He shouldn’t have been able to pull her up, to cradle her in his arms, yet he did. The decadent spice of him invaded her senses, soothing, calming in a way she hadn’t felt in so long. Tears fell, too hot against her cold skin, as she turned her face into his chest and inhaled deep.
Lashes fluttering, she gave in.
Chapter 11
Quinn lay in the hospital bed, half listening to the doctor and his many orders. There were too many words flowing from his mouth, complicated procedures that the cottony fluff wrapping her thoughts in downy confusion refused to make sense of.
She didn’t understand the two large Alphas standing just outside the door, either. They weren’t Lee’s men, that much she tried to be sure of. They didn’t hold the same rough edge his people seemed to have as a collective. Why she was still alive was a mystery, one that few people would even attempt to answer. All she knew was that she’d woken up in this pristine prison with no memory of how she’d gotten there, who had arranged it, and where the nice doctor was intending on sending her now.
No one had come to the stark room during the week she had been there except the scrub clad nurses and the doctors in their white coats. The males outside the door rotated on what might have been a schedule, but in her drugged state, she hadn’t paid attention to it. Now she wished she had.
Chest aching, Quinn tried not to think of Elise somewhere out there without her. She’d fallen into bouts of hysterical sobbing that had made the doctors increase the sedation. Hating the way she was forced to slog through simple thoughts, she’d started keeping the outbursts to herself.
“Now, you’re going to need to take it easy for quite some time. There’s still a high risk for infection, so keep the bandages and wounds clean and take the antibiotics you’ve been prescribed. There will be instructions on your release paperwork on how to go about changing the bandage. We’ve used dissolvable sutures, so no baths.”
The doctor droned on, more syllables crashing against Quinn’s skull to bounce around. She nodded and made the right sounds, knowing that if she was going back to Lee it would all be over soon. If he was healing her, it was only so he could take the time to kill her with something slow and painful.
One blink and the doctor had disappeared, as had the nurses. The door stood open, giving her no privacy as she sat confused and lost in a sea of starched white. She blinked again and the scene changed once more.
“Let me help you, ma’am,” a young Beta nurse said as he slung his arm around Quinn’s back. Helping her slide off the too tall bed and holding her up when her legs tried to fold, he all but carried her to the waiting wheelchair, depositing her in the tacky vinyl seat with a grin that he shouldn’t be giving an Omega.
The same man took control of the chair, wheeling her out of the room. Whistling without a care in the world, he murmured a low conversation to her back, one Quinn didn’t engage in. She could have begged for help, demanded the police, but the hope that Elise was still safe somewhere stopped her from even uttering a thanks as he draped a blanket over her legs when she began to shiver.
As they neared the lobby, something felt different. A sense of being off kilter, the world slipping sideways as it jerked on its axis. Sending her tumbling through the unknown blackness of the beyond. Unseen hands opened the doors, showing a vast lobby filled with squeaky chairs and fake wood. The rubber wheels of her chair hissed over the brittle linoleum as she was taken into the sun drenched room.
Standing in the middle of all that light, he looked imaginary. Limned in golden hues, the dark charcoal of his suit seemed to suck up the light, devouring it as he examined Quinn with that predatory gaze she knew so well. There was no escaping it or him.
“Elise?” It was all she could think to say, to ask, as her pulse came to a stuttering halt. Lungs refusing to fill as Kahler stared down at her, expression unreadable as he showed far more than she could understand in his dark green gaze.
“She’s at home. Safe.”
His words should have brought relief, but they somehow made her all the more wretched and twisted. Cruel fingers slipping through her, clenching over the throbbing ache in her midsection that came more alive with every pulse. A sleeping monster waiting for the fog to break.
“Mama!”
The childish squeal was filled with such joy, tears spilled over her cheeks at once. Distracted her from everything else as the knowledge that Elise was at least not in Lee’s hands any longer settled into her bones. The ragged gasp hurt, crumpled her insides in a heavy fist, but she still smiled as Adam came stumbling towards her. Evading grabbing hands and dodging the legs surrounding him, his little body slammed into the side of the wheelchair before the nurse or Kahler could stop him.
“Mama! Mama,” Adam cried, cheeks puffed up in an exuberant grin, little hands grabbing at the cold metal as he tried to haul himself up.
“Adam.” Kahler’s voice was a whiplash of command, the single word heavy with the full throated growl.
It had Adam shrinking against Quinn’s legs, lower lip folding out into a pout as his big hazel eyes filled with tears. Her hands reached out for Adam, covering his back and pulling him close in a protective gesture. The throbbing ache in her stomach didn’t matter half as much as the automatic response to keep Adam safe. Miserable tears trickled down her face, guilt and shame at how she’d left him alone in smoky woods warring with the incredible joy that he remembered her, calling her his own.
“It’s all right, baby boy,” Quinn murmured, surprised she could find words let alone a breath. Fingers sifting through Adam’s wavy blond hair, she soothed the tremble from his lips. Catching his chin, she turned his face up to hers. “I’m just a little hurt, see? I can’t pick you up yet.”
“Control him.”
Kahler’s words made little sense until the man came forward. Dark hair and golden skin, he swooped down to pluck Adam up into his arms.
“Get the fuck away from him,” Quinn snarled, already halfway out of the chair before she doubled over in pain. Still she clutched Adam to her side, his watery yelp of fear ignored for the moment as she tried to put herself between his small body and the threat that had reared back in shock.
A comical mask of surprise slithered across the man’s features, eyes rounding in the too bright light before he glanced to Kahler.
“Where the fuck is Meghan? Why isn’t she here?” Baring her teeth at the nurse who tried to steady her swaying, she pulled Adam tighter. Buried his whimpers and thick tears in the folds of the thin pants she’d somehow been dressed in.
“Sir, she needs to calm down. The sedation is wearing off, but we can’t give her—”
“Sit down,” Kahler said over the nurse, his hand covering Adam’s shoulder. Hauling him away from Quinn’s weakening grip to hand off to the male at Kahler’s side.
