“What more do you wish? I talk to her, teach her, feed her. I even keep themalyshkaoccupied.” Ilya made a low sound, a grating rattle of disgust. “I do all these things you now withhold from her. You want to claim her, why do you refuse it?”
“I do not now, nor have I ever had, an inclination to tie myself to some bitch. I’m not going to ruin my life because of some base instinct that’s yet to evolve out of our gene pool.” Papers slapped against the desk, a crack of sound that made Quinn flinch. “She’s unattached to any of the founding families, she has no loyalties with any of them. I do not owe them, and they’re all still sitting nice in my pocket. I’ll get the bloodline I need and a tight cunt to fuck. Couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity than when that idiot threw her in my lap.”
“Her Alpha is dangerous to him. Rippin would not have done so otherwise.”
“I am her Alpha,” Lee snarled. The stutter of wood had Quinn frowning until she heard the distinctive screech of the chair sliding back home. Now Lee paced, his shoes making an agitated staccato against the floor.
“No, my friend, you are not. You deny yourself the claim.” Wood creaked, and Quinn could imagine Ilya shifting his bulk in the sturdy chair facing Lee’s desk. “Let me do it for you.”
“And here we are again. Why are you so enamored of her?”
“She is strong. She bends, does not break.”
“And that’s all there is to it?”
“You know why that is important.”
“She’ll never be Agatha to you.”
“And she will never be the breeder you want. We both accept what we are given.” Ilya heaved a long sigh, the chair groaning under his weight. “I will claim her during her next heat. You will breed her. We both get what we want.”
“You’re just going to let me breed your bitch?” Lee’s laugh was twisted, as if he enjoyed the prospect more than questioned it.
“We come to an agreement,da? It will not be the first time.”
Lee’s considering murmur sent Quinn’s panicked heart back into motion. Slamming against her ribs, she swore they would be able to hear it as she strained to listen over the rapid pounding in her ears.
“—the sooner the better,” Ilya was saying. “I do not wish to wait much longer.”
“Hadler says a few weeks.”
“So you did ask the doctor.”
“Yes, I asked,” Lee said, tone somewhere between amused and aggravated, as if he didn’t understand his own actions. “He also says I should wait until she weans the girl. Too damn impatient for that, even if it is only another month to be safe. I need one with my blood in her belly.”
“I will hire someone for the child.” Ilya rumbled a satisfied growl, the change in pitch and groan of wood having him standing up. “We induce her heat with birth control, and I will claim her. Then again immediately after so that you might you breed her. This will work.”
“I’ll get someone for the kid.”
“My mate should be—”
“The kid’s mine on paper. I plan on keeping her. Once she’s given me a spare, you can give her something else to fuss over.”
Hand gripping her mouth to silence her ragged breaths, Quinn backed away from the door with trembling care. When the rigid beam of light flickered as someone walked in front of the door inside the office, she turned and ran. Quiet as a mouse, she scurried back to her room. Dove under the blankets and woke Elise in the process, attempting to soothe them both with ragged purrs and broken hums that did nothing to calm them.
She would die before she let them take Elise and might very well have her way if she fought hard enough. That would leave Elise alone with these monsters though. The idea of her sweet baby under Lee’s care was enough to make her stomach churn and roil, threatening to send her running to the bathroom.
Muffling the wracking sobs into the thick bedding, she cuddled her daughter close and tried to find some way out. A way that didn’t involve her dead, her daughter being raised by a murderer.
Nothing came.
There was no way to run from this place, not with Ilya watching her every waking moment and the other Alphas wandering the property. And even if she did, what was she supposed to do? There was nowhere for her to go, no one she could trust. An Omega alone and without suppressants was bad enough. One with a child? She’d be easy prey for any number of predators out there.
She’d been the most ridiculous sort of idiot to have trusted Ilya. She should have known better. Should have remembered it was him who had started in on her the moment Alton left her alone. If she had just fought him…
Those thoughts did not help her find any solutions. As the many ways she had fucked up and the multitude of mistakes she’d made added up to insurmountable levels in her mind, she cried until there were no more tears left. Trembled until even Elise drifted off again.
She closed her eyes and prayed for something to happen.
