“You said you wouldn’t take her away from me.” Somehow she managed not to clutch her daughter, to make it too obvious that she was challenging him outright.
Lee made a noncommittal sound, though he gave a small nod. The smile softened around the edges as her baby turned vivid blue eyes up to him, tracking his movements with clumsy concentration.
“That will be all, Ilya,” Lee said as he began stripping away his coat and shirt.
Eyes wide, Quinn stared and now she did clutch her baby. Didn’t even bother with the agitated male sulking his way out of her room. Curling her whole body around the tiny bundle, tension slipped under her skin and knotted through aching muscle.
“The people here,” Lee began as he stood to attend his belt and slacks. “They will call her mine. She’ll live and grow under the same protection that you do now, pet.” Kicking his pants away, he stood beside the bed in snug fitting boxer briefs. “Now, do you want her to think she’s yet another bastard who happened to tag along with the Omega I decided to keep? A burden I shoulder to keep my Omega pleased. Or shall she grow up thinking that she has two parents who adore her?”
Watching him stand there, impassive and cold, it was so damned hard to make the right decision. Every instinct screamed at her as she rolled toward the waiting evil, keeping her daughter tight to her chest. Hands unsure and trembling, she arranged the infant in a downy pocket of warmth before she dared to turn her gaze back to the male looming over them. His eyebrows ticked upwards, a gesture of impatience.
He was going to make her invite him in.
Reaching out, she shuffled the blankets and sheets. Roughshod and grating, it would have to do for the moment. Quinn couldn’t bring herself to take her other arm away from the murmuring infant as she made room for the monster that held their lives as his.
His rumble of satisfaction crackled through her spine, up into her clenched jaw. Grinding her teeth as she settled in a stiff mockery of complacency, she managed not to flinch as he purred and stroked her arm, back, and cheek. A frantic hand fluttered over the baby’s squirming body when he went to touch her. Twining his fingers with Quinn’s, he set their joined hands on the baby’s rotund belly.
“Hadler’s waiting with the birth certificate. She’ll be given my name and everything that goes along with that. But what shall we call our beautiful little girl, pet?”
“Elise.” She said it without thinking, the name slipping off her tongue in a rush of heady warmth. Tears sprung to her eyes as she bowed over Elise’s confused face, feathering kisses across the bridge of her nose.
“A fine name. Why don’t you feed our Elise and then the two of you can get some much needed rest?”
It was a command if she’d ever heard one, no matter the questioning lilt. Quinn nodded, arranging bodies and pillows to suit them. Once Elise was tucked in the crook of her arm, nipple latched between working gums, Quinn looked up at him. Hungry, greedy, the deep brown of his eyes was fixed on her as a whole. Uncertainty plaguing her thoughts, she snuggled around her daughter and closed her eyes.
Chapter 4
“Cow goes moo,” Quinn said, wriggling the stuffed cow’s muzzle at Elise’s cheek and neck to make the smiling girl grin even harder. It had the desired effect, her mouth going wide with a gurgling coo and legs kicking.
Sprawled across the bed, an assortment of soft toys surrounded them among the heavy drifts of blankets arranged to accommodate their play. In the two months since her birth, Elise hadn’t been out of Quinn’s sight for a second. The nursery brimmed with everything they needed, but she always brought them back to the nest. Elise slept tucked close, Quinn’s hand on her back to reassure her even in sleep.
There were no memories of her mother, Marina, doing these things with Quinn at any point in her life. There had never been toys in the long line of dingy, worn apartments. No quiet moments where Marina held her when the darkness terrified or the world at large overwhelmed. It had been hard lessons in scraping by, of making it from one day to the next. Quinn could remember the sticky feel of black plastic against her skin as Marina led her out onto the fire escape of more than one ratty building to escape a landlord’s wrath. Weeks at a time where Quinn was left to fend for herself with a handful of crumpled bills.
“Who’s next? Mr. Frog? Yeah?” Gripping the frog plush’s head, Quinn had it bounce across Elise’s belly, tickling her. “Frog goes ribbit! Ribbit!”
She would never do that to Elise. There would be never be a moment where she would leave her daughter. Marina had taught her to survive, and Quinn had learned that lesson well. Things could always be worse, and no matter what she had to endure, it would always be worth it for the gum filled smile that Elise pointed at her.
Even now, Elise was the only thing that quieted the agonizing pain in her chest that sometimes engulfed her. Overwhelming, it ran jagged and fierce through her, scraping nerves raw and shattering the illusion of happiness for moments at a time. The nightmares had stopped, but they filled her waking moments until Elise would turn wide blue eyes to her. And then it was just a muffled ache, held at bay until the next time the tiny girl slept.
“Oh, this is one of mama’s favorites. Cats go meow. Meow!”
Lee appeared in the dead of night to sleep with them but made himself scarce otherwise. He was strange now, an entity that belonged, yet didn’t. His actions were even stranger. Quinn had woken several times to Elise’s soft noises, finding Lee purring and quieting her fussing. A handful of times she had watched through eyes narrowed to slits, feigning sleep as he let the baby gnaw on his fingers and play with his expensive watch and rings.
“Ducks go quack, quack, quack!”
Acting the part of the doting Alpha parent, Quinn didn’t know what to do with the male. Instinct screamed at her to protect Elise from him, to keep her away from the malevolent violence that clung to the man’s very skin, his scent dark and bitter with it. Cold, hard reason saw her not interfering with those moments.
Uncertainty had her sick over it.
“Mama’s hungry, baby,” Quinn said as she set the duck aside and frowned at the crab toy Elise had managed to bring up to her mouth to gum. “You’re too little to eat that, and besides, mama doesn’t know what crabs sound like.”
Gathering Elise up in a bundle of cozy flannel along with the toy she refused to surrender, Quinn made her way down to the kitchen. One positive aspect of everything that had happened was that Lee kept most of the males out of the house. Before they had had free reign of the house, or at least the lower levels. Since Quinn’s actions, challenging some of the most violent males in his employment, there would be little peace between them. Even with Lee there, things had been too tense to allow it to continue.
Elise had been the deciding factor though. One glimpse of Maurice and the infant had begun to wail, refusing to be quieted as Lee escorted Quinn down to the car for an appointment with Hadler. Becoming so agitated he had gone back into the house once Quinn and Elise were in the dark sedan, Lee had returned with bloodied knuckles. He’d announced his edict as soon as they’d returned.
The one concession was Ilya. Quinn grimaced, hiding the taut line of her lips against Elise’s cheek as she spotted the male flipping through a catalogue at the island counter. Lee wouldn’t leave only lesser Alphas to guard his home and Omega. The bear of a man was the only one all three could tolerate.
Elise even seemed to like him a little.
