Feeling crazed, she stormed into the closet, pulling on whatever came to hand first. It didn’t matter what she looked like. He still treated her like his plaything, and nothing had changed at all. The man that proclaimed his need for her in the hospital was a lie, just like all of his other lies. All of this was no different and she’d be stupid to think otherwise.
Not sparing herself a glance in the large mirror, she went for the door.
Quinn’s gasp died in her throat, its lifeless body tangled with her lungs and refusing to draw in another breath. A solid line of bodies barred the exit, their dark backs as good as any fence.
“Mr. Kahler asks that you remain in your room, ma’am.”
Quinn’s gaze swept over the line again, amazed that she recognized the one who dared speak to her. Stan, the one who would solve the problem of the punk kid. Worn down to the gritty nub of her reserves, Quinn’s lips parted to show her teeth.
“Get out of my way.”
“Ma’am—”
“I’m just going to my kids, okay? Now move.”
“We can’t do that.”
“I said move!” Quinn’s growl was pathetic even to her ears, weak and small against the towering Alphas. Yet Stan rocked back on his heels, eyes going wide and lips parting.
She was just as shocked, but not paralyzed by it. With trembling fingers she shoved past, refusing to let the moment pass without some action. They parted before her, heavy bodies stumbling over each other to get out of her way while Quinn breezed past. Chin high, shaking with the riot of anxiety and elation crashing through her veins, she stalked down the hall to where her babies still slept.
Ensconced with Adam and Elise in the nursery, Quinn found a broken sort of peace. Perhaps knowing it would be fleeting made it all the sweeter as she built soaring towers and made the right noises for the bright plastic cars to bring it all tumbling down.
The initial difficulties she’d had in prying the kids away from Rebecca and Meghan failed to cast a shadow over these handfuls of moments. Riding the powerful high of having the men guarding her room give way, she’d expected the female Alpha to fold just as fast. Rebecca held out a bit longer, but a single glare from Quinn sent her to the doorway, hurrying to get out of the Omega’s space. Meghan gave in with little more than a wave of Quinn’s hand.
It made Quinn all the more aware that Tobias was right in that respect. Short of Alphas guarding their every move, there was no way to keep her babies safe. Even then, all it would take was a single, more powerful Alpha to sway them. It was how Alphas ruled entire cities. Tobias reigned over Alderbrook in the same way.
Smiling as Elise babbled and slapped a wet fist against the far smaller tower Quinn helped her build, she gave Elise a little nudge to make the blocks clatter to the floor.
“Proud of yourself?”
All three of them startled, none of them having heard Tobias come into the room or noticing him leaning stiff backed against the closed door. Where Adam and Elise burst into happy smiles, Quinn set her emotions into something approaching neutral, strangling the swell of the bond down to the thinnest trickle as she faced him. Adam clambered to his feet to go to his father while Elise reached out and mixed her few words with gurgling coos.
Ignoring Quinn, he smiled at his son and daughter, coming further into the room to scoop them up into his arms. One on either side, they both nuzzled his neck and hummed their contentment.
Any warmth in his gaze wilted and fell to dust as he looked at Quinn. Lowering to a crouch, he deposited both kids back onto the rug, nudging them towards their abandoned toys. Surprising Quinn, he sat down, one knee up with an arm braced over it as he contemplated her with narrowed eyes.
“I asked you a question. You’ve yet to answer me.”
“Does my answer actually matter?”
“Don’t.”
Quinn’s heart slammed around the confines of her chest at his tone. An edge of danger, serrated and waiting in the lightless depths, skimmed the undercurrents of his deep voice. Far more disturbing was where else it touched. A shivering tingle coursing down her spine and through her hips, the threat of him shouldn’t have made her feel warm. Posture remaining casual, he slid a cherry red block across the rug to Elise’s grabbing hands. The kids continued on, clueless and absorbed in their serious tasks of play.
“I just wanted to see them,” Quinn whispered while her fingers plucked and twisted the pleated edge of her skirt. Far shorter than the ones she was used to finding hanging on the racks, she didn’t remember when it might have been added to the collection of things he gave her. The fact it bared her legs at all was a statement in and of itself. One she didn’t want to contemplate. “You don’t know how hard it’s been not being able to do even this with them.”
“What I do is to keep all of you safe.” Chest rising, expanding as he took a breath that looked as if it would burst his lungs, Tobias let it out with a measured control that made it less of a sigh. “Don’t act so reckless again.”
“How was it—”
“If they guess, there will be no end to the challenges on my rule over Alderbrook. You’re not stupid, little bird. You know this.”
“Daddy,” Adam huffed, face pinched as he plowed through his tower to come stand before Quinn. Didn’t even pause to revel in his destruction. Arms wide, he protected his mother and glared with squinted eyes at his father. “That’s a bad word! Don’t call Mama stupid.”
“That’s right, baby boy. Stupid is a bad word.” Quinn buried her smile in Adam’s neck as she hugged him to her chest, arms wrapped so tight around him he squirmed.
“Is a bad word,” Adam said again, wriggling free of Quinn’s embrace to stomp back to his blocks. “Don’t say it again, Daddy.”
