“It was so quick; I couldn’t do anything. And the door was locked, I just thought it was you because no one else knew I was using this suite,” I say, purposely looking into his eyes, I’m not going to hide from King how I fucked up.
“That’s what worries me, Tristan. You get that?” He stares back in challenge, and instead of getting my back up at the look in his eye, it sinks in differently, like it’s okay for us to be like this with each other; dropping the niceties and simply being ourselves.
I don’t bother answering his question because it is futile. Instead, I shuffle off his lap and together we peel off what I was sleeping in. And then he helps me up to standing, keeping his huge hands on my hips like supporting beams, ensuring my legs don’t buckle.
“What’s wrong?” he asks suddenly, interrupting me mid-turn.
“I don’t know if they…” I reluctantly admit when he turns me around.
“They beat you, but they didn’ttouchyou like that. You get me?” His words are clipped, and it’s not hard to figure out why.
“I get you,” I snap back while also letting him turn me around.
It’s almost excruciating how long it takes him to check out every inch of my body. The only comfort I get is from the violence I see in his eyes when he finally finishes. He stands upwithout saying a word and uses his hands on my hips to walk me into the bathroom. The dark matches the sombreness and when two loud and larger than life people are quiet and bleak you know something shitty has happened.
King uses the night lights, the warm glow coming from them isn’t enough to improve the mood, but it does give us light to see the blossoming bruises on my mid-section. It’s reassuring when he doesn’t bother to hide the steady increase of his growls as he touches each mark on my body again, and while there are a few, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. He inspects each one a third time without taking off the hand he has glued on my hip. Only once he is done and has catalogued them all does King look me in the eyes.
He’s showing me he’s still not right but he’s also showing me how he will be dealing with what has been done. Not one part of me feels regret or sadness because that look of vengeance in his eyes would echo mine if anyone hurt him or one of my Scorned Girls.
“How are you feeling?” he says eventually, reaching to turn the faucet on before tugging my panties to my feet. I climb out of them and straight back onto his lap. He locks his arms around me almost like he is ivy, wrapping me in his touch and scent. Within moments I am covered in King and the world feels okay again.
“Like an idiot but at the same time I’m pissed off,” I tell him, nuzzling up under his chin, dropping my nose to his sweet scent spot on his neck. But I need his bourbon scent now more than ever. I have no issue with taking everything he is throwing my way—I’m a strong, confident Omega who needs a stronger Alpha to catch me when I fall. Or get pushed.
Some Alphas try to temper their designation or hide away the parts of them that are ugly: possessiveness, an insatiable need to care, retribution, but I like the way he is unapologeticallyAlpha. I know there’s a huge ‘but’ hanging over us, but I’ve never said I am altruistic—my parents raised me to be the opposite really. From the first scent, I knew King was mine and I’d have him no matter the cost. We just need to figure out how ‘we’ happen, especially now it looks like there’s someone lurking around making threats one day and backing their texts up with a physical reminder the next.
Without question, I idolise Raney. I know she’d probably abhor what’s going on between me and King. She’d be hurt about me not saying anything too but now that the person who threatened me has crossed the line, what if by telling Raney I’m putting her in danger.
I sink into his hold as he scents up a storm. His bourbon scent is still sharp enough to cut but the deeper, smokier undertones of his scent reinforce how right we are for each other.
His phone rings, and he answers it before pushing it into the crook of his neck, and I get a sense he’s not ready to cut our physical connection. His eyes don’t leave me, even as he grunts and snarls to the person on the other end about organising more sweeps and looking again. His barks echo around the small bathroom when someone challenges him, I put my hand on his shoulder for no other reason but to steady him, and his biting responses change almost immediately although he’s still pissed off.
Shuffling the phone between his shoulder, he speaks in a slightly better tone as he demands answers, but he also lifts me into his arms and cradles me into the bath. The warm water feels cold compared to how warm I was in his arms, but I sink into it.
I can feel King’s gaze on my face as I close my eyes. Someone says something and he storms away with the heavy clump of his boot, a dull thud to my ears underwater. Holding my breath, Ihear him stomp through the suite and I use his steps to slow my heart while I try to drown out the reality of what happened.
Floating up to the top of the water and taking a breather of air, it’s King’s mood and slow steps in the other room that keep me in a weird lull, and for some reason other ugly memories surface.
I shouldn’t pay memories of growing up any credence and I usually have my memories locked up tight, except it seems my vulnerability is getting further tested tonight. Usually, I can wrestle anything associated with Troy back to the furthest part of my mind, but apparently not tonight because what if I was reading this whole thing wrong? What if the voices in my head were right, just like Troy said, and I was blowing this out of proportion.
“Killer,” King barks, his voice somehow fills my ears as loud and strong as if his lips were against the shell of them. I sit up in a wave of panic completely horrified by how dark and wrong my thoughts are. King’s bark was like a bucket of cold water.
Without waiting for an explanation as to why I’m floundering, King scoops me out of the bath and into his arms, somehow wrapping a warm towel around me. He smashes through the ghosts from yesterday.
“What the fuck were you thinking about?” He growls, careful not to look at me in an Alpha inspired glare as he takes me further away from my latest meltdown. I didn’t think I was that far gone in memories but clearly, I was. I hold on to him for dear life.
I focus on King’s arms around me, warm and secure. I inhale his scent until it is all I can taste and then I let his question chase the last memories away. He sounds angry, but I know it’s a him issue not a me issue. King is responding on an Alpha level again, rallying to an unseen threat, reacting to my emotions that havebeen stirred to light by memories that should never see the light of day.
“Killer, I need to know what you were thinking about. Your emotions pulled me away from what I was doing.” His jaw grits together, and this strong man is struggling through the weight of our insta-connection. That’s plain to see. He’s not fighting it, that too is obvious, but for us, it’s not as simple as chasing down the passionate and obvious connection we have to each other.
I cup the side of his face, pulling his attention down to me. “I was thinking of things that I don’t need to.”
“I want more of an explanation than that.” King huffs, the muscles in his back tightening before they start to loosen, perhaps knowing I will share the truth with him. This link between us is already full of an insight suggesting we’ve got no issue sharing ugly pasts with each other.
“It’s a problem for another day,” I insist, my hand squeezing over the back of his neck to pull myself up higher into his arms. “Are you going to leave?”
“After we’ve talked.”
I huff a laugh. “That’s a yes then.”
