Frustrated with the intrusion at first, Quinn would have done back flips of joy when Alton seemed torn. Whoever these people were, they were important enough for it to distract him from pressing her.
“I’ve got business. I’ll take you to get your sandwich when it’s done.”
The matter resolved in his mind, Alton pulled her back to the table by the length of her arm. Three men were being led over, their casual evil slung over their shoulders like badges of honor. One inspected her without even trying to hide it.
“Please, sir,” Quinn whispered against Alton’s arm as she hid behind his bulk. Fear and revulsion weren’t feigned. Words little more than a controlled breath when he turned to her with narrowed eyes, she added, “I’ll be back by the time you’re finished. I’m yours forever as soon as Lucas gets back. Let me do this just one last time. Let me say goodbye, please, Alton.”
They both knew what she spoke of. It had been the reason she had run the last time. She saw the recognition of that fact spark a dark flame in the depths of his golden gaze until it burned like sunlit honey. He’d locked her away before she was ready once, and it had sent her bolting out into the night like a terrified rabbit. She swallowed hard against the rotten lump of emotion that stuck in her throat.
“You’re not going alone.”
The decree turned her bones to water as relief flooded through her. He was going to let her go. Head bobbing as she widened her gaze and glanced at the other males standing near. Lesser Alphas with a few Betas mixed in for good measure, they would have been the obvious choice.
“Not them,” Alton said in a ragged snarl, jerking Quinn off her feet to crash against his chest. Held suspended, she bounced as he strode with absolute purpose to the other side of the room. Addressing unseen people, his voice was downright vicious, a promise of pain and death. “You go up to the corner and back. You don’t stop anywhere else, you don’t talk to anyone. If anything happens to her…”
Murmurs of assent swelled behind her before Alton put her back on solid ground. Palm cupping her crown, he tipped her head back to accept the greedy assault of his lips and tongue. By the end of it she was clinging to his shirt, teetering on the brink of collapse as she panted and shivered.
“I don’t think I have it in me to forgive you a second time, my little Quinn,” he murmured against the corner of kiss bruised lips before he righted them both. Tucking a platinum curl behind her ear, he scrutinized her as if memorizing every angle and messy curl.
The force of his gaze was taken away so that Quinn almost staggered after him. Almost ran to his side to say she’d changed her mind and that she would wait. Surrounded before she could make a fool of herself, the press of feminine bodies buoyed her from the room. Shoes were found to fit her, the half-dozen women nervous and fidgeting as Quinn laced them.
The glare of brilliant sunshine blinded her for several panicked seconds before squinting eyes adjusted to the change in light. The familiar roar of the city was in full swing as afternoon bled into evening. The pulsing heat wedged in the center of her chest would have given the intensity of high noon a run for its money.
Her smoky gray gaze flicked every which way as they walked, cataloging every detail as they came into focus. Within ten feet, she had Plan A to Plan Z ready at her fingertips. A map of the city unfolded in her mind’s eye with every alley, byway, and backstreet on the way out of the West district and on to safety highlighted. She might not have a single place to run to, but the warren of streets could be a sanctuary all their own.
Held static at a crosswalk as they waited for the light, the searing illumination dimmed to the burnished golden-reds and darkling purples of sunset, allowing other thoughts to slip from the shadows. On impulse, she examined them.
Why was she so eager to run again? A horrid betrayal and five years later, and the man still knew she liked bagel sandwiches from the little deli up the road. He remembered she hated the taste of mint toothpaste and had provided a berry flavored tube that first day. She could complain about the way he kept her under lock and key, but no Alpha let their Omega run free as a bird. He had still taken her places with him in the old days, not just forced her to languish in his bed. Once mated and under his sole control, it might not be any different.
Unaware she rubbed at her chest as they crossed the sun warmed asphalt, Quinn sunk deeper into the morass of speculation.
Alton had always been good to her in his own way. Never one to beat her because he could or to inflict smaller cruelties as was his right. He’d been faithful, which had been a hell of a shock at the time. After watching a different woman come stumbling from the back rooms every week, monogamy had never even crossed her mind until he’d told her in no uncertain terms. She could still remember how careful he had been with her when he’d first taken her to his bed. And it had been his bed, not one of the rooms that reeked of sex and pain and dangerous males.
This time had been no different. No other woman’s scent marked his body or his bed these past two weeks. Even if she’d forced herself to doubt it, the growing spite and jealousy of the other females would have proven her wrong. During all this time, he had touched and teased, but not once had he forced her to spread for him. The slightest flinch from his touch as the pain built to a frantic crescendo was met with nothing but gentleness.
The rules, though. Had they been all that bad? She’d been young, full of spite and bravado when he’d first taken her in. After the rampant freedom of Marina’s utter lack of concern, Alton and his rules had seemed like a millstone around her neck. Impossible feats she could never even hope to attain. Had she everreallytried to follow them, or had she bucked under the hand of authority? Older now, with an understanding that could only come with the past hard years, she couldn’t say that any of it was so unfair as to be impossible.
Feeling flush and disoriented, Quinn tripped over a seam in the sidewalk. One arm flailed. The other clawed at the now bruised and broken skin of her chest. Seeking out the rupturing agony lodged under her ribs.
“Michelle, go get Rip,” one of her escorts shrilled. Hands grabbed at her, pulling Quinn up between them and off to the side where she could be propped against a building. She melted down the soft brick, smears of dusty red staining the back of her shirt and hair.
Colors faded into a gray wash of confusion. Shivering in violent fits though flames sizzled underneath her skin, the sounds she made were alien. The low keens of an animal in pain scratched at her throat and burst forth from lips shredded under the gnashing of teeth.
Quinn collapsed to the sidewalk. The panicked shrieks of her entourage were nothing like the fierce howl building at the base of her skull. Unfurling inside her head, it crowded out thought. Amplified in the shell of bone, louder and louder, nothing but the savagery of it could be discerned.
On hands and knees, her gaze was drawn up through the crowd of legs that caged her. What shouldn’t have been there was.
It should have been impossible. Itwasimpossible. Yet her gaze was caught and held, pinning her there to the rough concrete.
In vivid, living color, it came at her with the quick stride of the killing strike.
Chapter 6
Beta females shrieked and scattered in the face of that crackling aura of rage. Later, when she was capable of real thought, Quinn would pity them for the price they would pay for the action. For now with her head tilted back at a painful angle, deep evergreen shaded eyes held her captive.
The frantic pulse in her chest lessened. As they continued to stare at one another, the erratic jumble smoothed, calmed, and Quinn was able to take a shuddering breath that wasn’t released on a scream. And it was her screaming that had set the Betas to panic before they’d even seen the man. As the ragged sounds died in her throat, the battered ache told her it had been loud if not long.
Standing close enough for her to imagine she felt the heat of him, she watched his lips part to show the edge of sharp, white teeth. She saw the glittering promise of violence in the depths of those dark eyes. There was nothing she could do, neither run nor beg or fight, under that piercing gaze.
