Chapter 7 Quinn #2
The silence in Quinn’s studio walk-up is suddenly too loud. Certainly not louder than what’s going on inside his head—the simmering anger he has no right feeling, the pity he feels for Soren, and the tinge of loneliness aching around his heart.
It’s not the first time Soren has run off after a good fuck—or in the middle of one, for that matter. When Connall O’Daire moves, Soren goes running like he’s Cinderella and Quinn’s the fucking glass slipper.
It’s not even that Connall knows Soren is there.
No, Soren stalks the alpha unawares across the country, pulling his ass out of fires he didn’t even know were burning.
Connall is a constant itch under Soren’s skin.
It means Quinn will always be last on Soren’s list, no matter how, when he’s in Quinn’s bed, he can’t see anyone else.
If the bastard couldn’t see what a good man Soren is, then he sure as fuck doesn’t deserve him. Or Quinn, for that matter.
With a growl, Quinn throws the quilt off. He’d like to have the patience to wash the sheets—or at least change them—but the drive to get out and walk this persistent melancholy off is almost too much.
He needs air. Needs noise. Needs out.
He doesn’t bother with a shower either. Soren’s scent will keep the worst of the club’s pervs at a respectable distance, reminding them he’s unavailable when Quinn’s words are not enough.
Throwing on his favorite wide-leg jeans, black tee, and vintage Versace silk shirt, he adds his black boots with the two-inch heel.
He’d salvaged them from the Glo-Up vintage shop last week, and they fit like a glove.
Like he’d worn them in another life. Once he’d blinged them up a bit, they’d been even better.
Silver studs and a new zipper made them Quinn’s. He loved things that had been lived in—loved knowing someone else had left their mark. And when he added his own, they became a tangible reflection of life. When he was done with them, he hoped someone else would do the same.
Grabbing his ancient saddlebag, he slips on his aviators and pulls the door to the apartment shut. Taking the stairs behind Slice of Life Bakery, he steps into the alley.
The little bakery sits on a quiet street, two blocks away from The Gulch, in an area well on its way to slow gentrification. Old shops are being replaced with cafes and bean roasters. Big Mike’s old tattoo place is now a yoga studio, refurbished when he retired last month and moved to Jacksonville.
The whole area is soon to be a hipster’s paradise.
And fuck does it make Quinn gag. No one appreciates the history of places anymore. Tearing things down and replacing them with juice bars and condos. Nah, that’s not how Quinn moves through life.
Turning left out of the alley, he heads toward the nearest bus stop.
Long strides eat up the sidewalk in front of stores that seem to close and then open overnight.
He doesn’t let his sore ass slow him down.
It’s a well-earned badge of honor, and despite how pissed off he still is, he can admit—with admiration and no small amount of desire—that taking Soren is no joke.
It’ll be a reminder that he made poor choices. If only he could learn his lesson well enough that he could be confident he’d not be here next week, or the week after.
Maybe it really was time to go.
He slips into a café that doesn’t have a sign but has the best lemon iced tea in Nashville. There aren’t any croissants left, but a key lime pie tart does the trick to wash the taste of Soren from his mouth, even if it can’t do anything about his mind.
Ten minutes later, he’s in time to catch the bus just as it’s pulling in, a cloud of exhaust announcing its arrival.
It’s a blue line, so Were friendly, and the driver is familiar, even if he never bothers to learn her name.
Finding a seat near the back of the bus, he crosses his foot over his knee, letting his mind go blissfully blank.
There are three other people on the bus. An older lesbian couple pore over a tablet near the front, giggling behind their hands. The third person sits three rows back, head tilted into the window, headphones on. The scent of lemon cleaner is more of a giveaway than his hotel-issued uniform.
Just as the bus begins to pull away, a hand bangs on the front door, causing them all to lurch at the sudden stop.
Time slows to a crawl as the new passenger boards.
Connall O’Daire looks like he’d been chased by a pack of wolves. The only word that comes to mind is hunted. Sweaty, pale, and breathing hard, he’s looking side to side, seeking a haven that Quinn is about to bring crashing down.
When their eyes meet, Connall freezes, swaying as the bus pulls away. He gasps, sucking in Quinn’s scent, with a growl that quickly turns into a whine.
Quinn wants to echo it.
To drop to his knees and offer his throat for his alpha’s mark. Instead, he feels a wave of liquid desire pool in his gut, his cherry and smoke scent combining with Connall’s winter one to remind him of cigars by the fire, while an ice storm rages outside.
If he’d ever imagined how this meeting might go, it wouldn’t have been here. Not on this bus. Not like this.
Quinn is his employee, after all, dancing in a gilded cage every night at Connall’s grungy little strip club. There could have been several other opportunities for them to meet, that this bus would never have crossed his mind.
At least now he’s got the upper hand. Because Connall? That look says it all—he didn’t know shit. Not about Quinn. And sure as hell, not about his fucking fated mate working right under his nose.
Some all-knowing king he is.
A flush of vindication surges through him; he wants to roll his eyes and smirk through the desire swirling in his belly. To laugh at the irony that half an hour ago, Soren had left Quinn’s bed to look for a man who didn’t want him, and here he is, standing paralyzed in surprise on a public bus.
Instead, Quinn’s using all his strength to stay in his seat and not pull Connall’s shaggy head down for a kiss. To not lay him out on the floor and take his cock deep with only their other mate’s come to slick the way.
The sound of a cry, so mournful that the hair on Quinn’s neck stands straight up, pulls Quinn from his daydream of coming on Connall’s fancy designer suit, making it impossible for him to ever wear it again without everyone knowing he has been claimed.
Connall almost falls to his knees, but the bus takes a corner a little too fast, tipping him into a seat beside Quinn. Close but not touching.
“Oh, fuck,” is pulled from the alpha’s soul. “Why?”
Quinn could ask the same thing. After a year in Nashville, with Connall’s rejected mate in his bed—their mate in his bed—why today of all days? Why now?
And why does he look so broken?
“I met my mates today. They’re—you’re—perfect. Oh, fuck.”
Mates? Quinn’s stomach drops like a missed step.
Connall groans, bending at the waist and retching onto the floor of the bus. Nothing comes up, but Quinn is quick to find a tissue and offer his empty iced tea cup.
He’s careful not to think about the possibility of other mates.
About being part of something, instead of being untouchable.
It’s the roots that scare him, when he’s only ever imagined wings.
A pack feels like permanence, like stillness.
Like a closed door on every version of himself he hasn’t been yet.
But the ache blooming in his chest? That says something else.
That says he might want it, anyway.
Connall tries to stand, reaching for the bell pull, but they’re slipping onto the freeway, and they’re both stuck for another seven minutes.
Sighing, he tugs the back of Connall’s suit jacket, the expensive summer wool the exact shade of his eyes. “Don’t care how bad you want off—Baker’s the next stop. Sit down before you bust your head.”
He shouldn’t care whether or not this jackass breaks his fool neck, but he can’t have Soren’s sorrow on his head. Not knowing he could have stopped it.
“How long?” Connall grits out. “I’m barely hanging on here, and you smell—”
“I smell like what, cher? Fucking? Flowers? Regret?” He’s not quite sure whose regret, but it’s enough to make the older man flinch.
It’s satisfying, Quinn can admit it.
“Yes.” It sounds like it’s torn from his soul.
“We’ll be done here in no time,” Quinn drawls, letting sarcasm hide some of the lingering bitterness of Soren’s choices earlier.
Connall smacks the flat of his hand on the seat beside him. “Dammit. You don’t understand. You don’t know what I am.”
“Well, you’re right about the first part at least.” Quinn pulls a stick of mints out of his bag, offering one. “Take one. They’re peppermint. Should help with the nausea and work to block any undesirable smells.”
“Undesirable?” he asks, his dark eyebrows raised over wide eyes. “You’re fucking kidding me, right? You have to feel it too.”
“I don’t have to feel a fucking thing, boss.” Quinn shakes his head, pops his aviators up, and winks. “I don’t know you. Don’t want to. You’re running away. You just want to be free of us, yeah?”
Connall’s face crumples at the words, and he gags into the empty cup, spitting the mint out. He doesn’t ask how Quinn knows this—he’s so caught up in his own misery.
“Free?” he chokes out. “I’ll never be free.” It’s the sound of someone’s heart breaking.
No matter, Quinn tells himself, it’s not his concern. He doesn’t need to see more than he wants to.
“Aren’t you? I know you. What you want. No mates. No pack to hold you back. Just pure ambition and power,” Quinn scoffs.
“You don’t understand,” Connall says. “You don’t know me.”
“Maybe not, but what I said before? It’s true, right? You don’t want any part of a p—”
Their eyes lock. Quinn sees a multitude of expressions flash over his alpha’s face. Yes, he knows that Connall O’Daire is his Pack Alpha. It’s hard-wired into his wolf at the cellular level. But Quinn isn’t his wolf. Never has been.
The bus pulls over to the curb and brakes hard. The vehicle empties in a flash, including the driver, leaving them alone. The engine rumbles beneath Quinn’s boots—ones he tells himself will carry him out the door, back to work, away from this mess he didn’t ask for.
But he can’t move.
It’s Connall who finally climbs to his feet, staggering a single step. He uses the bus rails to pull himself away from Quinn as the scent of the coldest winter blends with Soren’s heliotrope—and the sweetest key lime pie—in his nose.
It’s not easy to stop himself from reaching out to stop him or from following. It’s what his wolf is howling with grief: that Connall is ours, not just mine. It’s not only the loss of a mate or his alpha leader—it’s also the loss of his potential pack.
But Quinn will never want anyone who doesn’t want him. Will never accept someone who doesn’t see him as a priority. Someone willing to face hard shit for him—with him. And he certainly isn’t going to beg him to stay.
His stomach turns the farther Connall moves away. He regrets offering the empty cup, now that the tea and tart threaten to come back up, but he forces it down, swallowing it with the lump in his throat.
Connall looks back, one last time, as if he’s trying to lock Quinn’s face in his memory, before he turns away without a goodbye.
Quinn tells himself he doesn’t watch him climb into a big black SUV and speed down Baker Street, or see Soren creep out of the darkened door of a pawn shop to do the same.