Make Me Yours - The Alpha's Omega Mate

CHAPTER 3

The first hit glances off my shoulder and I spin into it instead of away, driving my elbow backward into someone’s ribs while ducking a swing aimed at my head, and for a second everything sharpens into instinct, like the world narrows down to angles and distance and breath control while the rain slicks the pavement beneath my boots.

“Get her,” Madison snaps, her voice cutting through the alley with bright satisfaction.

I land a clean punch against Sam’s jaw and he stumbles with a curse, and I pivot fast enough to kick Luke’s knee before he can grab me from behind, and for one irrational second I think I might actually pull this off if I just keep moving and don’t let them close in at once.

Then John slams into my side hard enough that the impact rattles my teeth, and I stagger because I wasn’t braced for that angle, and that split second of imbalance is enough for everything to unravel.

A fist connects with my temple and light fractures behind my eyes while someone tackles me low, and my back slams against wet pavement as air explodes out of my lungs in a ragged gasp that burns all the way up my throat.

Boots and fists rain down in uneven rhythm, and I curl inward automatically, protecting my head with my arms the way Dad drilled into me over and over in the yard behind our old house, and I lash out whenever I find an opening because if I stop moving I won’t get back up.

“Hold her down,” Sam growls, and I hear the strain in his voice as I twist sharply and drive my knuckles into David’s throat hard enough that he gags and stumbles backward.

For a flicker of a second I feel savage satisfaction, but it only makes them angrier, and someone’s heel drives into my ribs with brutal precision while another fist catches my cheekbone and sends a dull ringing through my skull.

Pain blooms everywhere at once, spreading through my ribs and stomach and face until I can’t isolate where it’s coming from, and the metallic taste of blood floods my mouth as something cracks deep in my side with a sound that feels wrong and final.

“You should’ve stayed in your place,” Madison says, and her voice is breathless and vicious and almost gleeful as she watches from just outside the circle.

She isn’t hitting me, but she doesn’t have to, because the message is clear and the audience is the point.

I try to roll onto my side to create space, but another boot catches me before I can shift properly, and I choke on a breath that won’t come while my wolf thrashes inside me, furious and restrained by youth and numbers and the brutal reality that five attackers don’t care about pride or fairness.

“This is what happens,” Sam mutters near my ear, his breath hot and sour against my skin, “when you forget who you are.”

I try to spit something back at him, but blood fills my mouth instead and all that comes out is a wet cough.

The alley spins around me, gray sky framed between brick walls while rain drips down beside my head in slow indifferent streaks, and I know I’m losing this because my limbs are growing heavy and the blows are landing harder.

Then a shout slices through the chaos.

“What the hell are you doing?”

The weight shifts instantly and hands pull back, and someone swears as space opens up around me.

Carter barrels into the alley with a trash bag still clutched in one hand, and he drops it without looking while shoving Sam hard enough that he slams into the wall and brick dust shakes loose around his shoulders.

“Get off her!” Carter roars, and I’ve never heard his voice carry that kind of command before.

He swings at John without hesitation and the crack of fist against bone echoes sharply, and Luke snaps, “What the f**k, Carter,” but Carter doesn’t slow down because he drives his shoulder into David and sends him stumbling backward with enough force to make them reassess.

“I said get away from her!” he shouts again, and even though he’s outnumbered he fights like someone who has already decided he doesn’t care about consequences.

Madison is the first to step back, and she points at me with shaking fingers while saying, “This isn’t over,” but there’s something tighter in her expression now, something that looks less certain.

Sam wipes blood from his lip and glares at Carter.

“You’re dead,” he mutters.

“Try it,” Carter fires back without hesitation, and one by one they retreat until the alley empties and rain fills the silence they leave behind.

I try to push myself up, but the world tilts violently and I collapse back down with a groan that I can’t swallow fast enough.

“Hey, hey,” Carter says immediately as he drops to his knees beside me, his hands hovering like he’s afraid to press the wrong place and make it worse. “Lainey, look at me.”

I blink up at him and the sky swims behind his head.

“You’re okay,” he says, and it’s such an obvious lie that I almost laugh.

It comes out as a broken cough instead.

“Doesn’t feel okay,” I manage.

“Yeah,” he mutters under his breath, his jaw tight, “I figured.”

He slides one arm carefully under my shoulders and another beneath my knees.

“Jesus, Lainey,” he breathes when I flinch, “I’m sorry, I’ve got you.”

Pain explodes through my ribs when he lifts me, white hot and blinding, but I grit my teeth and refuse to cry out because I will not give the alley that satisfaction.

“I can walk,” I try to say, though it comes out slurred.

“No you can’t,” he replies firmly, and then he’s running.

The hospital doors burst open and the bright lights hit me like a slap while Carter’s voice echoes off sterile white walls.

“I need help!”

A nurse approaches quickly at first, her expression concerned, but the second her eyes land on my face and recognition settles in, something in her posture changes.

“Oh,” she says flatly, “put her in room three.”

Carter stares at her.

“That’s it?” he demands.

“She’ll be seen,” the nurse replies, already turning away.

“She can’t even breathe properly,” Carter snaps, and I hear the edge in his voice sharpen.

“Room three,” the nurse repeats, and then she walks off.

He carries me down the hallway himself, and the room smells like disinfectant and indifference when he lays me down gently on the examination bed.

“Lainey,” he says quietly, brushing wet hair away from my face, “stay with me.”

“I’m here,” I whisper, though the ceiling keeps tilting.

He storms back to the doorway.

“Doctor!” he yells down the hall. “She needs help!”

A voice drifts lazily from somewhere unseen.

“We’re tending to other patients.”

“She was jumped by five wolves!” Carter shouts.

“She can wait.”

Something in his posture hardens, and when he turns back to me all the rage drains into something focused and controlled.

“Okay,” he says, lowering his voice. “I need to check you.”

I nod faintly while he unbuttons my torn shirt carefully, his hands clinical and respectful as he checks for swelling along my ribs.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs when I hiss, “I just need to see how bad it is.”

He barely reaches halfway when the air shifts and pressure floods the room so suddenly it steals what little breath I have left.

Carter is ripped backward violently and slammed into the wall hard enough to crack plaster.

“What do you think you’re doing,” Ezra growls, and the sound vibrates in my bones.

Carter winces but lifts his hands slightly.

“No one was helping her,” he says quickly. “I was just trying to see how bad it was.”

Ezra doesn’t look at him.

His gaze lands on me instead, on the bruises blooming across my skin and the blood at the corner of my mouth and the way my breathing is shallow and uneven, and something dark fractures across his expression before his control snaps back into place.

“Doctor,” he roars, and the command slices through the hospital. “Get in here now.”

The shift is immediate and footsteps pound toward the room while the same nurse who walked away earlier rushes in with wide eyes, followed by the doctor who suddenly looks painfully aware of hierarchy.

“Alpha,” the doctor says quickly.

“No matter their rank,” Ezra says coldly, his gaze sweeping across every face in the room, “they receive the medical care they deserve, and if I find out otherwise there will be consequences. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Alpha,” the doctor replies at once.

Machines beep and lights flash in my eyes while hands press carefully at my ribs and I hiss through clenched teeth.

“Possible fracture,” the doctor mutters.

“Internal bleeding?” the nurse asks.

“We’ll scan immediately.”

Ezra steps back but doesn’t leave, and I hear him drag Carter into the hallway.

“What happened,” Ezra demands.

“Five of them,” Carter snaps back. “Madison, Sam, John, David, Luke. They had her on the ground when I got there.”

“Names,” Ezra repeats, his voice dangerously calm.

“I just gave them to you.”

There’s a silence that feels heavy and deliberate.

“They’ll answer for it,” Ezra says finally.

Later, when the doctor frowns down at my scans, confusion creases his brow.

“You’re not as bad as you should be,” he says slowly.

“What’s that supposed to mean,” I ask, forcing my eyes open.

“For an omega,” he says carefully, “you’re stronger than expected.”

I draw in a slow, painful breath and hold his gaze.

“I will never be an omega,” I tell him, my voice scraped raw but steady.

The room goes quiet, and when Ezra steps back inside and our eyes meet, the bond hums between us, not soft and not gentle but charged and undeniable, and for the first time since the alley I understand that this wasn’t just a fight.

It was a line drawn.

And now the entire hospital knows it.