Chapter 22
LIV
THREAT OF JOY - THE STROKES
“Iswear to fucking god, if you don’t let me in there right fucking now, I will cut you from knot to nape without batting an eye.”
Alexei grins down at me and tilts his head. “You are adorable.”
“And you’re a fucking dead man!” I screech as I lunge for the gigantic sack of limp dicks, Rune catching me mid-air but I kick my legs and swing my fists, anyway. “Dead and buried, motherfucker!”
“While I’m having an absolute banger of a time trying to keep a feral omega out of my auction house, I do have business to attend to.” Alexei chuckles when I growl at him. “And rules are rules, sweet cheeks. Adder employees stop here.”
He motions over his shoulder to the door Rune has been posted at since our shift started, as if I can’t fucking read the sign on it that says Pushkin Staff Only Beyond This Point. Something I decide to reiterate.
“I can read, dickhead, I just don’t give a good goddamn.
” I pointlessly wriggle around in my alpha’s arms, trying to do what, I don’t know because I won’t be going anywhere unless the big guy lets me.
“I’m starting to worry about your IQ, though, since the English language appears to be too fucking complicated for you. ”
Alexei lifts his eyes to Rune’s, staring at him over my head as he laughs. “You’ve got your hands full with this one, my brother. She’s fucking feisty.”
“You don’t seem to understand what’s going on,” I grunt as I contemplate taking off my mask and throwing it at this idiot since it’s all I’ve got at the moment. “I’m telling you, my omega is down there, something is wrong, and—”
“What’s the problem, Pushkin?”
I sigh in relief, my body sagging against Rune’s chest as I hear my beta’s voice, only to stiffen up the second I turn to face him.
“One of your employees is going rogue, Adder, and she might have a few screws loose since she’s trying to get into the auction house.”
Styx winks at me as he clears the stairs, reaching out to squeeze my hand before he puts himself between me and the giant, grinning asshat in front of me, but my eyes stay glued to the equally big, very familiar male that stops directly next to me.
Oh shit.
“I’d bid on you. Top dollar, easy,” the white haired alpha I just scent matched says as he looks me up and down with a grin.
“Then again, I’d also break into the dorms and steal you right out from under this idiot’s nose so I didn’t have to pay.
I’m a little too frugal for my own good.
” His smile widens as he looks between me and Rune then nods to Styx. “Just ask my boyfriend, he’ll agree.”
Oh, double shit.
“What’s going on, Row?” my beta asks as he turns to face me, even though I’m staring at his boyfriend instead. “Why is the big guy holding you back from plowing through Pushkin and the door behind him?”
I swallow hard as I tear my eyes away from my other alpha—might as well call it like it is—and take a deep breath.
“Mikhail. He was texting me a while ago, he was supposed to come up so he could talk to you as a matter of fact, but he obviously didn’t.
I can’t get a hold of him at all and something feels—”
“You heard her,” the white haired alpha barks as Rune finally sets me down. “Something is off with our omega. Open the fucking door.”
Styx sighs and holds up a hand then turns back to Alexei. “I’ve got this, Leon.”
“Oh, I know, Red. You’ve got it in spades, but the urgency rolling off our little bird right now is more than enough for me to ask you nicely to fucking use it.”
“What does he mean, your omega?” The Russian idiot asks. “I know it isn’t out of the realm of possibility for Leonidas to refer to himself in third person but, I didn’t think, I mean, I thought that asshat was an alpha.”
Styx pushes a hand back through his hair as Leon laughs. “Wanna see my knot?”
Alexei’s face twists in disgust. “You’re not my type.”
“And I’m happily taken.” Leon motions to the three of us.
“But I have no problem dropping my leathers to show you how much of an alpha I am. Big dick, thick knot, huge fucking balls. Balls that mean you need to open the fucking door and let Row in to check on our other omega because I don’t give a fuck who you are or what you do, I will—”
“Okay, that’s enough,” I say as I grab Leon’s forearm and give it a gentle squeeze, doing the same to Rune before I slide in front of Styx.
“Let's play nice, now.” I sigh as I look up at the alpha I want to punch in the throat. “I really don’t care about anything except getting to Mikhail. I just want to go in, make sure he’s okay, then bring him out to talk to him.
Whatever happens behind that door doesn’t matter to me unless it involves my mate, and the last thing I want to do is hang out in an area where omegas are auctioned off like farm animals. ”
He looks at me for a moment, his cobalt blue eyes bouncing between mine before he nods. “Go in, get him, get out. Got it?”
“I got it. Thank you.”
“This isn’t going to be a regular thing.”
I roll my eyes with a huff as I watch him unlock the door. “You’ve got that right. There’s a big fucking problem if I have to do this more than once.” I step through the doorway and look back at the alpha over my shoulder. “If there was a next time, I’d have to let them fight my battle for me.”
Alexei barks out a laugh and shakes his head. “So fucking feisty. Knock three times when you’re ready to leave.”
Then the door closes and I am running past a bunch of security guards, through a fuckton of seating, and following my instincts right to another fucking bathroom.
Why does he keep ending up in one of these?
I push through the door and don’t bother waiting to see if anyone else is inside and the second I do, what I hear has my heart cracking right down the middle.
“I’m so sorry, Liv.”
“Niko,” I say, my voice cracking as he comes right for me, wrapping his arms tightly around my waist as he buries his face in my neck. “Honey, what happened?”
He shakes his head and takes a stuttering breath, but he doesn’t speak.
He doesn’t have to.
I can smell the sex in here, smell Niko’s lavender mixed with butterscotch and something else. For a split second I worry it wasn’t consensual, that my sweet boy was attacked and the blood on the floor doesn’t help, but I can tell that wasn’t the case.
The other scent, it’s almost familiar, and being able to touch my omega, to see him and feel his emotions more clearly, he’s conflicted about whatever happened in here.
He’s not afraid, he’s not in pain. Niko is worried and full of what I can only call remorse.
His heart aches, it aches in a way that is so heavy it has mine beating a little faster.
“Shh, sweet boy.” I wrap my arms around his neck and hug tightly, stroking my hand over his silky blond hair as I try to soothe him. “I’m here. Everything is okay. You’re okay. I’m here, honey.”
Niko holds me tighter as he silently cries, rubbing his cheek against me, scenting me hard as he starts to shake. “I’m… God, I’m so fucking sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. There’s no reason to apologize. I love you, everything is okay.”
“I love you,” he chokes out through his tears. “And that’s why I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Hey.” He lifts his head as I pull back, cupping his cheeks as my eyes search his.
“Nothing is going to change between us, nothing is going to change how I feel. I know I haven’t been a very good mate to you, not with how focused on my plan I’ve been, but I love you and that is never going to change. Tell me what happened, honey.”
Niko looks at me a little longer before he takes a deep breath and nods. “Can we get out of here?”
“We can do whatever you want.”
As long as it doesn’t include continuing his food strike, or leaving me.
I might be the asshole here, but losing this man will devastate me. After a week of secrets and not being able to read my omega, it’s hard for me to keep my mind from jumping to the worst case scenario. All I can do is hope it’s the wrong one.
“Dimitri is here.” My eyes go wide as Niko nods. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I can’t say I didn’t want it to, we’re bonded, my instincts took over, but I didn’t mean for it to happen. We were arguing, yelling at each other and things got out of hand.”
“You had sex.” That explains the smell. “I get it.”
He shakes his head. “No, Liv, you don’t.
I’ve been so angry with him, so pissed about how we left things, and I found strength in that.
I found strength in you. I was able to put up these walls, tall ones to keep those feelings and memories as far away as possible, and all it took was scenting him one time for me to fall apart. ”
“You knew he was here last week.”
Niko nods.
“That’s why you had the panic attack.”
“Yes,” he says as he fights a sob, reaching out to take off my mask before cupping my cheeks.
“I should have told you, I never should have kept that from you but I couldn’t handle it.
I couldn’t face the fact that he was so close after almost two years apart, and I can’t help but think that if I’d have said something to you, I wouldn’t have caved the way I did tonight. ”