At least he gave up as soon as he realized she was not responding. It was possible he thought she was too saddened by the news to participate, never mind the degradation of being demanded to perform in front of an audience.
When they arrived back at the house, Quinn bolted from the car as soon as the dark sedan came to a stop and Kahler released her. Scurrying across the crunching gravel, wanting even the sad excuse for a nest and the calming presence of her children, she kept her head down in the hope he would leave her alone now.
So intent on not engaging Kahler, she missed the sounds of footsteps around her. She screamed when a dark shadow appeared before her feet. Tripping backwards as all manner of thoughts of evil men and smoky violence sluiced through her mind, only the solid wall of Kahler’s body kept her upright. Legs watery, she slid down his body until he caught her up in his arms. Cradling her against him, he snarled and barked at one of the dark suited guards who patrolled the premises now.
There was no comfort or safety in Kahler’s arms. Smoke and ash were thick on the back of her throat as he postured in front of the guard. The one who continued to watch Quinn from the corner of a cold, calculating eye.
She wanted her nest. Her children. In a move that twisted her insides up into a ragged ball of pain, she slipped from Kahler’s arms and crashed to the ground, catching herself before she planted her face into the rough gravel. Ignoring Kahler’s hands, the vicious growl, she sprinted inside the house. Quinn was across the foyer and halfway up the stairs before he had even managed to gain the entrance. Chest constricting as she felt his presence behind her, closing in, she ignored the way brilliant purple and blue throbbed at the edges of her vision, the ragged tearing sensation as sutures pulled and twisted with her running.
Feet sure and steady despite her straining breath and the cold sweat dripping into burning eyes, she went to the nursery. If she could just hold them, get them in her arms so she knew they were safe, perhaps it would calm the thundering stammer of her heart.
Bolting through the opened door, Quinn came to a slamming halt.
Sprawled on the floor with Adam, a woman lay on her stomach with legs kicking in the air, indolent as manicured fingers tickled and played, rich voice lilting and teasing as she read from a book to him. Meghan sat to the side, Elise bouncing on her knees.
As her thoughts jumbled, gears cramming and flying off their tracks, Quinn could only stare. Knowing her mouth was open, gaping in stupid surprise, she was helpless to stop it. Pale eyes wide, she watched on in rigid disbelief as Elise giggled and cooed at the stranger.
“I’m sorry, Miss Quinn,” Meghan stammered out as she noticed them, a helpless wave at the toddler already clambering to his feet to greet his parents. “I just needed a little help with Adam. Anna’s one of the maids, she’s just leaving.”
The room was saturated in the stench of another female. Her musty herbal scent flooding through Quinn’s senses as the woman dared to put on a face of chagrin, sheepish with a charming blush as she pushed up to her knees. Looking the shy maiden in a lacy sundress of rosy pink, so much perfect skin laid bare. A glance behind showed Quinn Kahler’s frame pushed into her back, already calming, purring as loud as he was able.
Words were falling from his lips, a veritable cascade of useless verbiage that cut and stung all the same. Words like trust. Love.Hischildren. It was his eyes that Quinn paid attention to though, watching the flare of warmth that built to a steady flame in the depths of a twilit forest. He made it impossible not to see the way his gaze slid down this Anna’s kneeling form, the perfect sacrifice on the altar of his lust.
Quinn didn’t understand their cries, the scared screams and wails that slammed around the inside of her skull. Knowing only that they both reeked of other females, she didn’t even feel the hard kicks of little feet to her middle. Ignored the wet warmth trickling down in itching rivulets, the sucking dampness of her shirt as she held her children close.
“Get out.” Quinn was surprised her lips and tongue could still form words, even if they were mangled through her low, protective growls.
“Oh, sir, she’s bleeding!” Ignoring Quinn, dark lashes fluttering as her golden skin turned sallow, Anna waved a helpless hand at the trio.
The scream of rage buried all other sounds in the bright little nursery when Anna stepped forward. Whether it was to leave as Quinn had demanded or not, she came closer. Edging into the perceived territory of an Omega who was fast unraveling. A thick scarlet haze throbbed through Quinn’s head, tunneling her vision until all she could see was violence aimed at the woman who dared.
The next few moments were a blurry tangle. Arms like tree trunks, bands of iron in their power, caught and held Quinn. Somehow managing to hold on to the screeching babies until hurrying hands reached for them. Rough, strangling, massive paws kept Quinn pinned despite her screams and struggles. The too large body behind her ignored her kicking legs, stomping feet, even the head thrown back meeting something solid and hard.
Quinn lost what little control she had left to her when Elise was peeled from her clutching fingers after Adam was safe, tucked away in someone else’s arms. Seeing the faint blue smudges marring their skin, she let go. Destroying the male holding her became the priority, damning him to the same hell she had lived for too long.
A blink of her eyes, and they weren’t in the nursery anymore.
Held down to the bed, his weight crushing her into the mattress despite the injuries both old and new, Kahler held her head to his chest and poured his calming purr into her. Forced it down her throat by the bucketful until she shattered. Broken sounds of pain and misery filled the air around them.
Chapter 13
Quinn lost track of the hours that she lay there, pinned by the male as he ground out a purr that did anything but calm. His weight crushing her, straining the already tender and angry flesh of her wounds. The steady pinching throb of bruises bloomed on her wrists where he held them to the bed, more damage added to the laundry list of pains rattling around her chest.
Unconsciousness slipped over her in a warm wave. Sucking her under, it didn’t offer any respite, instead parading a ceaseless show of horrors. From the time spent under Gerry’s hands all the way to Ilya’s deceitful lips, her dreams mashed their evil into a single terrifying source. A demon of epic proportions that hunted her through the dark paths of her thoughts, stalking her, waiting for her to fumble yet again.
She’d thought herself strong most of her life. If nothing else, she’d thought she was a survivor, but in that long stretch of darkness, the niggling doubts burst forward. Exploding through her mind’s eye, declaring her the weak idiot she’d been all along. Every mistake she had ever made, every perceived failing, was magnified under a thousand lenses, glaring lights frying what little will she had left.
The scream that ricocheted around her skull was too loud, piercing in its shrill quality. Wondering if her ears could bleed from something never given voice, she was dragged kicking and screaming from the not so empty black.
She became aware in fitful stages. The tight itch of a fresh bandage covered her stomach, the faint burn of strained stitches growing hotter as her eyes fluttered open. The deep rumble against her side fanned warmth against her neck. The smooth slide of lips grated, rough sandpaper against her senses. Heavy fingers scrubbed at her scalp with a gentle, prickling pain that should have felt divine but instead made her want to claw at him.
“I knew you would be what I needed in a mate,” Kahler murmured against the mangled scars he’d put on her shoulder. “That you would be the mother my children needed.”
“I was a brood mare.” Said on a breath that struggled to be a sigh, it was a raw croak. The sound of something damaged beyond repair, the simple words cracked and bled from her throat.
Staring at the ceiling and miles beyond, she didn’t have to pretend not to see him when he pulled back to stare down at her.
Kahler brushed a kiss against her cheek, murmuring against her cool skin, “You are my mate.”
