Forced into his arms when he swooped in to carry her down the stairs, Quinn suffered in silence as he nuzzled her neck and cheek. Somehow managed not to flinch when he licked at the tender skin under her jaw though Curtis and Meghan watched on. One disapproving, the other tense. Adam blew a stilted course around the pair, making sounds and words to form a new language as he made grand gestures with his arms that threatened to topple him over.
When Kahler deposited Quinn on her feet, she went to Meghan and Elise. Quinn cooed and hummed over Elise who tried to scowl when Quinn didn’t pick her up. Meghan’s quiet reassurances that Elise would be fine were a lilting background to the low rumble of Kahler’s voice. Speaking to Curtis, it wasn’t until Adam’s giggling squeals took charge that Quinn started paying attention.
Gaze slipping sideways as she pet Elise’s stomach to quiet her fussing, Quinn watched as Kahler lifted Adam high, letting him bounce into the air, before catching him. Bringing him down and bestowing a kiss on Adam’s forehead before doing it all over again.
“It’s all right, Miss Quinn,” Meghan whispered, ever covert around the two males as she presented Elise to Quinn to kiss goodbye.
“You’ve scrubbed my ass for me, Meghan. Stop with the Miss shit,” Quinn muttered, palm cradling the back of Elise’s head to snuffle her neck and cheek, making the baby squeal in glee.
“Mama!”
There was no more time for quiet words between them as Kahler hefted Adam into his arms, bringing him in close to Quinn to say goodbye. Neither male cared that the little boy was flailing in his excitement or that Adam was already reaching for her. Kahler didn’t subdue Adam in the slightest.
Gritting her teeth, she gave Adam a smile she hoped wasn’t as strained as it felt. Catching little feet, she leaned up on tiptoe, the strain of tender skin pulling wrenching her breath from her lungs in a rushing exhale. Her kiss was quick, the tip of his nose receiving the soft press of her lips. He didn’t understand the way she stepped back, pushing his little hands away when he tried to grab at her shirt, to pull himself into her embrace.
Fat tears slid over his thick lashes when Quinn untangled his hands from where they caught in her hair. Discomfort pinching her face, she moved beyond his reach as his tears turned into cries and whimpers.
“What is wrong with you,” Kahler muttered, bringing Adam into his chest. Cradling the softness of Adam’s cheek against him, he purred for the distraught boy.
“I still can’t hold him on my own.” Words a bare whisper, Quinn huddled in over the raw ache in her stomach that had nothing to do with the gunshot.
“It’s okay,” Meghan said in a soothing hum as she came forward to scoop Adam into her arms. Kissing his wet cheeks, she gave Quinn a broad smile that was as sad as it was sweet. Juggling the two children, Meghan settled one on each hip before she turned to head up to the nursery.
Adam’s sniffles faded, dissolving into a wet snorting laughter at something Meghan did at the top of the stairs.
“Come along. We’ll be late.” The snap of command joined his hand around Quinn’s arm, pulling her towards the door.
Spine folding further, Quinn allowed herself to be moved around in ragdoll fashion, slumping into the backseat of the car when she was pushed inside.
This would not be a good day.
Quinn wished she had been wrong.
Hours later as she was once again put into a darkened black car, she melted into the seat. Attempting to vanish into the charcoal leather didn’t stop the cloud of tension that boiled through the car, a tempest that was a hairsbreadth away from losing all control. It centered around the Alpha who sat still and dangerous at her side.
As soon as the doctors had begun their poking and prodding, she’d known the news wouldn’t be good. The thick lines that had appeared around their eyes as they smiled and suggested more tests to Kahler before giving any kind of prognosis was damning.
Somehow he had thought the results would be different, even after he stood beside the uncomfortable bed where Quinn had been stripped down to a useless gown. The slow state of healing around the many sutures still littering her abdomen had been grim. Blurry images on the ultrasound had been ominous.
She wasn’t healing as she should be, inside and out. No matter his arguments or the way he had shouted and bellowed at the medical professionals that had scurried around her, there was no changing the outcome.
It’d be months before he could even consider seeking out the fertility doctors to fix her.
That’s what he wanted. Wished to fix the broken Omega he found himself shackled to. Useless and hideous, unable to even care for the children he’d once deemed her worthy of.
Scrubbing the heel of her palm roughshod over her eye, Quinn turned her attention to the city speeding past the tinted window. It felt like it had been eons since she’d walked, free and proud, down those dirty streets. For every one of her struggles, they had been hers. She had made it through them all and now…
“I’ll find different doctors.”
The low growl vibrated through the car, shuddering through the too close air. Quinn pressed closer to the door, seeking to escape the violence tainting those simple words. Even the driver was not unaffected, some nameless, faceless lesser Alpha whose shoulders hunched before he fiddled with the onboard electronics littering the dash.
Resistance was the last thing on her mind when Kahler dragged her into his lap. Wrapped up in his arms, she forced her mind to calm, to shut out all the malevolent flashes of memory that tried to swallow her. Keeping her limbs slack, near lifeless as he pet at her back and hair. Perhaps she would have tried to find some comfort in the purr he offered, the way he pulled her tight against him so she might feel it all the stronger, but she was too caught up in her fear.
Mistaking her anxiety for something altogether different, Kahler scrubbed his fingers against her scalp and pulled her face to his neck. Forced her to breathe in his scent as he murmured words of what he deemed hope into her hair.
The long drive back was almost unbearable.
Promising herself another shower and fixing the dreadful mess of the nest got her through the first half. The thought of cuddling her babies buoyed her through the last though she had to clench her jaw against a snarl when his hand fell to her hip. Caressing, seeking, he rocked her against the faint bulge that pressed against her backside.
