by Tamsin Baker
I nodded, clenching my jaw against the retort that sprung to mind. There were many in the community, like Sam, who were lazy drunks. But my pack was strong and we drew the most interest, and thus the most ridicule.
“Not a problem, Vincent.”
“Make sure you do, because I will hold you personally responsible for him.”
I nodded at the thinly veiled threat and the vampires disappeared into the night like they’d never been. I exhaled in a long sigh and turned back around.
Clayton was still where I’d left him. His bedraggled hair fell over his battered face.
“Come on, little one. You’re coming home with me.”
He didn’t move, and I could almost feel his pain as the blood continued to drip down his back.
“Can you walk? Or would you like me to carry you?”
He shook his head and awkwardly got to his feet. His shoulders were unbalanced and hunched. The bones in his back protruded as though the skin could barely contain them.
I swallowed hard against the pity and shame that rose in my heart. What sort of monster did this to a defenseless Beta? If that’s what he was. I’d never really thought about Clayton’s origins before.
“This way.” I gestured to our building that lay opposite the one he’d lived in.
Clayton hobbled across the road and into my building wearing only a pair of tattered pants.
I passed by Silky, who shot me a worried look. “Are you going to look after him?” she asked.
I nodded once. “I’ll send for you if I need some help.”
God only knew how he’d deal with an Alpha caring for him after that asshole of a Beta had treated him so badly.
“Good luck then,” she said, her face full of something I couldn’t quite read. Sadness perhaps?
I smiled back at her. “Thanks. I’m going to need it.”
Chapter 2.
Clayton.
One more step. Just one more step.
I dragged my bad leg down the cold corridor and bit my lip to stop myself from screaming out against the pain. It was like knives running up and down my thigh. But I’d had worse.
The Alpha—Angus I think his name is—he’d tell me where to go.
When I couldn’t feel him behind me anymore, I turned around to see him with that scruffy female he always hung around. Why he chose her for a bedmate, I’d never know.
“Next door on your left,” he yelled out to me, and I turned back to my job. To get inside. Away from the vampires, and my old pack who would surely blame me for the death of Sam. A shiver coursed up my spine that intensified the pain in my back. I blinked back the tears and trudged up the hallway to my destination.
It was a horrible thing to admit to, or even think, but I had been so happy when those vampires had come and drained Sam. I’d never been so relieved in all my life. To see that man, a man I had trusted and tried to love, who had beaten me half to death for months, die.
Good riddance.
I lifted my shaking arm and pushed open the heavy door.
The room was clean and didn’t smell like our building. Not moldy at all.
I dragged my body inside and stood trembling for the Alpha to inspect me. What would he want me to do in return for this sanctuary?
Nothing I hadn’t done before, I was sure. Though I could feel the strain in my muscles and I knew my body was ready to give up, my mind remained unbroken. I didn’t think I could cope with another beating like the one I just encountered, but would Angus do that after saving me from the same thing?
“Are you okay?” came the soft question behind me.
I turned around to see Angus step into the room and shut the door.
The lights were on in the lounge room. A blessing from the pack that had saved me. They made the electricity work in a time where such things were extreme luxuries.
“Ah…” How did he want me to answer that? Did I look okay?
“I’m sorry. That was a stupid question,” Anus corrected himself. “Well, I should probably lay out the ground rules for you.”
I heaved in a breath and nodded once. This was where he would tell me what I needed to do for my food and shelter.
“No one is allowed to hit you, ever again. Me included.”
Huh?
My head came up and I stared at the Alpha, heat rippling through my chest as I finally looked at him properly. He was such a good-looking man. Why had I never really noticed before?
Angus. Like the bull. Short dark hair, a strong jaw, and muscled like a large animal.
“Unfortunately, you’ll be required to work with us in the power plant, but I’ll work a few extra hours the first couple of days to make up your quota while you heal.”
“Sorry? You’re going to work…for me?” Surely, he hadn’t just said that?
“Of course. You can’t work in the state you’re in, and as your Alpha now, it is my job to protect you.”
I snorted, unable to help myself.
Angus sighed. “I can imagine you don’t have a very positive view on pack structure at the moment, but you need to know that Sam wasn’t an Alpha. He was a Beta, and a sadistic bastard. He should never have been running your pack.” He cleared his throat and looked down for a moment. “And on a personal note, I’m so sorry I didn’t step in earlier.”
I raised my gaze to Angus’s again.
“What do you need from me, for this…kindness?” I managed to ask.
He was a handsome man. I was sure I would be able to handle his body if he wanted me.
Angus gazed at me with a strange, pitying look. “I told you. Unfortunately, you’ll need to work if we’re all to eat in this fucked up world.”
“Well, of course, but what else?”
Did I really need to spell it out?
I felt sorry for the guy when he finally got it. His eyebrows went really wide and then his mouth moved up and down in shock for a while, like an old cartoon character I used to watch as a child.
“You think I’d demand… Hell no!” Angus spluttered. “No Beta in my pack gets abused like that.”
“I’m not a Beta,” I explained, because obviously the Alpha didn’t know what I was. Hopefully it didn’t change Angus’s view of me.
He took a step closer and dropped his voice. “What are you then?”
There was only one other option, and he knew it. He obviously wanted me to say it.
“I’m an Omega. A freak. An aberration, if Sam was to be believed.”
The complete opposite of what my parents had taught me as a child, but hey, who was I to question the guy beating in to me?
“You’re a…. Damn…. That explains it.” Angus staggered sideways and crashed into the couch, sitting down on the worn cushions in a way that spoke of true shock.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, panic flitting through my chest at the idea that he didn’t want me. No one seemed to want me anymore.
“Ah…um…nothing.” Angus shook his head as though he’d been hit over the head by a frying pan.
I took a few shallow breaths, waiting for him to move, but he didn’t. Perhaps he wouldn’t kick me out just yet?
I needed to make myself as presentable as possible. “Ah… May I…wash myself?” I asked, hating to ask anything of the Alpha already, but I was disgusted by the filth on my body.
Despite the fact that I couldn’t shape shift, my father’s shifter genes were strong in me. I healed faster than most of the pack, and I could already feel my back knitting together in that itchy way it had.
I flinched as I looked down at myself. The blood on my pants was gross. I was crispy and disgusting all over. I didn’t want to think about how badly I’d smell to the Alpha on the couch.
Angus jumped up like a fire alarm had gone off. “Yes! I’m sorry, of course.”
He was sorry? What for?
“This way, Omega.” He directed me into the bathroom, which was the whitest, cleanest bathroom I’d seen in years.
“Wow. Who does your clea
ning?”
He shrugged. “One of the women. Those that are in charge of the children clean everyone’s homes as well.”
I reached out to touch one of the cream tiles and saw the blackened skin and red splatter on my arm, so I pulled it back and didn’t touch the clean bathroom.
“We have some hot water, and use this soap if you can. Are there any open wounds you need me to help you with?” Angus asked, and I tried not to flinch when he came too close.
He was showing me nothing but kindness. He wouldn’t like me flinching away all the time. But it was hard when he was so big. Bigger than any other wolf shifter I’d met.
Sam hadn’t like the way I flinched away from his touch, but I hadn’t been able to stop myself then.
There was something different about this Alpha, though. I could feel the kindness in him. The strength and the calm. Just like the Alpha who’d led our pack, back before the world flipped on its head.
“Ah… thank you Alpha Angus.”
“Just Angus, please,” he croaked out.
“All right.”
I reached for the taps and twisted them until heavenly warm water flowed. Steam beginning to rise around us. It wasn’t as clean as the water of old, but it was drinkable, and that was enough.
I pushed my disgusting pants down my legs and stepped beneath the spray before I had a chance to be nervous. Angus was still standing there watching me, and although I knew that the wolf shifters were used to being naked around each other, it had been years since the packs had been allowed to shift.
I gasped at the pain sluicing down my skin. Like hot needles, piercing my skin over and over. The heat of the water made my bruises and cuts sting, though I was grateful for the cleansing of my wounds.
I forced myself to breathe deep. In, out. In, out.
My skin was mending. There weren’t any more cuts now. I could sense that and needed to stay focused on the healing. Not on the man staring at me.
What must he think of all my protruding bones and lack of muscle? Compared to him I was a literal skeleton. A reminder of how badly I’d been treated for so many years.
I tipped back my head and let the water run through my dirty hair. How long had it been since I’d had a proper wash? A month? Longer?
Would Angus be totally disgusted by me?
I cracked an eye open and risked a glance at him. He was still staring at me, his gaze roaming over my body, but I couldn’t see any disgust in his face.
I glanced down at the red and brown muddied water and grimaced. The women who cleaned this bathroom were going to hate me for this mess.
I risked another glance up to see Angus staring at me with a longing.
My first reaction on seeing that look was to cower, but instead I searched out his reactions. Responding to an Alpha correctly was one of the many advantages of an Omega, my mother had always said.
Gus was relaxed, happy even. I sensed no violence in him, and yet there was a lusting scent in the air the reeked of his need.
I threw my head back under the water once more and reached for the soap. It was strangely slippery and as I washed the grime from my arms and scrubbed my hair, I remembered the flowery scents of my childhood baths. This was the closest I’d gotten to such a thing in ten years.
Gus didn’t move, just continued to watch me silently as I became cleaner.
“Would you like a shower too?” I asked, afraid of using all the water.
Gus’s mouth twisted up. “I probably should. Been working all day.” He reached over his head and pulled his black T-shirt off. The huge muscles in his arms and shoulders rippled in a dangerously sexy way. Then his jeans descended to the tiles and he stood up.
My mouth ran dry as my gaze zoned in on one area of his Gus’s massive body.
“Ignore this, okay?” Gus gestured to the massive erection he had and I nodded quickly.
How could I ignore that?
Despite having an asshole of a mate, he hadn’t turned me off men completely. And Gus was one hell of a man.
You must be delusional if you’re getting hot over a guy, an hour after your mate was killed in front of you.
Gus handed me a light green towel and I took it, exchanging places with him so that he could scrub himself beneath the warm water.
He turned the taps hard so that I soon felt the cold spray on my face as he doused himself in freezing water. He gasped a little, but scrubbed his skin of its day’s dirt, then flicked off the taps quickly. His cock was now at half mast, after its blast of cold water. What a shame…
Total boner killer.
“Should I be apologizing for getting your mate killed, Clayton?” Gus asked, standing there like a God. His muscles bunched with massive strength and water dripped from his skin in a way that made me want to offer my tongue for a towel.
I licked my dry lips and handed him my towel, letting my clean nakedness show through.
He took the towel and dried himself quickly, wrapping it around his waist and covering himself from view.
“No. He was as mean as a snake and I’m not sorry he’s gone,” I finally answered, lifting my head high.
I knew my face was still a mess, but it would heal. I’d been good looking once, and hopefully I would be again, and then Gus would want me.
A smile spread across Gus’s face and my gut tightened with arousal.
Seriously…my healing must have just reached light speed.
“Good. Now, let’s find you a place to sleep.”
“What do you mean?”
He wanted me to sleep apart from him?
“I mean, this apartment has two bedrooms, so if you want to sleep in the other room—”
“No. No I don’t,” I rushed to say.
I didn’t want to be alone, and the last thing I wanted was for Gus to find a reason to toss me out. Or worse, hand me back to the pack who stood by while I was abused for so long.
Gus straightened up, his massive shoulders causing a quake in my gut. Fear, or desire, I wasn’t sure.
“How old are you Clayton?” Gus asked unexpectedly.
I didn’t hesitate to answer. “Twenty-six.”
Which meant I was old enough to remember how good life had been for us all, before that psycho had condemned us to a world of fighting and death. I hoped he was six feet under somewhere.
Gus’s shoulders relaxed and he blew out a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. You look a hell of a lot younger than that.”
“And you?” I asked him, swallowing the lump in my throat.
This felt like a strange version of a date I went on when I was sixteen.
“Oh…ah, thirty-five. I think. Yeah. You lose track of time in this world.”
I nodded. “You’re telling me.”
“I have a little food if you want something to eat. I’ll get some clothes for you too.”
I glanced down at my nakedness and nodded. I hadn’t even realized I wasn’t wearing any clothes. Sam had rarely allowed me to wear anything but a tatty pair of pants anyway.
We walked out into the small, clean kitchen and Gus pulled down some cans of fruit that I hadn’t seen in years. The labels were faded and there was dints in the sides, but it was real fruit.
“Wow, you still have things like this?” I whispered.
He shrugged. “Yeah. Thankfully, I didn’t hoover it all when we first got here. I knew it had to last.”
He pulled a can opener from a shelf, opened the can, and poured it into a single bowl.
He even pulled a spoon from a drawer.
“This is so…civilized.” I managed to say, the ghost of a laugh in my throat.
Gus actually did laugh, the noise both jolting to my fried nervous system and soothing at the same time.
“Yeah… we try. Here. Eat.” He pushed the bowl at me. “Wow, you’re healing up already.”
I picked up the spoon with trembling hands. I hadn’t eaten this much in longer than I could remember.
“I’ll have a little, and then you hav
e the rest.”
Gus laid a gentle hand on my shoulder and I jumped.
“No one’s going to hurt you, Clayton. Least of all me. And no, that’s all for you. Eat, and I’ll find you something to wear.”
He disappeared and I stared down at the most colorful, nutritious meal I’d had this decade. I dipped the spoon into the thick juice, scooped half a cut peach onto the spoon, then brought it to my mouth. The sweetness burst across my tongue and I closed my eyes as I chewed, relishing the smoothness of the fruit. The clean taste.
Wow. That’s amazing.
I ate slowly, my stomach aching painfully with the constriction of muscles around the unfamiliar food.
When Gus came back, I’d finished less than half. I’d counted, so that I may leave him the biggest portion. He was, after all, twice my weight. At least.
I glanced up at him and reassessed. Definitely double. If he was less than six feet six and two hundred pounds, I’d be surprised.
“Here you go,” I said, pushing the bowl towards him.
“Nope, I told you it was a treat for you, but if you want to eat it later, that’s fine too. It’ll keep until morning. Here you go.”
I kept staring at the bowl. There was no way he was going to share such an incredible amount of food with me. Surely not.
I twisted around and stood up on shaky legs.
Angus was dressed in another pair of faded jeans and another black tank top. He handed me a pile of clothes that looked very similar to what he wore. Hopefully they were smaller, though it didn’t really matter. They were soft and clean.
“Sorry, I only have the one sort of clothes. It’s easier. But I think these are a different size. I haven’t worn them.”
He handed me even more new clothes. Jeans and a top, the material still stiff as though never worn. Tears stung my eyes.
“Where’d you get all this?”
“In one of the raids of a mall. Before most of them were blown up. I took enough for the whole pack, for a life time. It’s turned into a bit of a uniform.”
I nodded and pulled the top over my head. I’d noticed that. The uniform look of his pack.
Not that I got to see them all too often. They were always working and I was always tucked away somewhere Sam wanted me.
