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The idea that I could inadvertently hurt the young, fragile omega I was sworn to protect haunted me. If I was being honest, I’d admit that it filled me with fear.
I’d done it once before, after all—injured a woman. I would never let that happen again. But as I followed my young charge into the après-ski dance club, I was fully prepared to hurt any man who touched her.
And kill any man who thought he would take her home tonight and fuck her.
For the first time, I was grateful for my employer’s restrictions on carrying a firearm around Valentine. Not because it triggered her panic attacks, but because even the thought of her with another man made me feel more than a little homicidal.
Within five minutes, I had a feeling the night would end in a bloodbath anyway, if I didn’t get her out of here fast. The place was packed, mostly with hungry-looking men. Before I could get the girls’ attention, a group of women, all wearing short dresses made out of sequins and sashes that made it clear they were there for a bachelorette party, engulfed the triplets, including them in their celebrations.
I shot a quick look at Rufus, the other guard on detail. He nodded, keeping watch on a group of too-drunk-for-comfort men at the bar, who were raking their filthy eyes over my girl... our girls.
Oh, who the fuck was I kidding? The sisters were Rufus’s charges. Valentine was mine. She always had a dedicated guard, and I knew why.
She was the one the bastards of the world kept targeting. Her sweetness and innocence practically shone from her face, a lure the criminals of this world couldn’t resist.
After I’d gotten the call from my boss at Storm Securities, I’d read the file on Valentine Paxson that had been accumulating over the past decade and a half. The first abduction attempt had occurred when she was ten. The nanny had tried to take all three of the triplets, but only succeeded in snagging Valentine for seven long hours.
Supposedly, she’d come back unharmed. But Bobby Kenedy, the man who’d brought me in for the job, had given me the inside scoop. Something had happened that day to change a formerly funny, outgoing girl into a reclusive, frightened child.
And what had happened later had been every bit as bad. Other students at their private school had targeted her for the kind of bullying that was hard to prove, and harder to stop. It had begun with name calling, then a series of anonymous “pranks.” It had ended in her quitting school entirely to be privately tutored along with her sisters until high school began.
But Bobby’s quiet, verbal report of what had happened when Valentine—and only her, out of the triplets—revealed as an omega at the tender age of sixteen, was what made me want to burn down the world every time I thought of it.
It didn’t matter if she was one of the richest girls in the world. Because she was an introverted omega, living in a world filled with grasping, cruel alphas, she had lost any hope of peace.
But I would do anything to make sure she never had to feel unsafe again.
“Donovannnn?” Planting herself in front of me, Tori called my name over the noise of the crowd, pulling me from my murderous thoughts. “Can you please get Valentine’s purse from the car? She left it.”
“No,” I replied, my eyes tracking Valentine. She was seated at the bar, with a vacant stool on one side. Her sister sat beside her, but a group of weaselly beta males was already swarming, angling for the empty seat.
“She needs it,” Tori insisted. “Please?”
“Why?”
Tori’s response was almost too low to hear. “She may need her anxiety meds.”
Anxiety meds? I had to force myself not to curse aloud. Why her sisters were encouraging her to do this, to rush into physical intimacy… No. If I allowed myself to think about what the purpose of this visit was, I’d lose my shit entirely.
If it were up to me, I’d haul Valentine’s pretty, far-too-young ass out of this club, lock her in the kitchen where I’d noticed she was happiest, baking all that sweet shit she was obsessed with—or maybe in her room, where she spent most of her time, reading or sewing stuff—and tell her sisters to leave her the hell alone.
From the first moment I saw her, I’d understood why this young woman would always be at risk, and it wasn’t just her fortune. Anyone would want her. She was kind, quiet, gentle, and good in a way I’d never imagined a billionaire heiress would be. While the rest of her nine siblings were accomplished and admired, Valentine made it her goal not to be noticed, but to do small things that made everyone’s lives easier.
I had listened as she quietly asked her siblings what cookies and cakes were their current favorites, then watched her sneak into the kitchen after everyone was fast asleep, and spend hours making them. She’d hand-woven scarves for the whole family for the holidays, making sure to use their favorite colors.
She was a listening ear to her sisters, laughing along with their stories about their exploits at work and school, not ever complaining that her own life was so small.
She asked about others’ dreams, and hopes. I’d had the good fortune to watch over her during her twice-weekly volunteer “betasitter” visits to a low-income nursery near the triplets’ shared apartment in Denver. The love she lavished on the babies there was only one of her gifts to them and their families, though as far as I could tell, none of them realized she actually provided all the funds for the center.
She was the reason twenty-two single parents were provided with free, top-notch childcare, so they could work full-time jobs. She was also the fill-in sitter who covered for the center’s employees when they needed time off.
She was the one who made sure the city installed pedestrian crosswalks nearby, and routed a bus from there to the city center.
I had a suspicion she was also the reason a low-income apartment complex next to the center suddenly had a free, clean, fully furnished unit available whenever a new mother needed one.
Valentine Paxson was a saint, from what I’d seen, and she never asked for anything in return. But I could see what she wanted when she was holding the infants.
She wanted to be a mother.
