The rigid demand folded Quinn’s knees, ass meeting creaking vinyl with a hard thump. Teeth gritted against the scream that clawed at her throat, her gaze remained fixed on the sniffling Adam as the Beta picked him up. Would have shrieked her rage at the man’s soft petting that settled Adam had Kahler not cupped her chin and forced her to meet his gaze once more.
“Behave yourself or I’ll have them drug you again. You won’t be in any state to handle our daughter until tomorrow.”
Threat delivered on cold, dead tones, Tobias lifted a single brow. Waited for her jerky nod of compliance before he stepped back to allow the nurse to wheel her towards the exit and into the outside world. Breathing ragged through the pain, she couldn’t taste the freedom of fresh air, couldn’t take in the glorious sunshine, the sounds of life not muffled by thick panes of glass. Trying to remember the last time she’d been allowed outdoors, she could remember nothing since Elise’s birth. Almost a year.
The quiet conversation behind her was buried under too much confusion and warring emotions, nerves raw and mangled from too much stimulation. She was withhimagain. Not evil, not like Lee, but a horrible fate all the same. Her daughter was safe, and the little boy she didn’t know she’d needed so much was back in her life. Quinn swore to herself she would hold them both in her arms before the sun set.
Her surprised cry was little more than a gurgling exhale as she was lifted from the chair. Arms thrown around his neck as she dangled in his grasp, she didn’t even register him climbing into the car until Kahler settled her across his lap. Tucking her tight against his chest with his arms wrapped in a possessive, anchoring circle around her, he pushed her head to his shoulder.
Adam and the Beta were nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Adam? Where did he take him?”
“He’s in the other car. Adam is safe.” There was no mistaking the smug pleasure in his rumbled words that she would fret over the child he had forced onto her. Tone admonishing, he continued, “You have much to make up to him. At least he didn’t remember his biological mother leaving him when he was given to you to care for. He’s been inconsolable during your time away.”
A collection of syllables shouldn’t have the ability to crush a person, to grind her soul into the gritty asphalt that hummed under the tires as the car pulled away. He had always had a knack for it, and in a way that all those months of physical torment under Lee’s hands had never even come close to.
Her time away, as if she had abandoned Adam. As if she had had any choice while that son of a bitch Gerry dragged her through the woods, threatening to kill the infant she’d come to love no matter what Kahler had wanted. While going insane from the same man’s absence when he was just a few doors down a hall. Ignoring her for a point of pride. Debasing her for his cruel punishment. Somehow it was worse than the blackouts and agonizing torture that cracked open her chest and ripped out her heart daily under Lee and Ilya’s hands.
Confusion tripped through her thoughts, muddling anything seeping through the fog. His hand pressed her cheek to his warm skin, and she then realized he’d opened his shirt. Distraught, worrying he’d demand something there was no way she could give, she sobbed. Choked on the scream that crushed her abdomen and lit up every pain receptor in her body in an explosive chain reaction.
“Quiet,” Kahler murmured against her crown. Hands smoothing over her back, he arranged her body against the steady rumble emanating from him. “It’s a long drive home. Rest now.”
Quinn was not proud in that moment.
Not of the way she clung to him and that glorious sound that blasted away the tension riddling her body. Hating herself for the way she sucked in his scent on ragged gasps, a drowned victim breathing in life. Broke a little more as the bond twisted deeper, humming in satisfaction at his nearness.
A contented sound she echoed as her eyes fluttered shut.
The house was so different and yet so much the same and it was somehow more disturbing for it. Having woken as Kahler eased his frame from the car, it was pain that had clouded her vision then. Whatever drugs they’d given her had worn off, and she needed more. Much more. She’d caught glimpses of the new home he’d built, seen the runners and furniture that mimicked the old, but it was all a hazy blur until several pills were pressed to her lips. The low purr and tender fingers massaging her throat forced them down when she wanted to choke on the bitter things.
That had been ages ago. Now she sat in the room she’d never thought she’d be in again.
Hisroom.
Eyeing the rumpled folds and drifts of bedding surrounding her, Quinn’s fingers twitched to put some order into the chaos of the misshapen nest he’d constructed around her. He’d tutted and reprimanded her when she’d last tried, promising more forced sleep if she attempted to get up again. Now she was a prisoner of her wounds, propped against the headboard and wide awake as the clock ticked over to two in the morning.
Kahler hadn’t let her hold either of the children. His one concession had been Meghan presenting both infant and toddler to her from a safe distance. The words flew over Meghan’s lips as she promised she would take care of Elise and Adam in addition to helping Quinn as she healed. It didn’t change the concern in Meghan’s gaze as she’d glanced at Kahler’s back.
Not that Quinn could say a word about it.
The vague memories from the hospital had begun to filter in after she’d roused and was allowed something other than the muck they’d served her on plastic trays. It wasn’t Ilya’s borderline gourmet cooking, and it wasn’t all of her favorites, but it was real and hot, and she’d devoured it. Then Kahler had had his version of a discussion with her. Which amounted to him telling her how it would be now.
The gunshot had scrambled her insides, torn up the one thing of value she had to him and society. He wouldn’t allow that to be an unsurmountable obstruction though. The chances were so slim as to be infinitesimal, but they existed. They always existed with an Omega, even well into old age it was a risk. He had already been in contact with fertility doctors, the horrible prognosis brought into question. When she had healed some, she would be expected to succumb to their poking and prodding, to treatments and examinations.
Kahler intended to induce a heat as soon as she was healthy enough to withstand one. The only reason he was waiting to renew his claim was he’d kill her otherwise.
She hadn’t missed the fact she’d been dressed in clothes that left little of her skin bare. The many scars, both old and still forming were well covered. He couldn’t stand to look at her, to see what had been done to her body. Only in the midst of her heat would he be able to ignore it all, to do what biology and instinct demanded.
That hadn’t stopped him from remaining close by. He hadn’t left her side since she’d opened her eyes, may have even been there the entire time she’d slept. His scent was thick on her clothes and in her hair that he kept touching. Expression bordering on reverent, he’d marveled at the thick fall of curls and twined the strands around his fingers as she sat morose when Meghan had taken Adam and Elise away.
Arms aching to hold her little ones, Quinn scrubbed her palms over her face instead of letting the tears free. She’d already cried once in front of him. A moment of weakness she would not be repeating if she could manage it.
“Open,” Kahler said, holding the innocuous white pill to her lips, glass of water at the ready.
“Please, I—” Trying to speak had been a mistake, the pill popped in past her defenses as she’d tried to form the request. Bitter as the medicine flooding her tongue, she swallowed it dry. Gripping a pillow to her stomach, something supposed to help her move with less pain though it was still a slow agony, she worked her way down the bed and ignored the glass he held out to her. Ages later, flat on her back and panting as a cold sweat beaded on her forehead, she fought not to flinch as his face hovered above her.
“You need to rest.” Unyielding and strange in the tenderness lurking in the darkness of his voice, he turned off the small lamp beside her head. His movements were muffled, the shuffle of clothes quiet in the near silence of the young day. The bed itself only let slip a muted sigh as he crawled beneath the blankets, the warmth of him blasting against her side.
