Kieran #2
Jordy snatched up a pair of scissors off the desk, brandishing them like a knife and moving toward me.
Seeing him like that scared me almost as much as the fact that I was being strangled.
The last thing I wanted was for him to ever have to commit violence on my behalf, even if it was to defend me.
The knowledge that he might have to sparked up my instincts, pouring awareness into my brain.
I rammed my whole body back against Andrew, crushing him into the glass.
The hold on my throat loosened just enough that I could feel a rush of relief and oxygen to my brain, so I stepped forward and flung myself back again, this time bringing a pained huff tumbling out of him as he hit the wall.
An eardrum-shattering crack sounded, but I was already in the middle of my third push.
This time when he hit, the wall gave out, spiderweb cracks slithering up the glass, shards flying back onto the linoleum of the hallway.
Andrew’s hands went totally limp, unraveling from my throat as he started to fall back.
Jordy shrieked again, breathlessly this time, scrambling toward me.
The vertigo as Andrew’s weight left me started to pull me back too, but Jordy reached out to grip onto the front of my shirt, helping me cement my feet to the floor and maintain my balance.
“Are you okay?” He asked, panting heavily as he raked his eyes and hands over my chest and shoulders and arms to inspect my injuries.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I answered, my breath coming out in harsh puffs. “Fucker just won’t stay down.”
Jordy blinked, sniffling a bit as he swiped at his damp eyes with the back of his hand.
“I, um… I think he might be staying down now. Is he… Dead?” He asked, terrified.
When he moved toward Andrew’s body, I yanked him back from the precarious wall.
There wasn’t an inch anywhere not cracked through, and I couldn’t shake the brief but horrible mental image that it would come crashing down on him if he moved near it.
“Let’s go around,” I suggested. We hurried through the office door and around, to where Andrew’s body was sprawled out onto the hallway floor, unmoving.
Because I knew Jordy would do it if I didn’t, and I didn’t even want him touching the fucking psycho, I knelt down and pressed my fingers into his neck, just under his jawline.
“He’s got a pulse,” I muttered, unsure if I was relieved or disappointed.
“Maybe I should call an ambulance or something,” Jordy said quietly. Glancing back and up at him, I gave a quick nod.
“Yeah.”
I watched him skitter back into the office and pick up my phone off the ground.
“Sandy sent a text,” he announced, his voice easily reaching me through the alpha-sized hole in the wall. “She already called 911 and she’s on her way.”
“Alright,” I said, rising back up to my feet and taking a deep breath. I’d never been involved in anything so fucking crazy before, and I was pretty sure he hadn’t either. At least, I hoped not. “Jordy, come here.”
Instantly making his way back around and to my side, he intuitively wrapped his arms around my waist, squeezing me tightly and nuzzling his face into my chest. As usual, the way his candy scent flowed into my senses, and the affection in his touch helped soothe my turbulent, boiling emotions to a low simmer.
Holding his body as tightly to mine as I could, I shivered as I tried not to consider what could have happened to either of us.
“I’m so fucking glad you’re okay,” I choked out, hoping he wouldn’t notice the way my voice cracked on the words.
I felt him nod against me, his soft cheek rubbing against my chest through my shirt. “Yeah. You saved me. Again.”
“I don’t know,” I breathed out, glancing up to the ceiling. “I mean, you were doing pretty good on your own there.”
He snorted a little. “Told you I wasn’t delicate.”
I’d always felt protective of him, almost from the first moment we’d met, but now I wished I could avoid letting him out of my sight for the next decade or so. But he’d be leaving for college in a few weeks, so that was an impossibility.
Was I going to end up drowning in stress and anxiety and worry, five days a week, for the next four years minimum? If so, I knew I would have to endure it. I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t live without him. I didn’t have any doubts about that anymore.
We were quiet for a short bit, before he spoke again, staring up into my eyes. “Kieran, I need to say something, and you’re not going to like it, but it’s just one of those things that we have to deal with.”
“What?” I asked, uneasy. That perfectly calm timbre in his voice, the one he saved for when I was freaking out and only he could pull me back from the ledge put me on high alert.
“Police are going to be coming along with the ambulance to figure out what happened here. Andrew’s really hurt. We don’t know how hurt he is yet, because I’m afraid to move him.”
“He’ll be fine,” I said, but the anticipation of whatever the hell he was leading up to made me hear my own voice like it was coming from the end of a long tunnel. “He’s an alpha. He’ll heal up.”
“I don’t really care about that,” Jordy explained placidly. “What I care about is what’s going to happen to you when the police ask us what happened and they find out you did this to him.”
“I had to!” I argued, confused. “It was self defense! He was choking me!”
“I know,” he assured me softly. “But the blood all over the glass and floor in here is from before that. I’m not saying either of us did anything wrong,” he amended quickly, before I could pipe up again.
“Sometimes life isn’t fair and people get blamed for things.
But if they knew that you’re my mate, it would be fine. ”
He was right about that part. The law always made allowances, within reason, for territorial behavior regarding alphas and protecting their mates.
On top of that, once an omega was marked, the penalty for harassing or assaulting them was significantly more serious.
Not only the legal consequences, but you’d get fired from your job and basically shunned from society on top of that.
That wouldn’t be the case for Andrew, because Jordy wasn’t marked yet, so I wasn’t exactly sure why he was even bringing it up.
“But you can’t prove that I am,” I said, my brows drawing together as I tried to understand his point. “They won’t just take your word for it. I’d have to mark you.”
He blinked a few times, his expression remaining perfectly neutral.
“That’s right,” he finally said, like he was a kindergarten teacher and I’d successfully recited the alphabet.
“But I… We can’t just leave,” I said. “It’ll look even worse if we do. And the hotel’s like half an hour away, anyway. We’d never have time to go there and come back.”
One of his eyebrows quirked up, and I watched an expression of obvious sympathy show up on his face before he slid his hands up my chest to cup my jaw on either side.
“I didn’t say we should leave.”
“Then what exactly do you want me to do?” I asked. He didn’t respond, only staring up at me with that frustratingly kind look on his face, even tinged with a little bit of pity maybe. Like I was a sick animal he was about to put out of its misery. “Jordy?”
“Kieran,” he responded patiently, but only with my name. Nothing else. After a few more moments of silence, his fingertips lightly stroking my face, my stomach dropped.
“Here!?” I asked incredulously. “We can’t!”
“We have to,” he corrected me.
“No!” I denied, shocked he would even suggest such an insane thing. “No fucking way. We’re not doing that.”
“Yes, we are,” he insisted. The firm finality in his voice scared the shit out of me, because all the times I could ever remember him using it, he’d always ended up having everything his way. “You’re not getting in trouble because of this. There’s no way I would ever let that happen.”
“But… But what about…” Frustrated, I groaned, dragging my palms over my eyes. “Is this seriously how you want it to go? You want to officially become my mate in some random office?”
“Kieran, I’d let you mark me in an alley next to a pile of syringes and crack pipes,” he said flatly. “We both know that.”
A shocked, strangled noise burst out of my throat, and I could barely keep from following it up with a hysterical scream. “Don’t fucking say that!”
“It’s true,” he reiterated softly. Keeping his hands on my face, he raised himself up onto his toes and pressed one soft kiss to my lips.
“It doesn’t matter how it happens. And we have the rest of our lives to make memories you’ll be happy with,” he added.
“You’re going to be an amazing mate, Kieran.
Everything I want and everything I need, all the time. ”
I swallowed hard, feeling like my throat was constricting. But as always, his complete trust and confidence in me, and our future together, helped bolster my damaged self esteem.
“I want that. I want to make you happy all the time.”
“You will,” he murmured, pecking me with another sweet, chaste kiss. “Come with me,” he ordered, letting go of my face to tangle his fingers with mine, tugging me further down the hall to another door.
We stepped inside, and he closed it behind us, flicking on the overhead lights to reveal it as a plain looking room with a long table with a lot of chairs on either side.
Maybe meant for meetings and conferences.
I let him pull me further inside, to another door within that room.
When he opened it, I saw it was a supply closet with basic items lining the metal shelves.
Not exactly the most romantic or comfortable setting, but it was spacious enough.
And the floor was covered in the same thin, shitty commercial carpet as the conference room.
But at least it wasn’t unfinished concrete.
He ushered me in, then closed it behind us, reaching up to tug on a string to spark up a single lightbulb.