Chapter 32 #2
He doesn’t open his mouth to speak. Through our bond, I get everything he’s conveying. He’s worried but knows we’re past that. He’s changed, exactly like I have. He’s as starving and as desperate as I am. He wants to plunge back inside my body and knot me stupid.
“I want that,” I murmur, my eyes rolling back as I sink into the pleasure he’s remembering.
It might not have been ideal with everyone watching, but there’s no denying it was incredible.
Aleksei takes a step closer, indecision still marring his beautiful face. “He’ll kill us if he finds out.” His accent is more pronounced, his voice low and commanding, but it’s just him and me. For now.
“He won’t find out,” I promise him. And it’s outlandish to think I could ever hide our connection, but I am confident, considering I’ve hidden that Santiago and Kade are mine too.
I stare at him, getting lost in him all over again.
“I can’t risk him figuring out who you are. Even though we hid it from everyone very well,” he admits after a few long moments.
My fingers rub the pooling slick around my pussy, and he finally turns his attention to what I’m doing and watches. His expression mirrors everything I am experiencing.
“Who am I?” I press gently, wanting to hear him say out loud what I already know.
“Mine,” he growls.
A surge of his dominance swamps our bond with his possessiveness. It elicits a tremor of sensation over my skin, and the room fills with my sweet scent, made sweeter by my arousal and his desire.
He groans, the noise rumbling all through the room like thunder in a storm.
Using fingers that were inside my pussy, I beckon him closer. And then I beg, my voice floaty and soft, “Aleksei, please, your distance literally makes me see stars.”
He moves as fast as lightning as the space between us disappears.
But he doesn’t reach out to touch me; his beautiful, mismatched eyes fall to the bite on my hand.
We’re past hiding from each other, and I twist my hand, offering it so he can see the deep moon-shaped scar that will forever be on both sides of my hand.
His touch is as tentative as it is reverent. It’s consuming, and the whole moment is made more intense because of his voice. It dips low and is intimate. “Why did you hide this?”
I leave my hand in his but swing around to sit on his lap. “The same reason you tried to pretend I wasn’t yours.”
For the first time since I met him, he lets go of his ego and his designation. And it’s fucking intoxicating as his true self rains down over me from above. The intensity of him, coupled with the insight as to how much of himself he has hidden from the world, is as scary as it is brilliant.
One day soon, we will utilize his incredible acting skills, and mine, to fix our troubles, but not until after I’ve taken my fill of him. Like this, he’s everything.
“Aleksei,” I whisper, trying to get serious for a second, but he’s blown my mind, so I can’t stop my hands from exploring him while I brush my nose under his jawline. “I have to tell you something.”
He holds my hips up off him, but not because he doesn’t want me. God, I can read how much he does. He wants to hear what I have to tell him, because that’s Aleksei—a caregiver, dream catcher, and fierce protector rolled into one.
“Tell me, milaya,” he insists. Again, his words rumble over my skin as obvious as I hear them.
“Kade and Santiago…”
He stops me by lowering me onto his lap and pressing his lips to mine. Where we touch, sparks of pleasure tease my senses alive.
His lips are soft, his tongue pressing inside my mouth. I whimper, lost to the way he switches between claiming licks and nips to pouring all his emotion into a kiss. I lose my mind, falling into each swipe of his tongue. It’s so goddamn incredible kissing him, so much better than I ever dreamed.
Aleksei sucks my bottom lip into his mouth, dragging it through his teeth while he shuffles our position so he’s lying over me, pinning me down with his hips.
“After. First, I’m tasting you, feeling the stretch of your beautiful pussy around my knot, then licking until you scent of only me.
Once it’s undeniable who has claimed you, then we talk of them. ”
I want that.
Goddamn, I want that.
But I’d be a shitty mate to him if the first thing I did was deceive him.
It doesn’t mean I don’t savor the opportunity.
Moving my hands to undo his shirt buttons, I undress him without looking or saying a word.
He lets me push him up, so I can take it off.
I freeze up and lose myself for all the wrong reasons when my fingers trace over the scar, because I fucking know how close I came to losing Aleksei.
He wouldn’t remember—he was out of it—but I live it again whenever I wake in the night.
“Look at me,” he barks. It’s not aggressive, but I can’t fight against the command.
I find his eyes on my face, and he dips to kiss me slowly, chasing away dark memories. “I’m here, that’s all that matters.”
“Yes and no, Aleksei.” I hide under his chin. “I saw you nearly die.”
“And I’m about to show you how alive I am.”
His words are a balm on wounds I have been avoiding and ignoring. I drop my head and submit to the weight I’ve been carrying around for so long. Jesus, I want this with him, but I also know how dangerous it would be. And I won’t risk him. Or them.
“I want you to drug, then protect me until my heat has passed. I’ve got medication in my room.”
His breath rushes out as he locks up in a sudden rush of anxiety.
I kiss his throat as my fingers trace his scar on his side.
“I can’t do my heat here. I want to. Every cell in my body pines for you, but I can feel your anxiety, and it matches my own.
It’s why you locked me in your suite, without my guards, because you know how dangerous it would be to simply say fuck the world and languish with me. ”
I squeeze my eyes shut, to try to stop the well of emotion. It’s mine… and his.
He buries one of his hands in my hair. The tug as he drags me from my hiding spot sends thrills down my body. I expected him to lose his shit, and he does, but not how I expected.
“Say you’re mine. Tell me I can have your other heats. Every one of them,” he growls, holding me back from his lips but close enough I can feel his breath as he speaks.
“Yours. Everything is yours.”
He grins, that deeply concealed ego of his pushing past his shields again until I whimper as he reinforces his claim with his presence bearing down on me. I submit in an instant, accepting how effortlessly he overpowers me.
“You won’t be able to deny me a thing, Quinn. Every secret inside you, I will hear. Every fear of yours, I will face. I’ve spent my whole life hiding, and I refuse to hide from you.”
My body sags in relief, but he’s not finished blowing my mind. “You’re fucking perfect. I will do whatever you want, but we do it my way.”
KADE
The door cracks open, and I’m nearly flattened by her scent. And by the dominance rolling off Aleksei.
“Roshka, Nalla.” He snarls something in Russian, but I have to step further away from the door if I want to stay on my feet.
The dogs prowl forward, slowly and menacingly. It freaks me out, how cold and vacant their eyes are.
“You.” Aleksei points at me. “Get more weapons, then go to her.”
He walks past me, his shirt hanging open, his belt undone. I don’t need to draw on the experience of being a detective to know she’s had her hands on him. Which cuts. I’m not ashamed by the jealousy that flares; all it does is confirm what I have always known—Quinn is my Omega.
I break into a jog back to my room, picking up the case Santiago provided.
It’s nondescript but packed with enough ammunition to take down a small army, as well as give me a couple of choices of revolvers.
Any law enforcement agent around the world would be the talk of the town if they were responsible for the bust that took this kind of hoard off the streets.
On my way towards Aleksei’s room, I detour to the sitting room, ready to load up my arms with drinks and food, but he stops me from entering.
“I have plenty in my suite.” His voice cracks under the strain of tension.
Despite my eagerness to go to her, I stop, ready to sort out whatever shit is bothering Aleksei.
“If it were up to me, I’d lock you outside that door,” he growls, pointing to the one we constructed. “Apparently, she makes me look at things differently. And you are one of the things.”
The smile that breaks over my face isn’t a gloating one. Thankfully, the Alpha in Aleksei is reasonable enough to read it for what it is—joy.
I swallow my happiness down, moving past it because while there’s a time and space to celebrate, now is not it. Fucking Sergey could be minutes away from arriving back and demanding to see her.
“Can I help you with something? Save some time, perhaps?” I ask, careful to offer my question as a suggestion.
Aleksei is clearly on the edge of losing it, and I don’t want to add to the stress he’s already feeling. It’s evident he’s got a sweet spot for her, and given his role here, I’m sure he’s thought of pretty much everything regarding her safety.
His focus towards Santiago who continues pacing in the sitting room of Quinn’s suite as he talks on his mobile, doesn’t shift, and the energy pulsing off him isn’t friendly. “I thought he would be more eager, but he’s been on that call a long time. Perhaps I heard Quinn wrong?”
It’s in my DNA to placate the situation, and while I refuse to be weak in front of him, I’m not about to get riled up about being less obvious in my strength.
“Aleksei.” I speak quietly and know he’s listening.
“He hasn’t second-guessed you once. Give him the respect he deserves.
Once he is done, I am sure he will explain. ”
I turn, leaving him to his thoughts and Santiago to his call. Both are going to have to find a way to coexist if they want any of Quinn’s time. From the time we spent together, I know she has a very low tolerance for BS or the games people play.
SANTIAGO
Valentine finishes speaking, but his anger lingers. He’s livid and about to start a war with the Russians. We probably will, but first, we need to establish where the children are being sourced and rescue the ones I saw earlier tonight.
The photos I took of the victims are being run through the database we have in the Trinity Alliance, searching for answers.
“Say again what was said.” Ronin’s talking immediately, demanding more of an explanation.
I wish I had more to tell him, but all I have is what Sergey said. I repeat it again for him. “Do you like what our Irish friends sent us? That was the first mention, and then he referred to a woman named Olga and a Catalina. They apparently handle parts of the process. He was vague, Ronin.”
“It’s enough to get you started.” Valentine cuts through Ronin’s growls and snarls.
It’s clear he’s pissed off. We all are. Ronin is the explosive one in our alliance.
“Aye, it fucking is. This bullshite can’t go unanswered.”
Both Valentine and I jump in, trying to appease him. We won’t get far if we’re screaming at each other. But children being taken is what bound us together and forged the Trinity Alliance. We’re all passionate about the cause and rightly emotional because of it too.
“Clearly,” Valentine says coolly. He’d be offended by Ronin insinuating we won’t be dealing with this as a collective.
I interrupt the tense silence with some sense. “We’re not going into this half-cocked either.”
The two of them hiss in challenge at what I say, no doubt hearing it as me alluding to us not being thorough.
How we work together is beyond me sometimes. They are both as impatient and irrationally passionate as the other.
Which is all well and good, but I don’t have time to psychoanalyze their personalities or to justify my reasoning. I need to get off this call. My heart is being torn in two, knowing I’m out here, talking, while I should be inside Aleksei’s suite.
It’s a tough, tough call because I also can’t leave anything to chance when the stakes are so high.
The practice of kidnapping and trafficking innocent children and Omegas is picking up again.
Someone in our world is pushing hard to restart the disgusting and sick act, even knowing they face the full force of the Trinity Alliance.
But Quinn needs me too.
Aleksei has been in a mood since he stormed out of his suite. The dogs prowled past a few minutes ago, but they followed Kade back in, so I’m left alone with him.
“I’ve got to go.” I interrupt Ronin and Valentine discussing what we should do next.
Immediately, they stop talking, and it has to be this way.
Three Alphas, each with responsibilities of their own, as well as taking on the Trinity Alliance, is a big call, so when one of us says something, we trust each other enough to know it as fact.
“Wait!” Ronin shouts as I’m about to hang up.
I hear him in the background talking, and then I hear him clearer, asking for evidence. Of what, I’m not sure.
The minutes draw out, and I nearly hang up, but he comes back onto the phone.
“No shite, hey.” He sounds a lot more jovial than the situation we’ve been talking about calls for.
“What?” I snap, losing my patience. Finally.
“Keegan’s got me the proof we’ve been looking for. I’ve just seen it with me own eyes too.” Ronin’s Irish accent is thick and getting harder to understand with his excitement. “The cunt that came and tried to kill Paddy and Jeany is probably under the same roof as you.”
“What?” I scoff.
“Aye, you heard that right. It was fucking Aleksei Petrov who came here with all his guns fecking blazing. If you kill him yaself, Santiago, I won’t be happy. Bring him here to me.”
“Send me a photo.” I hang up on Valentine and Ronin.
I hope like fucking crazy there’s crossed wires. It wouldn’t be hard—all the Russians look the same, and their names sound the same. And, yes, I realize I’m being entirely disrespectful by lumping them all in one basket, but my anxiety is peaking. I don’t have time for manners right now.
An alert pings on my phone, and I feel sick. I blow out a steadying breath as I open the Trinity Alliance app we use. It happens at the same time Aleksei storms over to stand in front of me.
My eyes dart from the grainy image on my phone to the Alpha in front of me. There’s no denying they’re the same person.
Aleksei Petrov is responsible for nearly slaying Ronin’s parents and wiping out half the Irish in a hail of bullets.
Fuck.
Jesus, fuck.
Fuck.