The other Alpha in the room wasn’t so lucky.
Not daring to raise her eyes from the thin stretch of putrid yellow nap in front of her, Quinn could only listen to the sounds of Alton’s fury being unleashed. The scant furniture crashed, splintering and flying in every direction. The bed itself, bolted to the wall, slid across the carpet until it wedged Quinn between it and the wall. Mattress ripped apart, the sodden, dingy fluff and springs scattered through the space. Josh fell under Alton’s fists, the sickening crunch of bone stabbing at her senses. Long after the weaker Alpha’s shouts and screams tapered into grunts and whimpers, she could hear Alton’s broken ramblings under the animalistic sounds.
“You touched her. You touched her.”
All that was left was squishy, wet sounds and a pool of blood that crept over the carpet with frightening quickness towards her.
Then there was quiet.
Alton’s ragged breaths, the creak of his leather jacket, the scuff of his boots. Her lungs refused to work, taking only the fractional sips of air to keep her heart going. Piss and fear hung in the air thick around her, wetting her legs and soaking the small space under her.
“And you.” Voice broken, cracking on what could have been her name, his fingers threading into her hair. Snapping her head back, ignoring her shriek of pain, he touched his nose to her cheek. “I give you up to the king of this shithole city and you spread for these bastards.”
He didn’t hear her whines and pleas. Shoving her down by her hair, smashing her face against the sodden carpet, he pried her legs apart with ease. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t wet. The copious fluids from so many others eased his way. Stretching the too tight passage, forcing her to open to him.
It wasn’t need or lust or even just a good fuck. Alton sought to punish her for crimes she had no hand in. Babbling, terrified and in agony, she begged. She promised him anything, everything, if he would just stop. He fucked her harder.
Crushing her beneath his weight, she began to fight. Where she had laid passive and docile under others, now she sought to hurt, to maim, to kill if she had to. Her fear went beyond herself, bruising pressure across her middle seeing her legs kick, arms flailing to claw at the male on top of her. Her teeth caught and held in his arm, ripping a chunk of tawny flesh free.
With a booming roar, he struck.
Slapping, punching, tearing. He hit whatever was near as he continued to piston his swollen cock into her. Bruises bloomed on pale flesh, cuts and gashes garish smiles from where nails scraped and sliced. Not even when Quinn held the scream, tucked around her belly, did he stop. Even as he shoved his knot home, cock kicking and filling her, he laid one heavy handed blow after the other.
Quaking, foaming saliva and blood staining her mangled lips, she was forced to stillness. Covering her back, the panting male growled every time a shudder racked through her body.
Time passed, unknowing and uncaring. The sunlight seeping through the curtains grew searing, sweat beading on her skin. Then it began to fade, stretching long and languorous, fingers trilling over her arm and neck in a warm caress.
Rousing, Alton hissed. With a painful jerk, he pulled free, the knot only just starting to diminish as he flung himself away from her.
“Fuck. Oh, fuck, Quinn. Fuck.”
Cautious, she peeked around the edge of her arm to see him. Back against the wall, knees up with his head in his hands. He dared to swipe at his cheek with a rough palm.
As if he deserved to feel such things as guilt.
Seeing him like this just now, she felt something in her chest crumbling to bitter pieces. This was the man she would have mated herself to in order to escape Kahler. An animal who professed undying love on one hand, while the other sought to bruise and break. A male who had given her up without even raising his voice.
They remained that way until dusk fell in earnest, the dingy room filled with dingy light until Alton was little more than a dark shadow. Jostling in place, Alton seemed to remember himself. He stood, straightening out his clothes, wiping at gore, blood, and come.
“Get up,” he said, and though there was the snap of a command there, his hand on her arm eased her up from the awkward position. Holding on until she got her feet and was steady. Alton propelled her forward, towards the grimy bathroom. Reaching past, ignoring the way her lip curled, he turned the water on. “Get cleaned up. I’ve gotta make a few calls and then we’ll get you out of here.”
Quinn eyed the shower with obvious disgust, wondering if she would ever feel clean again as she stepped under the bitter fall of murky water. It needled torn flesh, stabbing at the dozens of small wounds. Turning, she caught Alton staring at her.
The molten gold of his eyes was fixed upon her. Not her eyes or the hurts he’d caused, no. They travelled up the length of her legs, took in the swell of a hip, the curve of her breast. Beneath the fragile, brittle guilt and horror lay an eager Alpha who wanted to fuck the violence from his veins.
He stared for a span of minutes. Quinn held still, not sure if she dared to turn her back on him or pretend he wasn’t licking his lips with growing excitement. Another time, another place, she would have sneered and confronted, uncaring that the Alpha was intimidating and dangerous. She thought she had known him, that he would never hurt her.
She knew different now.
No different than any one of his whores, she practiced the same careful skills she used with any strange male. The same painstaking effort she had seen a thousand times from a thousand different women. And during those long minutes, when it seemed Alton had not yet finished with her, her thoughts veered and took a hard left to another male.
The absolute perfection of his purr, the way his hands had given pleasure even as they bruised and pinned. Had Kahler ever truly hurt her? She couldn’t remember anything beyond a smattering of bruises and the vicious scars at her shoulder. Those were claiming marks, though. A man determined to show his mate his dominance, for all to see his hold on the woman deserving far more than a delicate little nip. Even after she had pranced around naked, showed her body to unknown others, he had kept a level of control she couldn’t comprehend.
Tears slipped down her face, tracking through the sticky slime coating her cheeks before the frigid water scoured them away. Empty and black, it roared to life somewhere under her lungs, clawing its way up, up, up, until it slashed at her heart with sadistic glee. A child ripping paper, flinging it in all directions, pieces of her fell to swirl down the drain.
Gray edged her vision, muting the already dim light, turning everything fuzzy.
Jagged edged pain wrapped around her middle. It sawed at tender flesh, stabbing deep into layers of muscle. Quinn’s spine bunched and knotted, snapping straight as the first strangled scream split the tangled quiet. Another serrated pulse hunched her over.
