Page 20 of His Gentle Omega
He nodded his blond head. “Please. I would appreciate that. I don’t have his number. I…my brother and I…we…,” he wasstruggling for the words, and it had nothing to do with him having trouble breathing. A shadow darkened his blue eyes and he looked away from my gaze. “We haven’t seen each other in a very long time. I don’t know…I don’t know if he’ll even care that I’m here. But he’s all I have left, and I–” his eyes landed on Lucas, “–I hoped he would help us.”
My legs moved on their own volition, carrying me forward until my chest touched the edge of the bed. Who the fuck had cranked the bed that damn high? No wonder Lucas hadn’t been able to get on it.
My hand hovered over his, as his fingers plucked at the blanket pooled at his waist. Taking a breath, I let my hand fall over his, stopping his movement. Heat, lightning, electricity. It all sparked and flowed between our fingers, skin on skin, where we touched.
Shay jerked, yanking his hand roughly from beneath mine, blue eyes wide with confusion. Shock, unasked questions, and something resembling recognition of what it was. Lucas mumbled in his sleep, and Shay shushed him with a hand to his back, his eyes burning into mine. My mouth opened to say–something, anything–then flopped closed, no sound emitting from it.
“You? What? I don’t–” Shay gasped, and my hand hovered over him, wanting to touch him. Soothe him. Feel his warmth under my fingers. Feel…that racing feeling when we touched, that was absolutelyeverything.
The curtain was flung open, the metal hooks holding it up on a bar clanging loudly, breaking us out of the spell we were under.
The respiratory therapist bustled in, all business, as he hooked up a nebulizer. Strapping the mask over Shay’s face and cutting off any further words from him for the next fifteen to twenty minutes, as he breathed in the medicine to help clear his lungs.
Stepping out of the way, away from Shay’s warm skin, his scent, I pulled my phone from my pocket. Holding it up and waving it, I announced, “I’m going to try calling Asher.”
Knowing Shay couldn’t answer me, I hurried from the cubicle, rushing down the hallway. Breathing hard, heart pounding, I leaned against the wall and tried to calm my racing pulse.
If I had ever doubted what I had felt the first time Shay and I had touched, those doubts just flew out the window. We were fated.
And nothing good could come of it. The mate claim bite on his neck was a solid indication of that. It was like a big, red, flashing neon stop sign. Do not enter, danger ahead.
I knew what I had to do. I had to take the out clause the Goddess had built into the fated mate legend. Had to walk away and not look back. Move on with my life, and hope that one day I would find someone that I would want to spend the rest of my life with. We wouldn’t be fated, but many solid, loving relationships happened between people who weren’t fated. Fated mates were a rare thing, and most people never found their fated mates.
Nodding my head at my solid plan, I hit the contact for Asher Pierce on my phone, then paced the corridor while I listened to it ring in my ear. Three…four…it was late, and I would probably end up leaving a message.
“Bennett?” Asher’s quiet voice cut through the ringing, “Is everything okay? Is there something wrong at the house?”
“Hi! I didn’t think you would answer.” My voice was doing that way too chipper thing it had started doing tonight, and I winced at the sound of it. “Nothing’s wrong at the house. Did I wake you?”
“I wish. Tristan has an ear infection, so we’re up. It’s been a great trip.” There was no denying the sarcasm in his statement. “If the house is okay, something else must be wrong. It’s like…midnight.”
“Uh, your brother is here. In Sweet Alps. In the emergency room. With his son.” Now, not only was I too chipper, but I also couldn’t string an entire sentence together that wasn’t over three or four words. Fucking hell.
I was so busy silently chastising myself, it took me a minute to realize there was silence on the other end of the phone. Absolute, dead silence.
“Asher? Are you there?”
“My…brother?” He finally asked, those two words short and clipped. “Are you sure it’s my brother?”
Blowing out a breath, I nodded, even though the man couldn’t see me. “Shay. His name is Shay, correct? I’m sending you a picture.”
Quickly I sent him the picture of Shay’s drivers license I had snapped. I had anticipated Asher might want some kind of verification, and I wasn’t about to send him a picture of Shay looking battered, bruised, and beat all to hell.
A few seconds after the picture finally sent, I heard the soft murmuring of words between Asher and Gabe. Determined not to listen to their conversation, I smiled at one of the nurses that passed by in the hallway.
“That’s Shay,” Asher confirmed, his voice flat and guarded. “You said he has his son with him?”
“Lucas,” I confirmed, wondering again what the story was between the two brothers.
“Why are they there?” His voice was less guarded now, a tinge of worry creeping in. “Are they alright?”
“Lucas is fine,” I assured him. “Shay is…” pausing, I scraped my bottom lip with my teeth, choosing my next words very carefully. “Shay is pretty sick. Sounds like a summer cold that escalated to a pretty severe respiratory infection.” If I had learned nothing else navigating patients, stressed out family members, overworked medical staff, and bureaucracy, I knew how to sugar coat the truth.
“We…fuck,” Asher sighed, “we can’t get home for a couple of days. We can leave tomorrow after we get some sleep. But with two babies under the age of two, one with an ear infection, we probably won’t be able to drive it in one go. Does Shay need to be admitted? What about…Lucas, is that his name? Is Edward with them?” The way he said the name Edward told me Asher didn’t have a high opinion of the man.
Rocking back on my heels, I ran a hand through my hair, deciding what I should tell Asher. I was well aware I was walking a fine line with patient confidentiality. And it wasn’t my place to talk to Asher about his brother’s other injuries. I wasn’t about to tell him that Shay and I were fated, especially since the best thing for me to do was walk away and let him live his life. With his mate. The abusive asshole. He very well could decide to go back to him, after all this. It happened more times than I cared to think about.
“He’s here alone. He doesn’t need to be admitted, but I’m not sure he has anywhere else to go. Even if he goes to a hotel, he shouldn’t be alone with how sick he is. Especially with a small child to look after. Meg could admit him until you can get back here, but there’s the issue of Lucas. Without a relative here to take him, we would have to call social services, and we’re trying to avoid that.”
