Chapter 9
NINE
LEON
The car skidded to a halt as he pulled alongside the Talbot hotel, lip curling in distaste as he surveyed the people walking the streets.
This was ridiculous. His being there even more so.
Leon owed Elena Costanzo less than nothing, yet he found himself stalking to the dull brass doors all the same.
He’d come last night to tell her the news of her changed fortune, and by Gods, he would do it now even if he questioned her lack of common sense.
Shoving his way past a Beta couple, he took a deep breath.
Chest expanding, making him seem larger, far more imposing than he needed to be for the simpering fool already cowering behind the front desk.
Her stupid guard thought this was safety?
“Elena Costanzo. What room?”
“I-I’m sorry, sir, we’re not allowed—”
“What. Room,” Leon snarled, bringing the side of his fist down hard on the cheap wood.
“Sir, please,” the sniveling man said, shoulders hunching to his ears in defense against the blow he expected to land next.
Then he smelled her. Floral and somehow elegant, spring jasmine on a gentle breeze. Turning his face into the compelling scent, Leon breathed deep and let it out in a rumble he remembered to turn into a growl at the last second as he spotted her hobbling through the lobby on her guard’s arm.
The cast was gone for some reason, and she managed to look even more frail than she had with it on. Hair a disheveled mess, with wispy strands floating around her face, she appeared lost and adrift.
He wanted to anchor her. Tether her back in the here and now where her eyes lit up and her cheeks grew rosy as her color ran high.
Just as her fury did as he snatched her arm, tugging her to a stop.
He hadn’t meant to pull so hard, her body colliding with his as she teetered off balance for a precious moment.
Leon took another deep breath, taking her in before he remembered himself and growled at her for confusing him in the first place.
“What do you think you are doing,” Leon demanded in a quiet snarl, mindful of all the stares they were garnering with this display.
He should have followed her into the elevator, caught her within the confines of the metal box where other ears wouldn’t hear them, but it was too late now.
She did this. Forever throwing him off balance just when he decided to put her out of his mind.
“Returning to my room,” Elena said, all the color draining out of her as something too close to terror flickered in her warm hazel gaze. Gone before Leon could say he really saw it, her anger replaced it in a molten flash. “Not that it is any of your business.”
“Get your hands off of her,” the guard snapped, making no effort to keep his voice down despite the many heads that turned their way.
“Jamie, it doesn’t matter,” Elena whispered, her skin cold where Leon still held her. “None of it matters anymore.”
“What is that supposed to mean,” Leon demanded on another growl, frustrated with how much he wanted to sooth the tremble from her voice and throttle her for being so uncaring of her image. Especially now.
“It means I’m already ruined, so what does it fucking matter,” Elena hissed.
He almost released her, she’d become so vehement, but her stammering curse had Leon’s grip tightening, pulling her into the protective warmth of his shadow as his brows crashed low.
“And how are you ruined now?” Scoffing at the very idea that her clandestine dinner with his brother and their argument last night had amounted to so much, he still rubbed a slow arc against her chilled skin with his thumb. Willing his heat into her as she slumped within his hold.
“As if you didn’t know,” Elena snarled, wrenching her arm from his grip only to stumble several paces before she caught her balance and rounded on him.
Working herself into a fine temper if the spots of rose at her cheeks were of any indication.
Unwilling to allow her to embarrass herself further, Leon grabbed her arm again, hauling her after him towards the bank of elevators.
He ignored her sputtering as he shoved her into the machine, making a rude gesture at the guard when he inserted himself between them.
Let him come. The bastard did little else to protect his charge.
“What game are you playing at, Miss Costanzo,” Leon demanded as he crowded her into the corner, growling at the Beta guard when he tried to block Leon’s path.
Leon stopped short of touching her. Remaining far enough away he wouldn’t give in to the urge to gather her against him.
To wipe away the layers of makeup hiding her from him.
Something clicked in his thoughts. Elena never wore such heavy makeup, the pasty layers caked to her soft skin all down her neck and chest. Something had happened.
“What is wrong with you?” Leon’s hand came up, intending nothing more than to indicate the trembling of her lips, but she reacted as if he’d swung his fist at her.
“As if you didn’t know after what you did,” Elena shouted as the doors opened on the floor the guard had selected.
“I’ve done nothing to you,” Leon snarled, hauling Elena to tip toe as he walked her backwards out of the elevator and into the long hall. He gave a withering glare to two males further down, sending them rushing off in the opposite direction.
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t see it as anything of importance. Not to a man such as yourself,” Elena ground out as she struggled within his hold.
The insufferable guard was there again, daring to touch Elena as he growled low in his throat at Leon. “Let her go, damn you. You’ve done enough to her as it is.”
“I have not even begun,” Leon said with a cruel twist of his lips, more for the guard’s benefit than Elena’s, but both acted as if they’d been slapped. “You would dare draw a gun on me?”
The guard, Jamie, didn’t even pause, shoving the nose of the pistol into Leon’s ribs. Glancing down, Leon saw the gun already cocked, the safety released. What in the name of the Gods had happened here that he would risk so much?
So surprised by this turn of events, Leon lost his grip on Elena. Allowing her to extricate herself from the middle of things to turn and stalk down the hall towards a door where she shoved a keycard into the slot and disappeared inside.
“You’ve done enough to her,” Jamie said, even and calm despite the alarm deep in his eyes. “Now leave her be.”
“I haven’t done a damned thing,” Leon snarled, and he was after her. Chasing Elena down the hall to slide into the room and close the door hard behind him.
Locking the guard out as he hammered his fist against the panel.
Elena’s shrill sound cut right down to his core as she stumbled backwards to get away from him. She wedged her back into the corner, shaking her head with arms outstretched in a pitiful display to keep Leon back.
“What is the matter with you,” Leon demanded while wrenching her arms down, tired of her hysterics when there was no reason for them with him.
Frustrated and furious in turns as she continued to treat him like some kind of monster.
“My brother is good enough to be alone with, but not me, is that it?”
“Please, just get out,” Elena sobbed, crumpling in on herself to make a smaller target.
“Not until you tell me what’s going on here. Did Anthony do something to you?”
“You did something to me, you bastard,” Elena screamed, the sound high and shrill before it spiraled into a scream as the guard burst in, having broken the door open.
Ignoring the man brandishing the gun wasn’t the smartest thing, but Leon could not understand what Elena meant. Their argument wasn’t cause for all of this. “Come now, you’re all up in arms over that?”
Elena swayed, stunned into silence for an all too brief moment before she launched herself at him.
Hands shaped into claws as she sent them towards his face, intent on gouging out his eyes.
The intensity of her fury surprised him, enough so she got one swipe of her long nails in against his cheek before Leon reacted.
Grabbing hold of her, he twisted Elena around in his arms until she was pinned against his body.
Holding her tight enough to strangle her breaths down to shallow gasps.
“Tell me what it is you think I have done, and I’ll release you,” Leon growled at her ear, keeping the guard in his sights. Putting the power of an Alpha’s command into his voice, he subdued them both.
“You came here last night,” Elena hissed.
“You were the one cavorting around with my brother without a chaperone, Miss Costanzo. You cannot blame me for that.”
“After,” Elena sobbed, writhing in his too tight grip, trying to get away only to bring Leon’s arms about her tighter.
“What do you mean?” Leon set his chin to her shoulder, listening to her miserable weeping and wanting nothing so much as to soothe the tremble from her body.
“You came here. Stole it. I have nothing to offer anyone. You’ve ruined me!”
“Stole what?”
Elena collapsed against him, crying too hard to answer. Her response dissolving into unmanageable tears that smeared her syllables into one another until there was no hope of understanding. Leon carefully relaxed his hold, cradling her as he pet at her hair in an awkward attempt to console.
“Her virginity,” Jamie muttered, sliding his gun back into its holster. Knowing he couldn’t shoot an Alpha without grave repercussions.
“You think me capable of that,” Leon snarled, anger coursing through his veins white hot as he gave Elena a rough shake.
Sending a broken sound grinding through her throat as he witnessed the damage done to her smooth skin.
During their struggles her makeup had come away, baring the evidence of deep bruises, their purpled hue decorating her neck and chest in livid swathes.
Someone had hurt her, but it hadn’t been him.
“I didn’t, but I knew it was you,” Elena said, trying in vain to crawl away from him before Leon jerked her back against him. Forcing her to remain pinned against his heat as she came undone.
“And pray tell how did you know it was me?”
“I smelled you. Can still smell you. The bed, my clothes. Me…”
Leon took a cautious sniff and could discern nothing but the flat, ugly soap of the hotel and her own particular scent.
But there, a hint of evergreens despite the cleaning the staff had given to the room in Elena’s absence.
Leon took a deep breath, turning his head away from Elena to be rid of her delectable fragrance to catch a waft of his aftershave.
It could be from his time in the room just now, no doubt, but it seemed too layered, too faint to be such.
“I did no such thing to you,” he murmured, releasing Elena when she struggled free this time. No wonder she thought him a monster.
“Deny it all you want,” Elena said, her anger falling away in cracked shards as she slogged her way across the cheap carpet towards the safety of her guard. “I know what I know. You’ve taught me my lesson, haven’t you?”
Leon jerked back as if she’d punched him. His words thrown back at him. No wonder she thought him capable of it.
“Do the right thing, sir,” Jamie muttered, managing to turn the honorific into a slur as he did. “Leave her be.”
Something inside of Leon snapped. Elena was ruined. She had nothing to offer any Alpha that might take her in despite her current circumstances, and that would be the lowest of positions within a family if she was capable of pulling off such a thing.
She blamed him for it. Thought him a monster.
He’d show her just how monstrous he could be.
Glancing at his watch, he saw it was merely a quarter after three. More than early enough.
He grabbed hold of Elena’s arm once more before she could find the safety of her guard, hauling her after him as he burst free of the broken door and dragged her along to the elevators. There wasn’t time to make this pretty, but it would be done.
“What are you doing? Let me go!”
“Be still,” Leon snapped as the doors opened on the lobby where people stared at Elena’s unkempt hair and disheveled clothes. Judging her as little better than a whore as Leon marched her across the cheap tile towards the brass doors.
Yes. There was plenty of time.