What was running through her fucking head when she decided to stab him? Was she going to try to hurt me next? This was why I’d called Ambrose in the first place—I just hadn’t expected he would be the one to get hurt.
I didn’t want to help her, but my instincts were screaming at me. I was irrationally angry at Ambrose for the harm he’d caused her. Seeing the extent of the damage would only heighten that instinctual alpha rage.
He had to push me toward Kiara to get me to move. I was thinking too hard about it until he forced the matter.
Crouching beside her, I reached out.
Through her coughing she let out a little whimper, leaning in close with her throat exposed. The skin was turning purple, tiny red spots marring her neck and face. When she peered up at me with desperate, tear-filled eyes, they were bloodshot.
I wasn’t a goddamn doctor. How badly was she hurt?
“Can you breathe?”
She nodded, flinching at how the movement strained her neck.
“Can you talk?”
“You’re going to dark bond me, right? Please do it.” Her voice was hoarse and quiet, sounding nothing like her usual lilting tone.
I reared back at the question. “What the fuck? No. I told you no, why would I change my mind now?”
A little wrinkle appeared between her eyes, her lips turning down. “I’m dangerous,” she said.
Ambrose groaned and I snapped my gaze to him. The tea towel was soaked, his blood still dripping.Hadshe hit a fucking organ? I didn’t have time to deal with her insistence on a dark bond. Whipping out my phone, I made the first rational decision since walking into the high-tension situation.
I called Liberty.
“How did it go with the omega?” she asked in place of a greeting.
“I need you and Jasper here, now. Tell him to bring his kit.”
She hung up halfway through a curse. Jasper was my multi-talented doctor on staff. He was also my lawyer, but when I told him to bring his kit it meant I needed him in a medical capacity.
They were on their way, which was good, because I was out of my depth here. Feeling this total loss of control was something I really did not enjoy.
Then, there were the conflicting feelings tightening my chest.
Kiara had stabbed Ambrose, so I wasn’t pleased with her. If it had been as simple as that, I would know which side to be on, but it wasn’t. He’d almost killed her. Would have, if I hadn’t stopped him. There was a small part of myself that had already claimed the omega as mine—or at the very least, my responsibility—despite not wanting to bond her.
She should be safe with me.
“Can you please dark bond me?” Kiara’s voice was slowly getting stronger, her hacking coughs lessening to an occasional clearing of her throat. That was a good sign.
“No.”
“But I’m dangerous. It’s better if I’m controlled, right?”
“Where the fuck are you from, Kiara? No one I’ve ever met thinks that. A dark bond isn’t the answer to a dangerous omega. Dangerous omegas get arrested,” I said.
Her blue eyes blew wide and she scrambled back. “I can’t go to jail.”
She wouldn’t. Omegas never did. There weren’t enough of them to go around as it was—they either got off with probation or were offered special jobs that only omegas could do.
Most people knew that, too. Why didn’t she?
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Why not? You’ve refused to tell me anything true. You stabbed Ambrose. Tell me why I shouldn’t call to have you taken into custody right now?”
Her scent spiked with fear. She was running from something, and whatever it was would catch up to her if she ended up with the authorities. Maybe she’d killed someone with that knife before she’d shown up here covered in blood. They would punish her for that.
