Sniffling, trying to gain a real breath, Quinn crawled to the edge of the bed. Bloodshot gaze searching through the blurry haze, fumbling across the floor, she slunk off the bed as she spotted what she needed.
“I’ll put it back on,” Quinn stammered, shaking hands trying to right the shirt clutched so tight she could hear the strain of the seams. This wouldn’t end just because the sight of her disgusted him.
It was just delayed.
“Stop. Just… stop.” Kahler sighed and clenched his fists, the arm over his face squeezing tight before he appeared to force himself to relax. The hard breaths blasting between grinding teeth and the bitter taste of his anger told a different story.
A new fear grabbed hold, gnawing at her heart, ripping its way into her mind. As much as she had wanted him to leave her alone, to stop this insanity and take out his needs on someone else, that had been when he hadn’t found her so awful he couldn’t perform. He was a proud man, an Alpha through and through. There was no telling what he would do for the humiliation he perceived. She’d seen women cast out for less than that. He’d proven he had no qualms with getting rid of the mother of his child, of inserting someone else into the role.
Despite the efforts he claimed he’d gone to in order to get her back, she felt anything but secure.
The thought of losing Adam and Elise forced her into motion. Managing to crawl her way into the shirt, Quinn shoved her arms into the sleeves and made her way across the bed. Forced herself to kneel beside him only by concentrating on the quivering half-moons of her bent knees. The foreboding shadow of what lay beneath the sheet lingered at the edge of her vision, smeared by a tide of uncertainty and despair. A shaking hand sent over his hip, her fingers curled under the smooth fabric to pull it away. Unearthing the menacing sight that she was quick to blot out by bending low over him.
“Enough,” Kahler barked, sending much of the nest plummeting to the floor as he sat up with such violence. Sending her tumbling to the other side of the bed as he shoved her away.
Huddled on the corner of the bed, Quinn hugged knees to chest and shrunk into nothingness. Visions of being ripped away from her children danced through her mind. Desolate, it abraded her emotions to the quick, left her something more than raw.
She felt his eyes on her, a brand that imprinted itself on her flesh and stripped it all away. Left her trembling and bloody before him. The bond writhed, ragged and insisting her submission in giving him what he wanted.
Except he didn’t want what little he could take from her.
The hordes of doctors hadn’t been able to fix her, just as she’d told him. Countless hours spent being poked with needles, swallowing their pills. Spread wide as they struggled to undo the damage. Even a surgery planned to try to displace the scarred tissue that deformed her.
A barren wasteland of an Omega. HismatedOmega.
“Come here.”
So quiet she thought she imagined it at first, it wasn’t until the back of his hand skimmed across her toes that Quinn realized she hadn’t. It was more the involuntary flinch that made her aware of reality, dragging her up from the mire of her spiraling thoughts. The touch came again, hesitant. A reluctant glance of smooth skin over her toes and no further.
Without even the hint of force, nothing grabbing, holding, Quinn dared to peek over the edge of her knees. Bleary eyes peering through clumped lashes, she stared at the Alpha whose expression was dark and forbidding. Brow furrowed, deep creases etched into the thin skin around his eyes as he watched her. The line of his mouth was grim, and it was her final undoing.
He’d send her away now. Force her to abandon her babies, to waste away somewhere far from them as he installed some new, fresh woman in her stead. Adam would forget her in time. Elise wouldn’t remember her even sooner.
“Please, Gods, please don’t,” Quinn choked out. Unfolding from her defensive crouch and crawling to him, she lowered herself to her belly. Prostrated before him, she bared her neck and whined low in her throat. Words tumbled past numb lips, syllables crashing together as her tongue, fat with unshed tears, forced them out. “Please, I’ll behave. I’ll act the way you want. Bring them here, do whatever you want. I won’t cause a fuss.”
“Quinn, stop this.”
“Please!” Angling lower to press her sodden cheek against his calves, she slipped her fingers around them. A beseeching touch as she promised a thousand things in a million different ways. The fact he’d used her name was a faint blip in the horror, not even enough to catch her attention. “I’m not Grace. I can’t… I won’t survive it. Please don’t take them away from me. I’ll do whatever you want.”
Kahler rocked back, blinking at her as if she’d struck him instead of swearing to be everything he’d demanded she be for him. Hand closing over her shoulder, he tried to pry her away. Spine bowed with the weight of her tears, she stayed hunched over his legs. Pleading in mangled sounds as she debased herself further.
His growl promised dark things, as did the taste of smoke and ash clogging her throat, but still she clung to him. Her sobs rattled in her chest as he shook her off, shoving her away as he stood to pace the room. Terse circuits made from the bed to the windows, he paid no attention to his state of dress. Shoulders working, fists clenching, he postured as he allowed his anger to build to a shimmering haze that filled the air.
Helpless, she watched. Waiting for the decree that would either send her to die or at least from the room. If she could just convince him that the kids needed her, maybe he would be satisfied.
It wasn’t unusual for an Alpha of his wealth and reputation to have more than one Omega under his roof. Not even taboo to be mated to more than a single female. She’d tend her little boy and girl and be the good little captive while he destroyed someone else.
Someone who didn’t fight him, who didn’t repulse him and would give him what he wanted.
“You think I’d take them?”
Quinn’s eyes shot to the floor to avoid that turbulent green gaze. Brows drifting down to meet over the bridge of her nose, she tried to find the trick in the question. Answer wrong, and that would be that. Could she say he’d done it before?
“Who do you think I am,” Kahler roared as he stalked towards her. Shoving her flat to the bed with a palm to her chest. Held her there with his weight as he crushed her into the mattress to lean over her. Pushing his face close, the vicious wash of his bellowing breath scalded.
Quinn’s mouth worked in helpless confusion as she tried to find the right words, the ones that would see her out of this new threat. That would appease him.
She took too long.
