28. Zaden
Chapter twenty-eight
Zaden
I have never been more angry. The words this bitch has said are repeating over and over. Her echo has reached me in the deepest parts of the mansion. As I walk, Ianto and Valen fall in on either side of me. Ranger and Mills join us a moment later. The five of us are moving with purpose. Deadly purpose.
People aren’t going to survive the night.
Time seems to stand still and speed up, and then I’m kicking the fucking dining room doors open. They bounce open, rip off the hinges, and fall to the ground.
I don’t care. All I can see is the man with his hands on my Lia. He’s big, but the bigger they are, the harder they fall. His expression tells me everything, though. He knows who we are, and he’s scared. Very scared.
A fierce growl erupts from my throat, echoed instantly by the pack. Valen moves into the room, getting up in the face of the man who has Lia’s arm in a grip that is going to get him murdered.
Valen butts his head against the smallest man. I think he’s supposed to be a doctor. He’s wearing a white jacket. But he’s a weedy, little, shrivelled up ball bag of a man. He backs off instantly, his fear stinking up the air. I think he might actually piss himself.
“Let go,” Valen sings softly, glaring beadily at the colossal idiot holding Lia.
Lia’s eyes are blank. She’s crying, but there is something so broken on her face that I’m afraid for her. She’s also feverish again. I can see it from here. And she’s been hit, her cheeks are red, and I can see hand prints.
I focus my ire on the threats in the room .
“China Raines.”
She tries to smile, but her lips tremble, and she can’t hold my gaze. “Mirakill.”
I smile coldly. It’s good she recognises who I am. Then she’ll know who is going to bury her. China was once a washed out version of Lia, but no longer. She’s thin to the point of painful, her face pinched and mean. Her tits are flat and saggy, and her makeup is over-done and chalky. She’s nothing but a has been pop star.
And I’m thinking about making her life just that much shorter.
I glance at her henchmen. Arnold, the man who has been spying on Lia. He flicks me a glance. I don’t respect a snitch. No matter that he’s been double-crossing China and feeding me all the information for the last five years. He neglected to mention this, though, and that’s going to get him severely beaten.
No, that’s getting him dead.
I glance back, silently giving Ranger his orders. My VP just smiles coldly and cracks his ring-covered fingers.
The other people in the room are three muscled men who don’t look afraid, but I can fix that. And a terrified woman with a tablet who looks like she might pass out at any moment.
“What do you think you are doing here?” I return my attention to China and watch as she tries to rally under my hard stare.
“My daughter is sick. She’s been sick for a long time. Look at her, she’s clearly feverish. She needs medical intervention.”
I smile and continue to smile while the silence stretches. “If anyone tries to take her, I’ll put bullets in all your skulls and bury you in graves where no one will find you.”
“You can’t threaten me!” China shouts.
“I just did.” I refocus my attention on Lia. “Mills,” I instruct.
He moves past me at once, picking her up. She doesn’t protest. She doesn’t make a sound. Lia, our Lia, just curls herself into him and buries her face in his neck.
“Get her out of here.”
“No! Wait! You can’t! She’s sick! She needs my help!”
“China Raines, no one needs your psychopathic help. Fuck off. You left her alone all these years, do her a favour and go back to whatever cum hole you crawled out of.”
She stalks towards me and brings her hand back. I catch it in the air and grind her wrist bones together until she cries out.
“You have no idea how much I want to break you right now. I’d start with this bone right here.” I stare down at her wrist. “The problem is once I start, I don’t know that I’d stop.”
“You can’t do this. She’s my child. She needs my help. ”
“No one needs your help. What Lia needs is you to fuck off out of her life and leave her alone.”
“She’s sick!” China hisses.
I smile widely. She doesn’t know. “She’s mine. Sick or otherwise.”
“You’re denying her medical aid?” China clarifies. “I’ll have you arrested.”
“Good luck trying. And the minute I see cops on my doorstep,” I whisper, “you better run because that will be the end of you, China.”
She shudders. “She’s really sick,” she murmurs.
“She’s not.” I snarl again.
I glance around. “You came and tried to take our Lia from us.”
“No! No! That’s not what happened.” The doctor shouts and starts backing away. “You never said she belonged to the Mirakill MC, China!”
“You tried to take our old lady,” Valen snarls.
The words fall into the room, and I see their shock and fear. Ianto and Ranger flow past me.
“Stand right here, Omega Raines. I need you to really see what’s going to happen to you if you upset Lia again.”
I stand like a granite wall, listening to the thuds and violent beating that my pack smashes out. The life in the doctor goes first, his broken body collapsing on the ground. The three body guards fall next. And then the assistant, though her death is cleaner.
China shudders and starts to cry. She lifts a hand to cover her mouth, and when it’s done; she looks at me. Finally, she’s horrified. There is fear in her eyes now. The right amount.
“You’re a monster. You’re as sick as she is.”
“No, China. We are much, much worse. But we are hers.”
She hiccups. “Get out of my house.”
“Lia will not be back,” I say coldly. “Remember what I said, China. It would be in your best interests to forget Lia completely because if you upset her, if you even look in her direction, I will take you out and make you vanish.” I pause and look at Ranger. “Destroy the house, call a clean up crew.”
She takes a step back. She looks around, helplessly, in confusion. “But…”
“Wipe the scene and let’s go.”
“Done,” Ianto says. He vanishes and returns five minutes later with a black bear and a small bag.
I exhale roughly and stalk out of the house, leaving by the front this time. Lia doesn’t know it yet, but she will never return to this house. I won’t let her.
She’s got us now .
Whether she wants us or not.
I’m done fighting.
Lia looks up at me when I enter the room. Her eyes are huge and full of pain.
“Are you going to send me away?”
“Send you away?” I ask with a smile, pretending I don’t know what she’s talking about. “Why would I do that?”
She gets to her feet and steps in front of me, stopping my aimless prowling. “Zaden, you heard what happened, you saw.” Her anger fades. She looks pained and haunted.
That is completely unacceptable.
“Lia,” Mills grumbles.
“I’m broken!” she growls up at me. “I’m broken. My mother said I was sick and I’m not normal. There is something wrong with me.”
I nod, pretending I’m taking all this bullshit in. “There is?”
She snarls and shoves at my chest. “I’m not fucking around.”
I grab her throat, letting her see how angry I am. I walk her backwards to the bed. Her knees hit the back, but I don’t let up until she’s lying on the bed, and I’m straddling her waist.
“No, little Lia, I’m not fucking around. Not anymore.”
Her eyes widen, and she stares up at me with those huge blue orbs. So blue, so green. So vibrant and hurt.
“You’re not sick. There is nothing wrong with you.”
“No, I am-”
I tighten my fingers on her throat, cutting off her words. “You’re not, Lia.”
“But I’m-”
“In heat. Or about to be.”
Her eyes get wider. “What?”
“There is nothing wrong with you, Lia. You’re just a switch, a rare designation that appears like one designation and can change into another. Unique. A miracle.”
She shudders underneath me, that marshmallow scent I’m addicted to fills the air. “I’m not a-”
“You are. We checked. We found the best doctor we could find. He’s seen your blood and wants to meet you. You are special but normal. You aren’t sick. And it’s all fine. Your body is just getting ready to take your alphas. ”
Somehow, her eyes manage to get wider. “My alphas?”
“Yes, that would be me.” I grind my hips into hers and watch as she lets out a piteous moan that makes me smile. “Ranger, Mills, Ianto, and Valen.”
With each name, her breath hitches. She reaches up, gripping my shirt. “Don’t play with me, Alpha.”
Ah, there’s the fire.
“I'm not, Lia. Not anymore. You are ours now. And no one is going to save you.”
She blinks, and her eyes get shiny. I wonder if I’ve made a mistake, if she doesn’t really want us. But it’s too late now. Only death would free her from me now. “Promise?”
The question relaxes all the tension in me, and I let go of her throat and slide my hand up her face and into her hair, anchoring her head.
“I swear on my ride. I swear on my pack. You’re ours now, and I’m going to give you a pretty ring of scars so no one can doubt it.”
She moans, and her hips wriggle under me. “I’m angry with you.”
“Oh?”
“You left me alone, and you didn’t say goodbye. You just vanished.”
“Is that why you went home?”
Lia closes her eyes, trying to hide from me. I grip her hair and tug.
“It wasn’t meant to be that long.” I hesitate, staring down at her. “Fine, I’ll tell you everything from now on. We won’t leave without saying goodbye.”
The constant arousal I seem to have around her flares into life. I lean down and drag my tongue over her bottom lip.
She’s not moving. She’s not even breathing. I smile and press my lips to hers. When I touch my tongue to her lip again, she opens, letting me in.
I pull back and sit up, pulling her to sit up with me.
“We’ve got a meeting in an hour. But after, we’re going to have a little talk about what happens now.”
The sparkle in her eyes fades. “Oh, okay. I’ll go home, then.”
My fingers tighten in her hair, and I duck until we’re nose to nose. “This is your home. If you return to that museum of hell, I will burn it to the ground.”
She shivers. “What are you saying, Zaden?” she whispers.
“Lia, I’m only going to say this once more, and then if you make me repeat myself again, I’ll get Ianto to get his tattoo gun out and he’ll tattoo our names on your ass. You. Are. Ours. There is no going home. This is your home. There is no one else for you. We are your pack. You are the Mirakill MC switch. And if anything tries to come between us, I will destroy it. If someone tries to hurt you, I will bury them. If someone even questions it, I will break bones. ”
She doesn’t look nearly scared enough.
“Zaden,” she whispers. “You don’t understand.”
I let out a fierce growl. “Lia-”
“What if my mother is right? What if I am sick?” Lia says in a pained rush.
“Lia, for fuck’s sake.”
“I’ve got this, Zaden,” Ianto says from behind me.
I climb off her, letting her go as Ianto sits beside her on the bed. He pulls out her medical files and shows her everything the doctors ever wrote. All of them. His voice is calm and low as he shows her everything they’ve ever written about her.
“See, you’re perfectly healthy.”
A tear runs down Lia’s cheek, and I want nothing more than to grab a baseball bat and go and break the legs of everyone who ever made her hurt.
He pulls out another file. “This is your mother’s file. Now, if you look here, you’ll see that she has been diagnosed with several mental illnesses. She’s refused to take the medications. Several of the times she’s been absent, she’s been in a psychiatric ward. There are photos of China sick, screaming, being arrested. Testimony from exes, a few staff that she physically assaulted.”
“But-”
My Lia sounds so lost and so confused.
“Your mother has been really, terribly ill, Lia. It’s not your fault, and there is nothing wrong with you. This is your mother’s illness, not yours.”
Lia bursts into tears. Ianto pulls her into his arms, rocking her while our eyes meet over her head.
I can’t destroy what hurt her. But we can make sure it never happens again. When did she worm her way inside me? When did she become more important to me than my next breath?
“Zaden?”
I glance back and find Ranger there.
“We have a problem.”