Page 7 of Omega's Flight
"I don't feel good." She pushed the torn shirt out of my lap and crawled in, burying her head against my chest.
"I know, sweetie, I know. You need to sleep. Sleep helps little pups get better faster."
"My legs hurt," she complained, and burrowed further into my arms.
I sighed and stood up, scrambling not to let the sewing fall to the floor, but my fingers lost their grip with my sick little girl's squirming and I heard it thump to the boards. Ah, it's not like he'll come near this corner anyway. I'll get it once I've got her off to bed. I carried her into the puppy room and laid her on the bed she shared with Pip. "You stay there and I'll come lie down with you in a minute." I could spend a little while in the bed with her, get her to sleep, and still have time to finish the mending. Luckily, the laundry building was still open, so once Degan was here to make sure the pups didn't wake up and wander off, I could run down with a load, then finish up whatever needed to be done around here before he went away. And maybe get in a little adult time, too, to remind him he had a mate at home. Alphas enjoyed their bedroom times. I hoped it would take the edge off his temper.
And, well, omegas enjoyed it too. I might not love him anymore—if I ever had, which I was beginning to doubt—but we were mated, and being affectionate that way with each other was part of a mating. I'd be a bad mate if I sent him off for a week without some sign of mated attention. Omegas were meant to be mated, it was why we connected so strongly with our alphas. At least on a physical level.
For sure, being mated was better than being single and living in my parents' house, where I probably would have been relegated to a cot in the back porch when I wasn't working in the public buildings Nevada Ashes was so famous for, until I could save enough for an apartment of my own. No thanks. But it didn't change the fact that I was becoming less and less certain of the wisdom of my choice. I'd thought, at the time, that I'd understood him or at the very least, what an alpha was. Now, well—I wasn't so certain.
I picked up the mending in the living room and laid it over the arm of my rocking chair, made a quick tour of the house to be certain it was tidy, and then went back to the pups' room to lie down with my sick little girl.
She whined softly as I climbed into the bed, but curled up readily with her head on my chest. Her body was warm like a full moon bonfire against my skin, and I worried that she was too sick to get over it herself. Pups had been known to die of fevers, though I didn't think this was one of those deadly ones.
Ann loved it when she could get her hair played with. She'd go all limp and sleepy and start smiling, even if she was in a grumpy mood when it started. I combed my fingers gently through her dark hair, straight as a pin like her sire's, rubbing it through my fingers as I carefully picked a day's worth of knots out of it.
Ann sighed and snuggled closer and I began to hum an old song that I used to sing to her when she was my only pup and we'd sit in the rocking chair while she nursed. Her breathing slowed and grew heavier and it seemed to me that her body grew warmer against my side, but not the burning heat from before. I felt sleep tugging at me and forced my eyes open—I had too much still to do in order to get Degan ready to go outside walls tomorrow.
Maybe I should get up now.
I rolled up on my side, just enough to start sliding out from underneath my eldest.
"No, Papa!" she whined and tightened her arm around me.
Guess I'm not going anywhere yet. Well, I could take a little more time with her. In fact, if I napped for half an hour or so now, I'd have more energy later when I had to be up. "It's all right baby, I'm not going anywhere." I lay back down and got her settled again, then closed my eyes.
C H A P T E R 7
I woke to a hand in my hair, the grip so tight it burned, and then I was stumbling, falling onto the floor, desperately trying to get my feet underneath me while my brain caught up to reality.
The rose gold of dawn colored the living room as my mate dragged me into it, turning the blues and greens of the braided rug I'd worked so hard on to purple and gray. I watched it rise up toward me as if in slow motion, or as if I was watching someone else hurtle face-first toward the floor. My lack of emotion about it all was more disturbing than the actual manhandling—I knew what was coming, knew what I needed to do to calm Degan's temper. He was stressed, nerves wound tight about this job and the money and the coming pup. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the unwashed pile of work clothes and the unfinished mending that my night's sleep had left undone.
My knees made a dull thunk as they hit the floor in the middle of the rug. Later they'd be bruised, but right now I didn't feel anything. And that was my best defense, to feel nothing, because emotion only confused the issue, at least from my perspective. I needed to be sharp and aware, not buried in my own pain and confusion and despair.
"You useless piece of carrion," he yelled. "Now I'm supposed to do your work too, as well as mine?" He picked up the dirty clothes and threw them at my face.
I fought the instinct to block the flying bundle and flinch away—not taking my punishment would only make him worse. I kicked myself internally for not waking up to get everything finished, then that sarcastic little demon in the back of my mind reminded me that I didn't need to bother—my mate was going to do that for me. Shut up, I thought at it.
"Nothing to say?" he mocked.
Like I was that stupid. I stared at the floor while he ranted, and breathed deeply to calm myself—in through the nose, out through the mouth. Cool, prepared. He'd get it out of his system, I'd have a bruise on my arm or my shoulder for a week, and then things would go back to normal. He'd probably bring me a gift from outside walls—that would be nice,
Oh, was I wrong.
When I didn't respond, didn't try to defend myself, he grabbed me by my left arm and lifted me to my feet. I gasped, because it did hurt and because my pain seemed to soothe something in him. He shook me and shoved me against the wall, his forearm up against my throat. I tried to swallow against the pressure, a sharp pain, and he pressed harder.
"Degan," I croaked and raised my hands to tug on his wrist. "I can't breathe."
"Waste of air anyway. Why the fuck did I mate an omega? I knew you were useless." His eyes burned me and, for the first time in years, I felt fear. He leaned against me and the blood began to throb in my head. My nose started to run and tears spilled out of my eyes.
"Please," I gasped and tugged harder on his arm. "The pups." I began to wonder if he would stop, or if he might just keep pushing, harder and harder until he'd crushed my throat and left me twitching on the floor. Panic set in as I pictured my pups without me, trying desperately to please their sire without help to understand him. I sobbed and scratched at his arm, and prayed that the pups would stay fast asleep. At least until whatever was going to happen had happened.
And then, as suddenly as it had started, it ended. The crushing pressure against my windpipe disappeared and my knees sagged beneath me. I drew in great desperate breaths in my hunger for air, the movements of my throat and my chest almost painful now that they had their freedom. Something solid got in the way of my journey to the floor and then I was flying across the room without any memory of starting to move. I hit my rocking chair, bruising my ribs and cracking my nose painfully on one of the arms. My mending needle stabbed deep into the meaty part at the base of my thumb and I stared at it in dumb shock as I fell back onto the floor.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realized I didn't care anymore if he left me, and that if there'd been anything left at all of the feelings that I'd nurtured for him since our mating, it had been choked to death today. I felt a pang of jealousy for Bax—not for his current mated status, but for the fact that his first one had died. I should be so lucky.
"You need to clean up your act before I get home," he growled and picked me up by the front of my shirt. "Remember."
