“Bit fucking early for trouble, ain’t it?” I shake my head, pulling up the message.
There’s no name, no number.I told her to stay away, maybe she’ll listen now.
An attachment opens and a grainy image of the little Omega I got lost in fills the screen.
Chapter
Eight
TRISTAN
Something interrupts my sleep. But once I lift my head out from under the pillow, there’s nothing but silence, so I flop back down on my pillow, figuring it must have been my dream that woke me up.
I nearly drift back off except right at the last second there’s the noise again, and this time my body is flooded by a rush of adrenaline as I go from dreamy to awake. I hate the jittery feeling when you wake up suddenly.
The longer I wait for the sound again, the faster my heart pounds but at the same time I have to fight to keep my eyes from closing. I’m so goddamn tired. What feels like hours later, the same noise happens again. Now it’s easy to figure out the sound is coming from the door.
“Hold up,” I slur out, rolling to my feet. My eyes move from barely open past slits as I bundle my hair up and start down towards the front door. But because the suite is unfamiliar, and my eyes are pretty much closed again, I bounce off the walls and furniture as I make my way to the door.
Whoever is at the door is impatient because they also start hitting the door chime, while continuing to knock.
I don’t use the peep hole or open my mouth to tell King to shut up, instead I pull the door open dramatically while shushing him up.
I remember opening the door.
I remember someone laughing and saying something like, ‘you were told’.
After that all I feel is pain.
It’s over before it starts.
Clarity trickles back in slowly. I don’t have to figure hard to know how fucking scared I am but at the same time I don’t have the strength to work out what happened. Nothing is making sense except someone just attacked me. Why they did, I can’t even start to think about because it makes the fear explode. I want to say they didn’t touch me sexually, but I just don’t fucking know. Everything makes me numb. Everything.
All the noise goes from my head, all the pain disappears, and I lie there, staring and not moving, wondering if I imagined everything. Not feeling anything is a switch and my subconscious starts searching for things to anchor me. Without trying, because I’ve done this so many goddamn times, I search. I see the ceiling, the coffered cornicing, and I stare at it until sounds start to return. I scratch the wall with my nails until my brain can pick up on the sound. With noise returning, so does the pain, and I lose track of my focussing exercises.
It takes a while to wrangle control of my anxiety, and once I do, my thoughts hit hyper-speed and I’m swamped by a million things I suddenly want to do; lie down, sleep, chase those bastards down to kick their faces, but there’s a stronger more desperate need first, I have to find a place to hide.
I crawl through the suite, searching for a dark corner. And I find it back in the bedroom suite, the place that is saturated with his and my scent. Curling into a ball too small for my long arms and legs, I wrap my hands around my face, desperate tonot make a sound in case they return but powerless to stop the noises from escaping. I indulge in a silent sob for God knows how long. Eventually the tears dry up and I’m left once again staring at nothing in complete shock.
I hear knocking at my door. And this time I know it is King. Which pisses me off and sends me spiralling because how could I have thought it was him before? How could I misinterpret the way I can physically feel him? His presence is so fucking huge and invasive it strangles me in his desperation.
“Tristan!” His booming voice ricochets through the suite and I lock on to it like a lifeline. “Tris!” he yells out again. His voice is so loud, it’s like thunder in a stormy sky, but it’s not scary, it’s cathartic—reminding me I’m alive.
I feel every step he makes as he searches the suite. I hear his breathing like his mouth is next to my ear and then he’s filling the doorway. The light behind him makes him seem bigger, but it also gives me the chance to see him. His eyes are full of retribution but it’s his stoic scent that batters right through me, and I dissolve into noisy hysterics.
King drops to his knees. His face changes, becoming a mask of indifference. It freaks me out, but I get it too. I can scent how close he is to losing it.
“I’m sorry,” I shout. And I know I don’t need to apologise but that doesn’t stop my mouth from opening.
“Don’t you dare, killer,” he growls back just as loudly, even though there is no space that separates us.
King’s careful not to look at me, and I get it’s an Alpha thing, because from the glance before I know his eyes are not full of nice things right now. Without waiting for him to calm down, I crawl to him. He makes room for me, and even before I have my head on his chest, a deep melodic noise rumbles out of him. Neither of us put up a fight when he holds me close, my ear to his chest as he purrs.
His torso is the only thing I can see, his bourbon scent the only thing I can smell, his anger the only thing I can feel.
We sit there for ages, both of us lost until we find our way back to each other.
“I have to have a look,” King says softly. And hearing King be soft nearly sets me off again but it’s also a good reminder of how I’m not soft. “You forget to tell me someone threatened you, killer?”
