He looks at me for a moment, his cobalt blue eyes bouncing between mine before he nods. “Go in, get him, get out. Got it?”
“I got it. Thank you.”
“This isn’t going to be a regular thing.”
I roll my eyes with a huff as I watch him unlock the door. “You’ve got that right. There’s a big fucking problem if I have to do this more than once.” I step through the doorway and look back at the alpha over my shoulder. “If there was a next time, I’d have to let them fight my battle for me.”
Alexei barks out a laugh and shakes his head. “So fucking feisty. Knock three times when you’re ready to leave.”
Then the door closes and I am running past a bunch of security guards, through a fuckton of seating, and following my instincts right to another fucking bathroom.
Why does he keep ending up in one of these?
I push through the door and don’t bother waiting to see if anyone else is inside and the second I do, what I hear has my heart cracking right down the middle.
“I’m so sorry, Liv.”
“Niko,” I say, my voice cracking as he comes right for me, wrapping his arms tightly around my waist as he buries his face in my neck. “Honey, what happened?”
He shakes his head and takes a stuttering breath, but he doesn’t speak.
He doesn’t have to.
I can smell the sex in here, smell Niko’s lavender mixed with butterscotch and something else. For a split second I worry it wasn’t consensual, that my sweet boy was attacked and the blood on the floor doesn’t help, but I can tell that wasn’t the case.
The other scent, it’s almost familiar, and being able to touch my omega, to see him and feel his emotions more clearly, he’s conflicted about whatever happened in here. He’s not afraid, he’s not in pain. Niko is worried and full of what I can only call remorse. His heart aches, it aches in a way that is so heavy it has mine beating a little faster.
“Shh, sweet boy.” I wrap my arms around his neck and hug tightly, stroking my hand over his silky blond hair as I try to soothe him. “I’m here. Everything is okay. You’re okay. I’m here, honey.”
Niko holds me tighter as he silently cries, rubbing his cheek against me, scenting me hard as he starts to shake. “I’m… God, I’m so fucking sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. There’s no reason to apologize. I love you, everything is okay.”
“I love you,” he chokes out through his tears. “And that’s why I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Hey.” He lifts his head as I pull back, cupping his cheeks as my eyes search his. “Nothing is going to change between us, nothing is going to change how I feel. I know I haven’t been a very good mate to you, not with how focused on my plan I’ve been, but I love you and that is never going to change. Tell me what happened, honey.”
Niko looks at me a little longer before he takes a deep breath and nods. “Can we get out of here?”
“We can do whatever you want.”
As long as it doesn’t include continuing his food strike, or leaving me.
I might be the asshole here, but losing this man will devastate me. After a week of secrets and not being able to read my omega, it’s hard for me to keep my mind from jumping to the worst case scenario. All I can do is hope it’s the wrong one.
“Dimitri is here.” My eyes go wide as Niko nods. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I can’t say I didn’t want it to, we’re bonded, my instincts took over, but I didn’t mean for it to happen. We were arguing, yelling at each other and things got out of hand.”
“You had sex.”That explains the smell.“I get it.”
He shakes his head. “No, Liv, you don’t. I’ve been so angry with him, so pissed about how we left things, and I found strength in that. I found strength inyou.I was able to put up these walls, tall ones to keep those feelings and memories as far away as possible, and all it took was scenting him one time for me to fall apart.”
“You knew he was here last week.”
Niko nods.
“That’s why you had the panic attack.”
“Yes,” he says as he fights a sob, reaching out to take off my mask before cupping my cheeks. “I should have told you, I never should have kept that from you but I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t face the fact that he was so close after almost two years apart, and I can’t help but think that if I’d have said something to you, I wouldn’t have caved the way I did tonight.”
