“Fuck!” Alton was there, grabbing her up. Large hands encased the rippling swell of her belly, cradling the life inside of it. Wrapped tight around her, he let loose an uncomfortable purr. It broke under Quinn’s next shrill scream, shattered under her sobbing cries. Drawn tighter still until he touched every inch possible, he tried again.
It wasn’t Kahler.
It would never be the utter perfection of his deep resonance.
She didn’t understand how she could want someone so much. Someone that had never wanted her.
Alton purred all through the shower. His clothes were soaked, a wet heap at their feet after he managed to strip denim and leather from his bulky frame. Kept swaddled tight in his limbs, she could only sob as Alton removed every trace of the other males from her body. Fingers plunged in as careful glides as he dared, deep into her pussy, her ass, scouring her clean inside and out of others’ scents. Pale hair plastered to her cheeks and shoulders, too long and unruly, he worked out the snarls and tangles, teasing out the matted curls.
It would have been nice to be attended so if she hadn’t been hysterical and screaming for her mate the entire time.
The agony abated in slow waves under Alton’s ministrations, the blackness chewed her up and swallowed her down as he cradled her to his chest. Purring loud enough to be heard through the whole floor of the hotel, he waited until she passed out. Exhausted, malnourished, there was nothing left to spend.
The sun was cresting the horizon, turning the broken pavement of the highway into liquid gold and ruddy amber when Quinn managed to come out of her stupor. There were brief snippets of information flitting through her memories, of Alton carrying her from the hotel, being bundled into a truck. The road, the hum of wheels on pavement. Food pushed against her lips that she puked up.
Squinting against the light intent on searing the back of her eyeballs, Quinn managed to catch a glimpse of the bright green sign as they barreled past. Rockfell: 10 miles; Highriver: 40 miles. The little squares denoting food and a rest stop were little more than multi-colored blurs.
Rockfell was well outside her limited knowledge of the surrounding towns and cities. She knew almost nothing about Highriver other than it was a booming metropolis, untainted by the industrial districts that plagued Alderbrook.
“Where are you taking me?” Quinn winced at the sound of her voice. A ragged, broken thing that crept out between chapped lips to crumble in the still, too hot air.
“You’ll be fine.”
“Why aren’t you taking me back?”
Alton didn’t deign to answer her that time. Ignored her as she struggled up from her prone position where she’d been wrapped around his leg. Licking dry lips, she gagged. She could still taste him, salty, mixed with the warm sage and musk that was his alone.
Gray gaze bouncing around the cab, she ignored his flaccid length still wet with her spit against his denim clad thigh and spotted a bottle of water. Cracked the seal, not caring it was hot from the vents that belched dry air, she upended the bottle and washed that taste from her tongue.
That, too, was ignored.
Quinn squeezed into the corner of the door, staring out of the window at the passing scenery. The thick woods had faded at some point, rocky outcroppings and brush stubbled hills of stone replacing them. She couldn’t help the derisive snort. Rockfell had rocks, imagine that.
Miles passed in brittle silence. They came up on the rest stop and zoomed past, the squat brown buildings blurring as Alton sped up.
“There are sandwiches in the cooler,” he said as he maneuvered away from a big rig. The truck was tall enough that the driver could have glanced down, seen a helpless Omega screaming for help, slapping on the windows.
Not that Quinn had moved an inch.
Alton had always been cautious.
“You know,” Quinn began as she picked at the fraying threads of a shirt she didn’t remember being dressed in. “I thought I had made it when you first took me in. Fifteen and on my own, I thought I was hot shit to be your runner. The biggest, baddest Alpha I had ever seen gave me a place to belong in his world.”
Glancing sidelong, she saw Alton’s shoulders tense, his grip on the wheel tightening by fractions until the knuckles blanched a pale beige.
“When you took me to your bed? Fuck, I thought I was on top of the world. Did you realize I was still underage that first time? I thought you had figured it out when you didn’t fuck me again, but then you kept me in your bed. I was so confused, thought I hadn’t done it right or that somehow this dangerous Alpha felt guilty. Then after that ridiculous birthday party for my eighteenth, you fucked me for days. That was the first time you pumped me full of hormones.”
“Don’t act like you didn’t know the deal before you crawled onto my cock begging for it, little girl.” There was a low snarl in his tone, the flash of teeth between full lips she’d once adored.
“Oh, I knew the deal all right. Just wish I had known beforehand.”
“The fuck you mean? Known what?”
“That you were a spineless coward.”
Quinn canted her chin, staring at the side of his face. Only a flick of mellow gold met icy gray, the briefest of moments, before he concentrated on the road ahead. The steering wheel creaked and groaned under the pressure of his fists, the leather and plastic threatening to snap from the force of his ire.
“You’ll be fine,” he said again, resolute as he turned away from Quinn and refused to engage further.
