Chapter 10 Kairo
KAIRO
Nyx scented like panic. It was bruised at the edges, bent out of shape by the bond and the antiseptic they’d scrubbed into her skin.
The med patch on her shoulder was clean and tight, gauze taped down over the bite. She stood in the doorway with her shoulders squared and her eyes calculating, wrapped in my jacket.
I kept my hands loose at my sides and my posture open.
I made myself look nonthreatening and easy, even though I had spent the last hour wanting to rip someone’s throat out with my bare hands.
I kept that urge leashed, because the last thing she needed was another man’s rage taking up space in her air.
I stayed at the threshold instead of stepping into her space, letting the doorframe keep distance between us.
“Before I say anything else,” I told her, voice steady, “you get choices. You can shut this door in my face. You can lock it. You can tell me to sit outside and talk through the intercom instead of being in the room.”
Only after that did I let my voice loosen, because sharpness would only keep her locked in place.
“Okay,” I said, palms open at my sides. “I’m not going to sell you a bedtime story.
I’m going to give you facts, and you can use them.
I brought you out here because Meridian is moving omegas through its subsidiaries right under our noses, and you already proved you can see what my people missed. ”
I kept my tone light on purpose, the way you kept a scared animal from bolting, even when your own instincts wanted to sprint. “You are not here to be decoration. You are here because you can trace patterns in numbers the way most people trace faces.”
I nodded toward the shower behind her, toward the quiet that had been arranged.
“Your choices are real, Nyx. Shower. Food. Sleep. Space. But the other fact is this.” I let my smile fade into something honest. “We are going to find who’s trafficking omegas through Meridian’s lanes, and you are going to help us. ”
Her stare stayed flat, but her scent tightened anyway, that peach-sweet panic trying to pretend it wasn’t fear.
“And before you try to tell me you don’t owe us anything,” I added, gentle and deadly in the same breath, “you don’t.
That’s not what this is.” I tipped my head.
“This is you keeping yourself alive by staying useful, and us keeping you alive because something in our bodies has already decided you’re ours. ”
I watched the words land, watched her shoulders go rigid. “I’m not asking you to like it,” I whispered. “I’m telling you what the bond is doing, and what we’re doing with it.”
Her jaw tightened, but after a beat, she turned without another word and disappeared into the bathroom.
The door slid shut.
Steam crept under the door, carrying her scent with it, clean heat wrapping around peaches bruised by panic. I stayed where I was. I did not follow. I did not touch the door. I pressed my palms flat to the counter instead and stared at my reflection.
I imagined her under the spray despite myself. Head tipped back. Skin bare and slick. Water tracing every line she had learned to protect. The thought slid in uninvited and lodged deep enough that my breath stuttered.
I closed my eyes and told myself to stop. But I couldn’t. My body did not listen. I slid my hand down and cupped my dick, squeezing it as I imagined what she looked like behind that screen.
Her skin glistened with beaded water. Her curly hair was damp as she ran soap along those beautiful curves. I masturbated swiftly, the thought of her scrubbing the soap off her skin pushing me harder. When she bent over in my fantasy, I couldn’t contain myself.
Pressure coiled low and tight, instinct and fantasy tangling until it hurt. I turned away from the door and braced myself against the wall, jaw clenched, trying to ride it out without crossing a line I could not uncross.
The water shut off.
I was still fighting for my breath as I shoved my dick quickly in my pants, just before the bathroom door opened.
“Kairo?” Her soft voice spoke, and I lost it.
Without my hand on my dick, I came just from looking at her wrapped in a large towel, her skin still damp from the shower. I twisted away from her immediately.
“Oh, shit.” I didn’t know what came over me, but as my chest rose and fell with my panic, Nyx walked around me. A wide berth.
I got myself together and ignored the sticky mess. I looked at Nyx and she flushed, looking away from me in embarrassment. I was proud that her scent smoothed out a bit. She was less panicked realizing I had no intent of jumping on her or forcing her into something she didn’t want to do.
I walked closer, and she took a step back, fear bleeding into her eyes. Her scent went acrid once again. I only had a moment with her walls down and now they were back up. I had a long way to go.
Her gaze cut to the hall behind me, then snapped back to my face. “I’m not safe.”
“No,” I said, and didn’t sugarcoat it. “But you’re not alone in the open anymore, either. That matters.”
Nyx didn’t relax. She cataloged the room in silence.
“Can I have something to wear?”
I cursed myself for not thinking of that and walked on the far side of the room to open the closet. As soon as I backed away from the door she scrambled inside and closed the door behind her.
That was alright, I wasn’t planning on running behind her and taking something that wasn’t being offered. Nyx came back out wearing my clothes. I couldn’t help my alpha’s response as he growled his approval deep in my chest.
Nyx moved further away from me in response.
Her eyes tracked exits, blind spots, and the distance between the nest and the door with the patience of someone who had learned that maps mattered more than promises. When her gaze landed on the nest, something in her stuttered, quick and involuntary.
Her scent shifted before she could clamp down on it, and it tightened my chest. I noticed it and refused to make it a thing. I would not turn her body into a conversation she didn’t consent to have.
“You can lock the door from the inside,” I said, nodding at the keypad on the bedroom door and bathroom. I kept my tone casual on purpose. “Six digits. Your choice.”
It was why I brought her in here. I knew she would enjoy the control she had over her safety. Who she would and wouldn’t allow into her space, it was her choice. Something she hadn’t been given yet.
She stared at the panel. Her mouth tightened, and her eyes didn’t leave the little screen.
“You won’t override it?” she asked.
I lifted my hands. “I can’t. Malachi could. I can’t.”
Her jaw tightened at his name, but she stepped forward anyway and typed in a code. The lock chimed softly, and the sound hit the room. Relief and disbelief moved across her face.
Her shoulders dropped a fraction. A win I didn’t deserve, and I took it anyway because she needed wins more than I needed pride.
She turned back to me, eyes too bright. “Why are you doing this?”
That question wasn’t curiosity. It was survivor math, the kind that always asked what the price was and who would collect it.
I gave her a half smile, not because I thought it would charm her, but because letting her see my need would make her feel trapped.
“Because you look like you’re five seconds from bolting, and if you do, somebody will stop you the wrong way.
I’d rather you stay mad at me in one piece than brave in a hallway full of alphas. ”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I can pay in cash,” I said lightly. “Trust costs more than I’ve got on me. Borrow my calm if you need it. Return it when you don’t.”
I didn’t say the real reason, the one tangled up with the way her scent kept trying to find mine. I didn’t say how my instincts wanted to get close and the part of me with a brain kept yanking them back.
I moved slowly, giving her space as I grabbed water from the counter and set it within reach. Snacks followed.
I folded soft blankets and set them on the edge of the nest. I made sure my hands stayed visible, palms up, movements unhurried. Nyx watched every inch of me, tracking the distance.
“Sit,” I said, nodding toward the couch. “Or don’t. I will not crowd you either way.”
She hesitated, then sat, posture still coiled. The tension in her shoulders that lived there long before she met any of us.
I didn’t sit beside her. I lowered myself to the floor in front of the couch, back against it, legs stretched out, making sure I was the one giving up height.
It wasn’t performance. It was strategy, and I didn’t care if anyone would call it weak. A terrified omega didn’t need another man standing over her proving he could.
Her scent spiked suddenly, sharp and dizzying. She flinched, fingers digging into her thigh, breath catching. Her eyes went far away for half a second, and that half second told me exactly how loud the bond was in her body.
“Hey,” I said quietly. “Breathe with me.”
Her glare snapped to mine. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
I let my mouth tilt, because she deserved to bite. “Fair. Then I’ll do it, and you can copy me if you want.”
I took a slow breath in through my nose and let it out. I didn’t stare at her chest, didn’t watch her body like a creep. I watched her face instead.
She breathed anyway. Her body obeyed the rhythm because whatever the bond was doing to her wasn’t polite enough to wait for permission.
“I can feel him,” she whispered. “Like he’s under my skin.”
“I know,” I said, and kept my voice soft because this was the kind of truth that could tip her into panic if I made it sound worse. “A forced bond sits in you. It throbs. It lies. It makes your body react to a man your mind is rejecting, and that is exactly why it feels like betrayal.”
Her nostrils flared. “So what do I do?”
“We treat it,” I said. “We buy you time. We keep it from getting fed.”