Just beneath the surface of him I see his pain, and it's so sharp, I wonder how I missed it at first, given this is what I am, and it's what I've been able to do since I was a child. I see a shifter's pain, and I can heal them. It's one of the things I can do which gives me the title of Omega.
To stem aggression in a pack? That takes will and control, but this other thing, this healing? This takes no effort at all.
In a world where omegas are rare, my gift makes me valuable, even if I'm not as strong and as aggressive as other wolves. I'm not submissive, but I'm not dominant either, which, in Kieran's eyes, makes me worthless. Weak. Useless.
"You want to tell me your name?" he asks when I don't respond.
I startle and jerk my gaze away because I'm realizing that for several seconds, it may even be minutes, I've been doing nothing but staring at this beta without saying a word. Probably without blinking.
Feeling myself blushing, embarrassed to have been caught staring at him as intensely as I was, I struggle to think of something to say.
It's only made worse because the faint smile curving his lips tells me he didn't miss my attention. I can't tell him I was staring because I find him attractive, even if it's true, and I can't tell him I was trying to understand the nature of his pain.
While his soul is a lovely aquamarine blue, his edges are ragged and torn as if he never recovered from some emotional hurt that he suffered a long time ago. That's the thing with souls, you can hide your expression and your emotions at least on a surface level, but you can never hide the effect it has on your soul. At least not from an omega. Not from me.
It's a good thing we omegas are so rare because if I got within sight of another one, I don't know how I'd begin to hide what I am or explain why my soul is so battered and bruised.
"I'm guessing that's a no," he says when I don't answer.
Instead of answering, I turn to the overstuffed bookcases, which take up almost an entire wall of this not-exactly-small bedroom.
"Whose room is this?"
In part, it's my less-than-subtle attempt to distract him, but it's also a genuine desire to know because I refuse to believe that any guy who takes such an interest in books is a bad guy.
"Mine." Right, because this is his room, which means I'm in his bed wearing nothing but a white t-shirt that has to be one of his. Once again, I feel my face heat.
"Oh." I should know that already, given the room is full of his rich scent that makes me think of warm nights in front of an open fire, and roasting marshmallows. When I feel brave enough to dart a glance in his direction, I find he's wearing another faint smile.
"I'm Lucian." I raise my eyebrow.
"What, no surname?" The smile develops into a full grin, and it's so gorgeous that I know I must be staring, but this time not to get a deeper peek at the wounds in his soul.
"Sure I do. But how about we trade for it? One first name." He gestures at me. "For one surname," he says, pointing at himself.
I consider making one up, but in the end, I decide to give him my real name. That way, I won't have to worry about remembering a fake name for however long I'm stuck here. Which, considering the state of my leg, might be a while. "Cassia ."
"Winters." He replies right after. Then he pauses and tilts his head to examine me. "Cassia , huh? Pretty."
Oh my God, I have got to stop blushing. "It's just a name," I say with a shrug, feigning indifference.
"And Winters? Like the name of the town?"
The aquamarine blue of his soul turns the darker, redder shade of a soul in pain. "Yeah, I took it as my own when we settled here."
I'm desperate to know why a pack of shifters have made a home for themselves in a town where old people retire. I want to ask why my innocent question makes his pain sharp enough that I feel myself reaching out to heal him without conscious thought.
Just as I place mental fingers on the most ragged of the tears to his soul, I realize what I'm doing and jerk away. If this guy—this Lucian figures out what I am, he'll tell his alpha for sure, and that'll be it. There'll be no leaving for me, ever.
"I'm tired," I announce before turning my head away to stare at the bookcase, even though I know it's rude. All I can do is hope that my touch was light enough that Lucian didn't feel the beginning of my healing touch. Some shifters are so sensitive they would feel even that.
I just have to hope that Lucian isn't one of them.
For a moment there's silence at my back and I tense, thinking I've given myself away. But then he speaks. "You must be. Sleep as long as you want, and when you're hungry, just shout and I'll bring something up to you."
Definitely the beta.
His words silence the tiny niggling voice in my head that he's anything more than a beta.
After living with my father, then Kieran and his father, not to mention the countless other alphas I've had the displeasure to meet, there's no way Lucian is one. He's too… accommodating to be anything other than a beta. Which is a relief that I haven't been unlucky enough to land myself in an alpha's bed. My situation then would be a million times worse.
I relax the second he steps out and closes the door behind him.
The beta in my father's pack loved reading as well, and he was nice— kind. Considering the favourite sport of most shifters seems to be fighting, my father's beta, Kael, stood out. It's only because of his position as beta, and his mate's as pack healer, that the rest of the pack didn't view his love of reading as a weakness that they needed to beat out of him. I was saved the same fate because I was the alpha's daughter.
Others that the pack viewed as weak weren't so lucky. Lucian seems the same as Kael, quiet but with a hidden strength beneath the surface.
I just hope the alpha here likes him enough for Lucian to be able to keep him as far away from me as possible.
I place my hand over my belly. Although it's still flat, in a few months that will no longer be true.
Again, I try to estimate how far along I am, but it's as impossible now as it was when I first discovered I was pregnant in a filthy roadside bathroom with a lock that didn't work properly. Since Kieran came to our room, which was really only my room three times a week, I guess it has to be recent.
If I was a couple of months along, there's no way I wouldn't have known it before I left. Even if I'd somehow overlooked it, one of the pack would've noticed my scent changing. I'm sure I only missed it when I was running because every day meant being somewhere new, with unfamiliar scents and smells. That and my desperate fear distracting me that Kieran or his father were only one step behind me, ready to drag me back to a place I'd have no hope of leaving again.
Soon I'll start showing, and then eventually they'll be a child which brings with it another fear. A deeper one that never leaves me.
At twenty-two and being a rare type of shifter, I've never had to fend for myself before since I went straight from my father's pack to Kieran's.
I need to find a way to support us both. If I can't, then I'm going to have to go back to Kieran and that's something I swore I would never do. Not when every time I look at him, all I'll see is him fucking Nova. Or the bite on her neck.
It would kill me if I had to go back to a life that was slowly crushing me to death. But if I don't find some way to survive, I'll have no choice.
This baby means I can't afford to only think of myself.
Not anymore.