Chapter 28 Alexander
Alexander
Quinn’s orgasm crashed through me. I came hard and fast with no say in the matter. It took a full minute before I could breathe and remember the world existed.
I sat alone in my office.
Scrawls from six departments demanding immediate attention littered my desk, along with the final details for my Mixer.
Hope needed a replacement for Horax, but I was still tracing the slaving piece of shit’s allies.
The Rooster was the social heart of my family.
I couldn’t risk putting the wrong person in charge again.
I leaned back. It’d be so easy to break my rules and reach into their minds; take what I needed. An insignificant intrusion, only looking for one thing. Internally, my family would be safer for it, but the world outside my walls would see it as tyranny.
They would turn on me. My family would fight to stay together, and die.
I leaned forward again, and the mess I’d made in my undergarments brought my thoughts right back to Quinn. Her tether radiated bliss I wanted her to feel, but with Ezra and me.
‘Is Quinn with you?’ I asked Ezra, already knowing the answer but still hopeful.
‘She’s not. Is she okay?’ Ezra responded instantly.
‘More than okay,’ I responded bitterly. ‘I’ll tell you later.’
Her bliss morphed into joy, and I broke one of my cardinal rules. I knew she was in Cayden’s dorm room, but I needed to know who else was there. With our connection, it was all too easy to find her mind and listen.
“Pancakes. Fluffy, round, flat cakes. You seriously don’t have those in the future?” Quinn asked.
“We have round, flat cakes, but they are thin, and you stuff them with whatever you want,” Rowan answered.
I pulled out of Quinn’s thoughts before I could hear more. Rowan. She was with Cayden and Rowan. I ran my hands through my hair and pulled.
Two knocks sounded at my door.
“Come in.”
The door opened, and a runner dressed in the creams of the McDonald clan entered with two glowing scrawls splayed out in his hand.
He put them on my desk. “The McDonalds will see proof of Quinn’s reception of their Intentions by the end of the day today, along with proof of her free will, or they will send a squad to deliver them to her by hand. I’m to remain at your convenience.”
I took a deep breath. I was out of time. Quinn needed to know her options. I just wanted to be one of them.
Within the hour, I had the runner happily eating at The Rooster with two of my friendliest enforcers.
I picked three other Intentions out of the stack and tucked them into my back pocket.
With a clean pair of boxers, I slipped into the Alun to wait for Quinn’s morning session, only to find her already there.
Quinn grinned. “Rowan let me in early. Look.” She pointed to a rock that had a band of sparkling magic striped across it, just like her feet yesterday. “I made something physical, right?”
“No…” I swallowed hard, shoving down my mess of emotions so we could focus.
Quinn wrinkled her nose. “No… but Rowan had to dig me out of the ground? Oh, wait!” She bounced. “Magic is energy. My band stayed because it was energy flowing across my feet, and Rowan had to dig me out because, like the forge, I couldn’t shut off the flow.”
Despite everything, I smiled. I loved seeing her learn. “Yes.”
Quinn beamed, and we fell into our trial-and-error routine. In small quantities, her control was exceptional. However, once we tried to power anything more significant than the basics, the magic of this world controlled her.
“You’re quiet today, Knowledge Daddy.” Quinn bumped my shoulder.
Usually, I begged her not to call me that, but I didn’t have it in me to spar today. “You’re in better spirits than I expected, especially after getting ambushed your first time out.”
Quinn clenched her hands and studied them.
I immediately regretted my words. Why had I even brought that up?
“Are you mad I left?” she asked.
“No.” I tipped her head up. “I mean, yes. I’m furious you put yourself in danger, but you’re not my prisoner. Still, I hope that, maybe this time, you’ll understand why I don’t want you out there until you have more protection. Either your magic or a contract. Ideally, both.”
Quinn stiffened at the mention of contracts. “Things move so fast here. In my time, you date one guy for years, then one day he doesn’t take out the trash, and boom, you kick him out and start over.”
I let out a little ‘humph,’ unsure if that was funny or not.
“You can take on multiple contracts, Quinn.” I sighed and pulled the five glowing scrawls out of my back pocket. “These are for you and maybe a few more.” Which was a gross understatement, but I didn’t want to overwhelm her.
Quinn looked at them. “What if I don’t want any of those contracts?”
My heart thumped in my chest. She wanted me? Was she asking me? No. I calmed myself. Her statement had nothing to do with me.
My lover’s memory of her drunken confession made my blood boil.
We’d miscalculated. Quinn believed I was feeding off her lust like a vampire to fix my relationship with my lover, and maybe she wasn’t wrong.
The three of us had clarified consent, and we’d assured her that my kissing her in the Alun hadn’t hurt Ezra.
But that was it. Ezra and I were too fearful of scaring her off to even kiss her properly.
“Something has to change tonight.” That’s what Ezra said yesterday. By the time I’d sorted The Mile, Quinn was already in Cayden’s room, and short of going in and getting her myself, which was not the right thing to do, she wasn’t coming out.
I took a deep breath. ‘I’m kissing Quinn.’
I sent the three words to Ezra, then leaned forward. I wrapped one arm around the curve of Quinn’s waist and placed the other on the back of her neck. “I have not made myself clear. Ezra and I want you to join us.”
Her tether filled with a mix of excitement and disbelief. Her pulse raced against my palm. I lowered my lips to hers and gently kissed her. The emotions in the tether shifted, spiking with desire. My hand on her waist inched toward her butt while I ran my tongue against the seam of her lips.
But she didn’t part. Her tether spiked, sudden, sharp anxiety.
I blinked and found myself no longer in the Alun.
I kneeled on a wet tile floor with an elephant trunk of a dick almost hitting me on the nose.
Steam filled the dimly lit space, and drops of hot water fell onto my head and shoulders.
I looked up from the impressive cock to find a prominent six-pack dripping water.
My gaze continued up a very built, fuzz-covered chest until Rowan blinked down at me.
“What the hell?” he bellowed, stepping back.
I shot to my feet. The shower water stopped hitting him and drenched my back.
“You okay, man?” an unknown voice called.
I stepped aside, giving Rowan his water back, and turned to give him privacy.
“Well, this is awkward,” I muttered.
“Yeah, just a little,” Rowan growled. He raised his voice. “Yeah, I thought I saw a rat; it was just your balls.”
The man laughed, and another chuckle joined him, almost lost under the sound of the spray.
“Where am I?” I asked, keeping my gaze on the corner of the little tiled shower stall I found myself in.
“In the showers of the north wing of the mixed dorms, sir,” Rowan reported.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You can probably drop the ‘sir,’ for… several reasons we don’t need to discuss here.”
Rowan didn’t respond. Shower water sank into my shoes.
“Should I assume Quinn’s lesson didn’t go to plan?” Rowan asked, clearly uncomfortable.
I’d admitted the truth behind my actions and kissed her. In response, her teleportation magic ejected me. No. Nothing had gone to plan. But I wasn’t admitting that to one of my generals, much less a man also vying for Quinn’s affection.
“Correct assumption,” I said flatly.
“Orders, sir?” Rowan asked.
I narrowed my eyes at Rowan and his ‘sir’ as my escape options rushed through my head. I could take over everyone’s minds and slip out of here unnoticed. On one hand, that felt harmless, but it was still misusing my abilities. I’d already done that once today.
I ran a hand through my hair, too tired to care how pathetic I looked. “Guess I walk out of here with whatever pride I didn’t drown.”
Rowan grunted. “Joe’s towel’s around here… somewhere.”
I hoped it came with instructions for how to dry off your soul.