“Quinn—”
“I’m fine,” Quinn said, waving away Tobias’ buzzing irritation, an annoying fly of insistence. “Adam, don’t let her get in the mud!”
“Let Meghan handle them.”
“Adam! What did I just say?” Quinn huffed out a heavy sigh as she clambered to her feet, trotting down to where Adam crouched at the puddle. Not to be left out, Elise followed right alongside him, her chubby hands squishing through the muck as she squealed with laughter.
Grabbing Elise around the middle, Quinn lifted her up to a hip, an annoyed growl slipping over her lips as cold, black mud smeared over her chest and stomach. Sending a glance heavenward as the shirt became ruined, she reached down and took Adam by the arm to haul him to his feet.
“No,” Adam whined, letting his legs drop out from under him. “Want to play!”
“Come here, little bird.”
Quinn caught herself turning, one foot moving forward. Taking her towards him before she realized what she was doing. The hard pull of the bond was there, tugging at her limbs, demanding that she go to him. To obey his order and tuck herself close in his shadow.
Pale grays widened, fixing on the man who didn’t even have the grace to look contrite. His chin canted, the smallest recognition of what he’d done. Not an ounce of remorse, not even the hint of an apology in the darkness of his gaze. Hand outstretched, Tobias flicked his fingers to beckon her to him.
Mouth falling open at his audacity, Quinn stared for a long moment, gaze drifting between Tobias’ hand and face. She turned back to Adam and grabbed his hand, pulling him to his feet. Dragging his squirming body against her side, she lifted him. There was no saving her shirt now, the skirt plastered to her hip and thigh where grimy water dripped from his pants. She didn’t give a damn.
Baring her teeth at Tobias, she stormed up the lawn. Dodging his reaching hand as she scurried past him, she would have bowled Meghan over had the other woman not hurried out of her way. Mouth set in a grim line, Quinn hushed Adam’s shrieking denials and calls for his daddy.
“Quinn! Come back here right now.”
Steps trying to falter, to turn her right around and heed the demand that wrenched at her entire body, Quinn growled over her shoulder at Tobias. Hitching the kids higher, feet landing hard on every step, she raced upstairs.
Trying to outrun the call. To distance herself from the crushing weight of his demand.
Adam stopped his protests, taking notice of the tension crackling through Quinn as she shouldered her way into the nursery and the attached bath. Adrenaline pulsing in her veins, she set them down and turned the water on with shaky hands.
“Mama?” Adam peered up at her with his hazel eyes huge and worried in the roundness of his chubby face. Lower lip a bleak shelf, he collided with Quinn’s legs, wrapping tight around her thighs as he pressed his face hard into the wet fabric. “Sorry, Mama. No cry!”
“I’m okay. It’s not your fault, baby,” Quinn said, though she was anything but. Salty tracks running rampant down her cheeks, breaths hiccupping in strangled sobs, she tugged at Adam’s shirt. Helping him undress, she tried to keep focused on the individual acts, on the tiny moments that would see her back to somewhere solid though her emotions and thoughts shrieked in wild disarray.
Collapsing to the hard tile on her knees, she dragged both kids into her arms. Hugging them tight as she buried her nose in their soft hair and breathed them in. Powdery and soft and not a little stinky, she pressed a trembling kiss to their cheeks before she cut the water off and helped Adam into the tub.
The water became cloudy and gray within seconds, but Elise needed to go in, too. Tugging at little pink leggings and the long-sleeved shirt, she babbled at Quinn until she was stripped and plunked down into the water to play with her rubber ducky.
Adrenaline fading, she was crashing hard. What little energy she might have stored up depleted with her recklessness. Running around the house, hauling both kids, it took too much out of her. Soaping up Adam’s chubby leg, her arms shook with the effort just to hold his heel aloft. Sagging over the edge of the tub, her panting breaths feathered the crackling bubbles across the water.
“Miss Quinn?”
“What do you want?” Voice far sharper than she had intended, Quinn grimaced. Being caught unawares grated her raw nerves, but it wasn’t Meghan’s fault that she’d been too wrapped up in not dunking Adam to pay attention.
“I came to help,” Meghan murmured as she shuffled further into the room.
Quinn dragged a breath in through her nose to calm the ragged strain as much as anything else. Then she felt it. The steady hum of him, growing warmer and more brilliant the longer she concentrated on it. She could sense Tobias hovering nearby, waiting for his moment. The second she gave the kids over to Meghan, he would come in and snatch her up.
Pretending to consider, she scrubbed Adam’s other leg. Quinn sucked her teeth and sat back on her heels, working Adam’s hair up into rough spikes as he and Elise talked to each other, heedless of the fury writhing inside her. She’d never been so carefree, so guileless and unhindered.
She envied them that. Was so happy that they didn’t know to lie and cheat and steal that it hurt.
Quinn flashed a brief smile at Elise when sparkling green eyes turned towards her. Holding the soapy washcloth out to Meghan, Quinn gripped the side of the tub preparing to stand.
He was there. Drawing closer.
Shoving off of the tub, Quinn was on her feet and out the door into the nursery before he could come any nearer. Hoping that she wouldn’t scare the kids, that he wouldn’t make her scream and cry, she stalked right up to the source of all her outrage. Standing toe to toe with the so much larger Alpha, she craned her neck back to glare at Tobias.
“Don’t you dare do that to me again. Not in front of them,” Quinn hissed. There was something in those words, a wealth of emotion and a power she’d never felt. She shoved it at him, an unwieldy weapon that whirled until it struck home.
