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A Hopeful Harbor
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The first one to arrive was the littlest omega from the new rescues. The scent of immature heat still lingered around her as she tucked herself into the feral omega's side opposite Luna. Blaise wasn't surprised that the girl had found her way to the nesting room. She had already been brave enough to stop him, an alpha, while in the middle of an induced heat. Coming into this particular nest made as much sense as anything about the current situation.
"Is Harry going to be okay?" the girl whispered after the sleeping feral had wrapped an arm around her small frame, a splash of brown against the hot rod red of her medical scrubs. Luna's hand had also drifted towards the girl, as if drawn forward by an instinct even in her sleep. Blaise could feel the same desire to cover the pup with his scent tugging at him. "I know that Marta says he will, but my daddy used to say that feral omegas never got better."
Blaise took a deep breath before slowly letting it out. He didn't know how to answer the question. For the most part, the girl's father was correct. Feral omegas didn't get better. The situations necessary for an omega to become feral were as much of an issue as the natural biological risks involved. Yet there were rare cases of feral omegas who survived, typical ones with newborns.
Then there was this case, which broke most of the known rules.
An omega went feral as a last resort. They had no pack around to protect their body and minds. Psychic wounds from broken bonds were as much of an issue as the physical wounds from captivity. Sudden losses of consciousness combined with the biochemical markers of a protective omega could trigger episodes as well, just as it had in this case.
But Harry wasn't lacking in pack bonds. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Thirty-five bonds all centered around Harry was more than enough to tether an omega to sanity. And that was before taking new true mateship bonds into consideration.
"I don't know," Blaise admitted in the same hushed tone that the girl had used, "but I think he will be."
The hollow comfort was enough for the girl to give into sleep.
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Blaise woke up towards the center of a massive mound of omegas. He hadn't even noticed when he had fallen asleep in his half curl around his mates and the little omega pup who had crawled into bed with them. Yet he must have at some point. He had also slept through what had to be the majority of the new rescues joining them, because he was surrounded by bodies.
Somewhere in the pile at least one infant had soiled themself during the night. While the baby wasn't crying yet, that probably wouldn't last long once the pup started waking. Blaise still wasn't stupid enough to even think about trying to sneak-change the baby instead of leaving the care to their mother, whichever omega that might be. They might smother him with one of the dozens of pillows around the room.
He almost startled when he opened his eyes to see a pair of impossibly green eyes staring back at him. There was something sharply present about those eyes, still wary but no longer running on instincts. While Blaise had been fairly confident before, it was soothing to have confirmation that Harry was not going to follow the expected march towards death following a feral episode. Though there was a gray tinge to the omega's sepia brown skin that worried Blaise.
"Hey," Blaise greeted, hoping his voice was soft enough to not disturb any of the sleeping bodies around them. Following an instinct, he tried to left his hand only to discover that the littlest omega had his entire arm clutched between Harry and her chest like it was a stuffed toy. Blaise blinked down at the girl.
"Lindsey must like you," Harry murmured. He rubbed his chin and cheek over the top of Luna's head. "She has trouble sleeping with anyone except omegas."
"I wouldn't have guessed," Blaise said. "She's been so brave since she got here."
"They were going to break her spirit." Harry's gaze had focused on Lindsey. "They had figured out how to force a presentation early."
"Is that what prompted you to get them all out?"
"Not all of them," Harry confessed, looking haunted. "Not nearly all of them. I could only get one of the bays."
"I'm sure they're already organizing a raid for the rest," Blaise reassured him. He knew that was what Daphne must have been doing last night. It would have been their priority with a large intake like this. But the operation that had been holding the group must have been huge, if this group wasn't all of the omegas in that one facility.
"They'll have moved the others already," Harry whispered, his lips barely moving around the almost-silent words. His green eyes swept over the thick pile of bodies that surrounded them. "They'll have moved them or disposed of them by now. We're all that's left."
Blaise didn't say anything to dispute that. Mostly because he couldn't dispute it. Large operations tended to be especially callous toward their stock. At the end of the day, the omegas those monsters stole and trained before selling weren't people to them. And until he had picked his way out from the bodies surround them so that he could check in with Daphne, anything Blaise could possible say would only be words.