let the darkness pull me back under but when I woke, Sylas was gone.

  ~*~

  “What are you doing here?” I croaked when my blurry eyes finally brought a familiar wolf into focus.

  “Nice to see you, too,” Bane snickered, folding down the corner of the hard-back book he was reading and setting it aside. “But to answer your question, I’m on security detail.”

  “For me?”

  “Yup,” Bane agreed easily as he rose lightly for such a large man. “I’ll be right back. I promised the medic that I’d let him know when you woke up.”

  Him? When I’d left a few weeks ago, the office was staffed by a female.

  Shaking off the question that didn’t really seem to matter in my current situation, I stretched a little and yawned. I definitely felt more rested than I had, but there was also a strange metallic taste in my mouth.

  “Bane? Can I have some water?” I called out as I struggled to sit up.

  “Sure, you can,” this voice was as strange as the buff older man who walked through the open door. “I’m Neal,” he continued, handing me a chilled water bottle neatly wrapped in a dry washcloth. “Do you mind if I call you Paul?”

  “Um, no. That’s fine,” I agreed, trying to look past him into the hall. “What happened to Nurse What’s Her Name?”

  Neal shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t know. I work through a medical temporary service, so all I know is I was hired on for a short-term position as in-house medic.” He held is hand out, palm up. “Do you mind if I take your pulse?”

  “Oh, no. Of course not.” I held my wrist out and gulped from the cool water. “God, that’s good. I have a weird taste in my mouth.”

  “Kind of like a lemon-flavored penny?”

  “Yeah.” I took another drink of water.

  “That’s a normal side effect of the pheromone supplement we started you on,” Neal explained, seeming unconcerned. “It should go away after a couple of days.”

  “Supplement?” I parroted.

  “Yeah.” Neal didn’t expound on that, instead gently resting my hand on the bed and placing the back of his hand on my forehead. “Pulse is normal and no fever,” he declared with a satisfied smile. “Hungry?”

  My stomach growled. “Starving,” I admitted as I tried to look around him again. “Is Sylas here?”

  Neal didn’t answer but the pitying look in his eyes gave me my answer even as Bane spoke up from the doorway. “I think he left a message for you with Keir. He knows your awake. He’ll be in to see you soon.”

  “Or now,” Director Keir said with a small laugh as he knocked lightly on the open door. “Glad to see you back with us, Paul.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I was just sleeping. Why is everyone acting like I’ve been at death’s door?”

  The sudden silence was alarming. Director Keir cleared his throat. “Could you two give us a few minutes alone?”

  “Of course,” Neal agreed as Bane announced he’d be right outside.

  Director Keir waited until the door closed behind them to take a seat in the chair by the bed. He hesitated for a minute and then sighed. “You’ve always been pretty up front,” he said finally, “so I’m going to be blunt. You’ve been unconscious for the better part of four days. The moments where you were awake, you weren’t quite lucid.”

  “I..what? Why? What was wrong with me? Is the baby okay?”

  “The baby seems to be fine,” Director Keir shook his head,
“but the doctors weren’t sure why you were out. Your blood chemistry was off but they weren’t sure why.”

  “And they just left me here?” I asked in disbelief.

  “That was Silas’s call,” Director Keir said calmly. “He felt that you’d be safer here with private care than you would have been in a hospital.” He nodded to the closed door. “He’s the one that hired Neal and called Bane in to protect you.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly. “Where is he?”

  Director Keir frowned. “He was convinced that you wouldn’t have consented to being in physical contact with him if you’d been in your right mind, so he went home as soon as we were able to get you started on a pheromone supplement.”

  “I don’t get it,” I huffed in frustration. “I’m not the one who backed off. Why is he acting like this?”

  Director Keir placed a small envelope on the bed beside me. “Maybe you should read that?”

  Tearing the tab open, I pulled out the only contents – the check I’d left him that was now marked VOID across the face. On the back was a hastily scrawled message.

  Paul,

  I’m so sorry.

  Love,

  Silas

  Handing it to Director Keir, I raised a brow. “Didn’t help much.”

  Director Keir scanned it and huffed. “Do you want me to tell you what I think?”

  “I really do,” I groaned. “I’m lost.”

  Director Keir drew in an even breath. “Sylas told you about his wife, Laura, right? About what happened to her and the babies?”

  I nodded.

  “He told me that the next morning your entire demeanor changed. That you weren’t in bed when he woke up, that you didn’t want him to cook for you or do little things for you anymore,” the director hesitated and then pushed on, “he also said that you started masturbating instead of going to him for sex. While you are certainly well within your rights to choose not to sleep with someone, he interpreted all of those changes as you pulling away, as proof that you were disgusted by what he is and that you blame him for those deaths.”

  My jaw dropped. “That’s insane,” I snapped. “That’s a full-on Evil Knievel jump clear over the facts! I was trying to take some of the burden off him by taking care of myself.”

  Director Keir just shrugged. “Then maybe you need to tell him that.”

  I scowled. “You just said that he’s not here.”

  Director Keir shook his head. “No one said that you have to stay once the doctors clear you, did they?”

  Okay, maybe he had a point.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Sylas

  Sylas, Mpenzi, why are you spending your life with the dead?

  I smiled as I imagined the confusion my first love would have felt at seeing me cleaning and polishing the crypt. In the days since I’d left Paul at the ODI complex, I’d become nearly obsessed with restoring the family crypt to the glittering museum of my nearly forgotten childhood memories. For three days, I’d slept in a small tent I pitched beside the truck at the top of the cemetery road, living off of the protein bars in my go bag and water from an ancient well nearly hidden from view by the ivy climbing it.

  I’d dusted and swept, scrubbed and polished, reliving the vague memories of my mother doing the same as I’d polished the gold of her coffin until it gleamed.

  It’s not just family, Sylas, I remembered her saying on many occasions as I’d sat on an empty shelf, swinging my legs. It’s tradition and history, it’s your heritage. Being caretaker of our family annals will be both your honor and your obligation when the time comes. Honor our ancestors well and teach your children to do the same.

  I’d promised that I would do both. One promise broken, the other to remain unfulfilled.

  For more years after my mother passed than I was proud to admit caretaking the final resting place of my ancestors had been little more than an occasional half-thought. A quick breeze through the rows of dusty coffins that led me to the urn I’d visited so many times. Generations that had come and gone before me forgotten as I’d cried for the inhabitants of the golden vase.

  When I’d polished the last square of the antique stained-glass window to a brilliant sparkle, the time had come to admit to myself that I was stalling, putting off the inevitable pain of returning to my empty house.

  Taking one last look at my handywork –the shimmering metal of the caskets, the stained glass sparkling in the afternoon sun, the stone floor that a speck of dust wouldn’t have dared to light upon- I pulled the door closed. It swung easily on the freshly oiled hinges and the antique skeleton key turned cleanly in the recently graphited lock. Even the small lawn surrounding the building was neat and tidy, devoid of weeds. I was truly out of excuses to stay, so I went.

  It was early evening when I pulled into my driveway. I’d considered stopping to eat along the way but wasn’t able to convince myself to when everything that I put in my mouth tasted like cardboard.

  Stepping through my front door, my heart clenched when I was blasted by Paul’s scent still lingering in the air. Like anise and sweet brown sugar with a touch of ginger all sweetened by the overlying scent of the honey bodywash I’d given him on his birthday. After so many hours, I’d expected it to be nearly gone but it wasn’t. Not even close.

  Mentally chastising myself for pointless self-pity, I stripped out of my clothes in the laundry room and headed straight for the shower. After four days without washing, gamey didn’t even begin to describe the funk clinging to me.

  I scrubbed and rinsed and repeated until my skin was tingling and there was no doubt I was clean. Tossing my towel over the drying rack, I pattered to the bed through the dimly lit room, never mind that it was only eight-thirty at night. Three nights of sleeping on the rocky ground had me more than ready for a good long sleep in a soft, comfortable bed. Sliding beneath the light comforter, I froze when I encountered a warm, familiar, and very naked body.

  “Paul?” I nearly choked on the whisper, wondering if I’d well and truly lost my grip on reality.

  “It’s me,” his sleepy voice murmured as he snuggled back against me, my arm instinctively wrapping over his waist, my palm resting on the bump that was Bun’s safe haven.

  “Sorry,” I automatically apologized and started to pull away. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “No,” Paul said with a soft laugh. “But I did know that you were here and this is your bed, so why are you apologizing?”

  Good question.

  “You want me to stay?” I needed clarification before I let my hopes get up even a little.

  “I want a lot more than that,” Paul huffed, trying to drag me back to spooning him by my wrist. “But for right now, I want you to hold me.”

  I gulped. “I can do that,” I agreed, gathering my precious Omega against my body, allowing my hand to stroke over the sweet baby bump.

  “Relax, Alpha,” Paul yawned, bringing my other hand to his lips for a kiss. “Director Keir explained everything.”

  “He did?”

  “Uh-huh and you’re an idiot,” he mumbled, holding my hand to his chest.

  If it meant having Paul back in my arms, I could live with that.

  I leaned ever so slightly forward to rub my nose in the crook of his neck, sucking in the uniquely Paul scent of him. “Good night, Tiger.”

  A giant sigh rumbled out of the man in my arms, his body relaxing completely. “’Night.”

  ~*~

  I don’t know how long I lay awake, soaking up the pleasure of having my missing piece again as I obsessed about what Paul had meant by a lot more, but when I woke to the warm, wet heat of his mouth engulfing my morning wood, I started to get an inkling.

  “Paul? What are you doing?”

  A shiver ran through me as his laugh vibrated around the sensitive flesh he held in his mouth. Drawing down, he sucked lightly as he pulled off, making me curse. “Seriously? Either you’re still asleep or I’m not doing it right.”

  That
surprised a laugh out of me. “Oh, you’re definitely doing it right.”

  “Yeah?” Paul nuzzled into my groin, stopping to suck one of my balls into his mouth and pulling a deep moan from me.

  “Fuck, yeah.”

  Another chuckle vibrated through my sack and I nearly unloaded right then. “Language, Alpha.”

  “Get up here,” I growled, winding my fingers into the soft waves of hair under my hand and tugging lightly.

  Releasing me with a loud pop, Paul crawled over me, sparks shooting through my nerves as each inch of his smooth skin rubbed against mine in his travels. He stopped when his taint brushed against the steel of my cock, throwing his head back and moaning as he ground against me, the slick coating me leaving no doubt in my mind that he was ready for me.

  Physically, anyway.

  Gritting my teeth, I caught his hips in my hands, stilling him as gently as I could as I forced myself to check. “Paul, are you sure you want this? We can cuddle if you just need the pheromones.”

  Paul leaned forward, his green eyes glittering as they caught and held mine. “I want this, I want you,” he said firmly. “I want your hard cock so deep in my ass that I’ll still feel it next week.” He brushed a kiss over my lips before rising back up, still holding my gaze. “What do you want, Alpha?”

  My heart stuttered and when I opened my mouth to say that I was fully on board, something entirely different flowed out. “I want to be your husband in every sense of the word. I want to be Bun’s other Dad. I want you to stay, forever.”

  The arousal in Paul’s eyes softened to something deeper. “If I say yes, will you get on with fucking me?”

  A small laugh bubbled up inside me. “Uh-huh.”

  Paul’s lips spread into a wicked grin. “Yes.”

  He squealed as I flipped us over, careful to catch my weight on my elbows as I set about branding the sweet Omega as mine in every way I knew.