Plonking down, I dig my feet under the soft white sand, the small waves making my wedding dress move as the water flows to and from the shoreline.
Isabella sits next to me, and I scooch over to her, handing her the bottle of champagne. We take turns drinking while we watch Marco chasing down and submerging some of the world's most dangerous men in the white water.
“How's Victor?” she asks after a few moments.
I laugh, shaking my head. Victor has become an international problem. Government and police agencies around the world are looking for him, while the Irish, the Italians, my new family, the Cartel, all want time with him.
“I’m thinking of setting up an auction, actually,” I say, while pumping my arms, cheering Marco on. “We could raise a lot of money for victims of trafficking. My concern is how distasteful the concept is. Or maybe it’s that I thought of doing that without any help from my pack. I’m currently trying to figure out if I need professional help for being so sadistic.
“Aleksei and Santiago are welcoming my newfound violent tendencies. Kade’s worried about how I’ll feel down the road but is supportive of whichever decision I make. So, yeah, I’mcurrently in limbo about Victor. And until I decide, I’ll continue with his daily dose of thallium. Between me and you, I thinkIwant him to hurt more. He nearly took this”—I use the champagne bottle to point towards the silly fun happening in front of us—“chance of life away from us. I want him to pay for that.”
Isabella’s arm over my shoulder pulls me to her, and I rest my head on her shoulder.
We’re quiet, enjoying watching them going from fighting to teaching Marco to float.
“You haven’t said much about your sister or your mother, Quinn. Them refusing to see you must hurt.”
I fight back the tears that threaten every time I think about them. I hope, in time, they realize the rhetoric Victor fed them about me was nothing but lies. But he put a lot of time and energy in poisoning their view. A callous and cruel move on his part, considering all this started because I wanted to save my sister.
“At least they’re free of him,” I say, swallowing down the lump of emotion that sits heavy in my throat.
The play in the water stops, like someone flipped a switch. My pack feels my pain as if it’s their own.
“Bebe,” Santiago calls, holding his hand out for me to take.
Isabella drops her arm from around my shoulder, the message clear. “He only wins, Quinn, if you don’t enjoy what’s in front of you.”
I twist around, squeezing the absolute shit out of my dearest friend, relative, before climbing up and racing into their arms.
Chapter Sixty-One
Weeks later
QUINN
The sunlight hits my hand, and I feel like that vampire from Twilight, stunned by the glittering light bouncing everywhere. It’s probably not the right time to be losing focus on how much I love my pack’s marks on my body but it happens.
Kade links our fingers. Choosing the hand that doesn't bear my Alpha's mark. Aleksei is super salty this morning. Kade’s not going to risk Aleksei losing his shit now by touching Aleksei’s silvered claim on my hand. Maybe on another day he would, but not today.
Turning us, Kade brushes the hair off my face before he tips my chin up making the light’s rays prism there too. His eyes move slowly, viscerally. Our bond is resonating with his calming energy which is opposite to the gathering storm inside me. Kade watches me closely before he starts dipping down. His mouth ison our bite before I can ask what he’s doing. His tongue teasing over the groves of their pack claim. He doesn’t stop there, he goes slowly as he inches up to my ear.
“Quinny, I’m not going to warn you off anything. I will remind you; your Alphas are on a knife’s edge. It won’t take much for them to lose their shit completely.”
Twisting, I catch his mouth still whispering warnings with mine. I kiss my promise of staying safe against his lips before stepping away from him, and Santiago, and Aleksei.
And while Santiago’s mood matches Aleksei’s—slightly feral—he delivers the message differently. An encouraging smile as opposed to the lethal glare from my other Alpha. I don’t need to check to see if it’s still there, I can feel Aleksei’s mood as obvious as the warm sun on my skin.
I keep my focus on Santiago watching unsurprised as flirty, wicked thoughts cloud his amber eyes. I take a deep inhale already anticipating the shift of his scent to what his eyes are screaming. He’s turned on by me, and what I’m wearing. Both make him happy. Very happy.
I move further away, and do a slow spin for him.
“Bebe, we are,” he waves his hand up and down as he encompasses me, in case I missed his innuendo, “doing this whole get up in our home. I swear if I find out that is how you dressed at the clinic, I’ll hunt down every damn patient you saw and pluck their eyeballs clean out their sockets. Before moving on to your colleagues, because you looking that fucking hot is only for your pack.”
“Are the glasses too much?” I ask, looking over my shoulder and sucking on the tip of my finger. I make sure to time it so my ass faces them, and purposely, suggestively I pop my hip too, accentuating what they’re all staring at already.
Aleksei doesn’t speak; he rumbles a noise in warning as he rushes in to snatch my glasses off my face. Carefully. Tuckingthem in the top pocket of his suit jacket. Except he’s not finished, and he slaps my ass, before moving on to my hair. The Russian pouring from his lush mouth, and the storm of his scent drag a small noisy exhale rush past my lips in my response.
He stops, and fucking smirks watching me fall under their spell. But at the same time, he shows me he’s well and truly fallen under mine. All I’m doing is edging them, like they always do me.
