Her knee shot up into the Beta’s groin. The high-pitched groan punched from his lips was a savage song that called to her. Bent double around the pain in his balls, he was the perfect height. A quick step forward brought her within striking distance, arm whipping through the air to slash at his face once more.
Curtis stumbled back. Hand held to his cheek where it dripped a fresh wash of bright crimson, he gaped at the snarling Omega, the wall holding him up.
Her false charge pushed him closer to the door. Crouching low over her nest, she bared her teeth and stared back in challenge.
Neither heard the stomping feet, but Curtis bore the brunt of the door’s weight as it was flung open.
“What the…” Kahler’s anger died as he came to a jerky halt just inside the room. He stood still and quiet, eyes scanning over her as if searching for something. Quinn growled—far more aggressive and large than seemed possible—rolling her weight on the balls of her feet in readiness. Cautious dark green gaze sliding over to Curtis, he took in the myriad of flesh wounds and the rumpled state of the other man.
“Sir, I don’t—”
The sound Quinn made was sheer rage. With contracted pupils seeing nothing, far too much white showing around smoky gray, she lunged at the source of the rumbling bass.
Vision now full of the large Alpha, Quinn came up short of touching him. The Alpha would not be caught out as the Beta had been. Her way blocked, her feet found a careful path back several paces until the softness of a sheet slipped across her ankle.
She seethed, watching the two males. Vibrating with tension, blood humming with the need to wreak violence, she waited for the smallest misstep.
Kahler angled his chin towards the door, his eyes never quite leaving Quinn. Growl rattling in her chest, she focused the full breadth of her fury on Curtis as he slid along the wall towards the opening. Head cocked, she moved only enough to keep both men in view until Curtis managed to slip around the corner, hiding his bulky body behind the jamb.
The open door antagonized her as much as the Alpha who had yet to tuck tail and run as the Beta had. These four walls were hers. What was beyond was strange, foreign… dangerous.
She was losing her grip on the frayed thread of logical thought. Lungs working like bellows, she sucked in too thick air that refused to sate her need for oxygen. Her skin crawled, every hair standing on end in warning.
She felt under attack from all sides.
The faintest creak of a floorboard beyond the portal and Quinn screamed. It was a desolate noise, the sound of a broken soul slipping through the cracks. Wrenching at her hair, she fell into a crouch over her nest.
She didn’t even notice the tears that flooded her eyes and washed down ashen cheeks.
Movement from where Kahler stood had her hissing, trembling body tucked tight to bent legs. Hunched over her last bastion, she warned him off.
The too large male eased down to one knee and then the other, every action controlled. He never took his eyes off of her.
There was no compelling purr offered as Kahler sat back on his heels with his hands palms up on his thighs. Shoulders loose and not a hint of discontent on his angled features, he almost seemed smaller though he was as straight and tall as ever. They watched each other, deep evergreen as calm as any twilight forest as he waited.
It was a long time before Quinn unlocked from her defensive posture, one foot sliding back until she balanced on her knee. She wasn’t anywhere near calm, but she no longer held herself ready to attack at the slightest provocation.
Ages passed before Quinn stopped staring the male down, quitting her silent challenge. Still watching him from the corner of her eye, she lowered her other leg until she mimicked his stance.
Still, Kahler waited and whatever he might be feeling, it wasn’t broadcasted in his scent. The scalding burn of his anger she had become so accustomed to shading his particular fragrance wasn’t even hinted at. Only his spicy musk drifted to her on the faint currents of air. An experimental sniff, a deep inhale, brought the confused jumble of a household she didn’t know from beyond the still open door.
The Alpha didn’t even blink when Quinn pushed back up to her knees, the edge of her teeth showing in a silent snarl.
She managed to once more unfold to sit cross legged amidst the soft terrain of sheets and blankets, legs prickling from the first hints of numbness. Only then did he dare to move.
It was slow, methodical, the way he shuffled forward. Just a few inches, his gaze cataloging every twitch and flinch, the way the thin flesh around her eyes tightened into a not-quite scowl. He stopped as soon as her hands clenched into fists.
The scene continued to play out. Kahler creeping forward, ever gauging her reactions, until his heat and scent were all that Quinn could breathe in. Making no move to touch her or to further invade, Kahler sat back with his hands on his thighs. Even with the height the mattress afforded her, he loomed.
Growing nervous at the disadvantage, she shot up to her feet. As if she was an equal to his strength, she stepped close. Leaning further into the male’s space, eyes narrowed, she challenged him with a defiant growl.
Kahler didn’t rise to the bait. Remaining stoic in the face of the aggressive Omega, he only tipped his chin up to keep her in sight. There was no ground given. Even sitting flat on his ass, nose level with her chest, he was impassive and steady as a rock.
Things began to filter in through the blind rage of her defenses. Slow at first, actions sifting through the dampening blaze, she realized she’d just challenged a man several times her size… and that was after she’d attacked his Beta underling. Not just an Alpha, no. She had thought to attack the male who had claimed her.
Whatever showed on her face, perhaps the fear that welled in her eyes, pushed Kahler into motion. Actions swift and decisive, the mattress met Quinn’s back before she could sputter out the watery apology sitting on her tongue.
Hands pinned above her head in one great paw, Quinn sucked her lips in and waited for the response he had held back. It would hurt, but maybe he wouldn’t damage her. Thus far, he’d done no lasting damage when he’d punished her. She hadn’t gone after him after all. Curtis couldn’t be that bad off if he’d walked upright and steady from the room.
