Page 13 of His Gentle Omega
Following behind Meg, I saw Carrie still pacing in front of the on-call room’s closed door.
“Hey,” I told her quietly, “can you sit with the little boy? Do we know his name?”
“It’s Lucas,” Carrie supplied. “He’s not much for talking.”
“Can you sit with Lucas until I can talk to him? I’m going to see if his dad is awake and try to get some information from him.”
Carrie bit her lip, looking unsure. “Was that what I should have done?”
Smiling gently, I shook my head, “You did everything you were supposed to do. Don’t let these doctors,” I gave Meg the side-eye, “bully you. But Lucas is probably really scared, and he’s by himself, so it would be great if you could sit with him and keep him company. Maybe reassure him that everything is going to work out okay, and that the doctors are taking good care of his dad. And if you can casually get any helpful information out of him, that would be great.”
Carrie nodded, “I’ll do my best. I’m not great with kids.”
“I know you will.”
Following Meg down the corridor to the hub of the E.R., she slipped through an opening of a curtained cubicle and I followed.
The alpha on the bed was strikingly handsome, even looking battered, bruised, and obviously ill. There was an IV attached to the back of one of his broad hands, and an oxygen cannula under his nose. His blond hair was disheveled and sweat soaked, his eyes closed so I couldn’t see their color. Asher Pierce was a brown eyed blond, so I imagined his brother was the same.
The man’s face was ruggedly masculine, yet there was a beauty to it that was almost out of place. He was tall and broad, taking up most of the room on the hospital bed.
My mouth went dry at the sight of him, my stomach doing a little whirly loop of…something. Whatever it was, I pushed it aside. He was a patient. And he needed help.
Meg spoke quietly to the nurse who was in the room, monitoring him. My feet that had been frozen to the spot at the sight of him–something that had never happened to me when faced with a patient–suddenly remembered how to work. As if pulled by aninvisible force I was powerless to stop, I found myself standing next to him.
His natural alpha scent wafted up to me. Dark musk, a little sweat, and earth after a rainstorm. Desire slammed into me, making me shiver. He smelled fucking delicious. Better than anything I had ever smelled in all my twenty-eight years.
His dark lashes, so at odds with his hair, fluttered against bruised but sharp cheekbones. His eyes opened just a slit, enough for me to see glassy blue depths. He blinked at me, then looked around the room, his limbs becoming agitated. His movements grew more frantic, and the line of his IV pulled against his arm.
“Hey, shh,” I reached out and touched his arm in what was meant to be a soothing motion, and to stop his movements before he yanked the needle out of his hand. His hospital gown shifted along his neck and my eyes fell on the scar resting over his mate gland.
Electricity sparked when my skin met his, and we both jolted. For an instant, I saw flashes of…my future? Me, and this man, and a dark haired child, laughing in the sunshine. The floor shifted beneath my feet for a dizzying instant, before righting.
Blinking down at him, he wasn’t paying me any attention, seeming unaware of the spark between us and what I had felt. Instead, he was still frantically searching the room, his body restless beneath my still tingling fingers. I could feel the heat from his skin nearly scorching my hand.
“It’s okay,” I whispered, feeling anything butokay. Stroking up his arm, I felt the pops of electricity as my skin moved against his. “You’re okay.”
He turned his head at the sound of my soft words, blue eyes filled with fear. “Lucas? Where’s Lucas? Don’t let him take him.”
The words were so low that I barely heard them, his voice sounding wrecked and wheezy.
Squeezing his arm, I promised him, “I won’t.”
That seemed to calm him, as his head fell back against the pillow weakly, and his eyes closed.
Blinking rapidly, my legs felt shaky, and I sank down onto the side of the bed next to him. If all the many stories I had read and movies I had watched were true, I knew exactly what that spark between us when we touched was.
This beautiful, battered and bruised alpha, with the mate claim bite that I clearly hadn’t given him, was my fated mate.
Chapter Six
Bennett
“Bennett?” Meg’s voice shook me out of the trance I had fallen into, staring down at the sleeping face of…my fated mate?
Nope, no question about it, my wolf supplied oh-so-helpfully.Mate. Ours. Yum.
Ignoring my wolf, because I did not need him adding his two cents into my world that had literally just shaken on its axis, I blinked and glanced across the hospital bed at Meg.
