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Gods, how she wished she’d dared to shatter that mirror now.
“You still need to eat.” Dropped into the tense silence of her disquiet, he went on to destroy whatever good humor she might have had towards him with reckless abandon. “I’d planned on taking you somewhere after, but we’ll get something now. You’ll feel better once you have some food on your stomach.”
Devin sucked in a breath to scream at the male, to let him know in no uncertain terms that he had no idea what could ever make her feel better. Her body betrayed her with as much consideration as a wrecking ball. Stomach growling loud and long at the very idea of sustenance, saliva pooled in her mouth as visions of real food danced in her mind’s eye.
Worse still, she let him pull her from the chair, failing to track his approach entirely. Tugged against his side, his arm slung in a possessive cage around her hips, he guided her towards the door and the world beyond with nothing but her bare feet and his sure hold on her side to keep her in check.
It worked.
Devin didn’t struggle as he led her into the elevator, not a peep as he guided her through the pale, glittering lobby past far too many people. Once situated in the car, she kept quiet as he buckled her in, as if she was incapable of even that. Sinking into the buttery leather warming beneath her as he fiddled with controls, Devin gathered all the many moments of her life where she’d been more than capable. Sifting through them, she reminded herself of a time when she’d needed no one.
* * *
Devin poked her bare toes into the driver’s seat cushion, groaning at the warmth radiating into her skin. He’d left her in the car, the fob safe in his pocket just far enough away she couldn’t make out the details of the men he spoke with. Crowded in the shadows, they huddled together with swift cuts of their arms through the air and the low rise and fall of their voices reaching her even from this distance.
Stuffing another tater tot smothered in ketchup into her mouth, Devin considered the shifting shadows. She had no idea what business this might entail, but the fact he’d purred for her when they rounded a turn to take them to the docks meant it couldn’t be good. Wondering how much he knew of what Beau had tried to do, Devin smacked another packet of ketchup against her thigh. She cursed when she dropped it onto the floorboard.
While she might have left it and used one of the dozen others scattered over her lap, Rey had made it clear he expected his car to remain clean while letting her eat in it. She hadn’t opened the packet yet. It would be fine down there until he returned, and she could retrieve it. Yet she still squinted at the shadowy roof and reached up to flip the light on.
Devin leaned as far as she dared with her bounty of tots and remaining cheeseburger sitting on her lap, feeling around in the dimness for her lost ketchup.
“What the fuck are you doing,” Rey snarled, voice pitched to a distant thunder as he wrenched the passenger door open.
Devin spilled out onto the gravel, everything tumbling from her lap to litter the seat and ground. Her muted wail at the loss brought more attention, the crunch of multiple feet coming ever nearer.
“Gods damn it,” Rey growled under his breath, hauling Devin up by her arm. Jerking her against him with a possessive arm, he added in a breath of a whisper, “Not a single word.”
“What the hell is this?”
Devin cowered from the power in that voice. A blaring alarm of instinct told her not to draw its attention. She pressed closer still to Rey, hiding in the folds of his jacket, tucking herself away in his shadow as that smoky voice settled over her back.
“Nothing to be concerned about,” Rey said, pushing Devin’s face into the tensed muscles of his arm. “It’s not a problem.”
“The hell it ain’t,” another voice added in a rough growl.
“You’re trying my patience, Daniel. Who is she?”
“Just a bit of fun, sir. She’ll keep her mouth shut.” To underline the subtle command, Rey gripped the back of Devin’s neck, crushing the small bones under his heavy hand.
“This isn’t what I signed up for,” the raspy voice said, a glimpse of the bent and twisted man enough to curdle Devin’s stomach. Scarred face below a black knit cap, rheumy brown eyes followed a slimy path down her body. “Unless you’re passing her ‘round to make it worth my while.”
Devin didn’t even breathe as Rey broke away from her. She could only watch in stunned silence as he picked the man up by his greasy shirt front, lifting him high to growl in the lesser Alpha’s face.
“You’ll do as you’re told, Turk. We hired you for a job. If you can’t manage to do that, well then, I have no use for you, do I?”
“Easy now, Rey,” Turk wheezed with arms pinwheeling as Rey gave him a rough shake in mid-air. “Just having some fun, yeah? I’ll do it, boss. No problems.”
Rey sneered and dropped Turk, a hard shove sending the old man stumbling and sliding through the loose rock. Devin swallowed hard as Rey stalked back to her, each step as sure as the last, despite the shifting pebbles. When Rey opened his arm, she went to him under the steady green gaze of the Alpha oozing power and dominance.
“I don’t like surprises, Daniel. Let’s not have this happen again,” the terrifying man said in a low murmur, the shine on his shoes flashing in the dead orange glow of the sodium lights as he went back to the rows of crates.
“Stay quiet,” Rey hissed in a whisper at Devin’s crown as he took her with him. Keeping her tight against his side, he came alongside the man he called ‘sir.’
Turk appeared with a crowbar, nodding at the other men who had scattered back into the shadows at the show of strength. In short order, they had five of the crates opened, their contents shining under the thin light amid bunches of hay and cottony fluff.
“Eight crates of munitions, ten of the higher techs,” Rey said, cupping a hand over Devin’s ear as if to keep her from hearing. “The first shipment of paintings is going over this time, but we won’t be able to arrange the next ones until the borders have calmed down.”
“I thought we settled that with the last payoff?”
