It is for show. And, for once, I’m thankful for Sergey’s endless lessons on how to hide my true emotions, because these two men are shaping up to be deserving adversaries.
“Show me,zhena,” I say in a harsh bark. I speak the absolute truth when I call herwife. I’d give my soul to call her my wife, but that will only ever be a guilty pleasure my mind speaks.
“Quinn.” Her retort that I call her by her name is swift, like a rebuttal you give a naughty puppy.
I shove my hand into the pocket of my pants, to stop myself from fisting her hair and giving her her own lesson. That smart,fucking divine, mouth of hers could do better things than give me sass. My dick swells like it is the chosen one.
But then, in the next second, she throws me again. Her eyes fall away, and she shrinks in on herself.
What I had assumed about her has changed. I wasn’t expecting the moment of doubt. No matter how small or fleeting it was, I picked up on it. And it's only because of how in tune I am that I notice. Her guards also don’t miss it, which suggests they have been watching over her for a while, something that annoys me more than it should.
Walking away, I take my first lungful of fresh air in a while. Her scent is everywhere. In some places, it is soft and barely there, while in other rooms, it is saturated and her vanilla scent slams against my shields. It’s nature's calling card. In Quinn’s case, it’s as if Mother Nature herself is holding up a billboard covered in blazing lights, saying,This is her! This is the Omega you will covet and love until the end of time.
I have no choice but to ignore the signs. I work with the same cold determination I utilize with my brother, shutting down parts of me she brings alive. It will do neither of us any good if I acknowledge the twisting bond inside me that craves her. It will bring only heartache, and there is enough of that already in this house.
As I step into the corridor leading to the rest of the house, I have a grip on all the things I have no right thinking about. My body mirrors the rigidity of my mind. Judging by the apprehension the two other men keep flicking my way, I feel I’ve done enough to hide the truth from them. They look at me like I am the enemy, and that is exactly how they should. Heart eyes for my brother’s future bride is a death sentence for all of us.
“This way,” she says from behind me.
Interestingly, in the time I have taken to shut down my useless desires, she’s done something similar. Her voice lacksthe vibrancy and richness, that in the short time I’ve been around her, have come to associate with her. And I immediately relax, even more so when I look at her face and eyes; she’s got her walls rebuilt, sky high. Those measures will hopefully give her the energy to endure the life she is now a part of.
She goes to step into a small sitting room, Roshka rushing forward, making her shriek before she rounds on him, her finger up in his face. “Would you stop that!”
I have to look away to stop either belting out a laugh or praising Roshka.
Caucasian Ovcharkas are not jesters, despite their appearance. Protecting and guarding is deeply ingrained in their psyche, making them the perfect guard dog. Both Nalla and Roshka have been trained since birth. First by a woman renowned for turning these types of dogs into killing machines, and then by me. I honed the bond we share into something others fear. We are at a point where I would rather have these two with me than any man or woman alive.
Roshka’s interaction with Quinn is diametrically opposite to how he, and Nalla, are around my brother. Near Sergey, Nalla is hostile, but Roshka is aggressively defensive, always hovering close to attack. It has gotten so bad, I have him on my heel or locked in my suite. With Quinn, Roshka is like a playful pup. His game of hide-and-seek is proof of that.
Somewhere in the short time I was away, it is as if his primal brain has rewired itself so instead of one master, he now has two. Later, when I have time away from her and her guards, I will have to work through how I feel about that.
Using more small hand signals, I move him away from her so she can enter the room. She’s quiet as we all crowd inside. Her eyes move from her guards to mine, and her chin raises up an inch as she starts explaining what happened here.
“This is where I was. At that point, I didn’t know my guards had arrived. I thought I was completely alone, which is why I ended up here.” She looks over at the corner unnecessarily; the scent of her fear is heaviest at the chair she points at. “The black dog.”
“Roshka.” I probably should have introduced them before, but she had already gone through enough for one day, and I knew she was reeling from Larisa, and then my brother’s callousness when he saw what Larisa had done.
“Roshka,” she practices, her eyes glaring at him, but also a little smile playing at her lips, like she’s just discovered something useful in her war.
Her happiness falls away as she gets back to explaining what occurred in intricate detail. The way she describes being worried for Nalla while Roshka was guarding her is like a twist to the gut.
She falls into a memory that steals her words and makes her chest rise and fall rapidly.
“Quinn,” her guard calls out. His mannerisms, the way he reaches for her only feed my jealousy that they share more than a professional relationship.
“I’m okay, Kade. Stay there,” she says before brushing her hair out of her face. “Roshka left for a while, and I was terrified even more. I wanted to believe he would be back, but I wasn’t sure, and then a man came in. An Alpha. He barked some command at me, but it was lost in translation, although his influence still threw me.
“Everything from that point happened all at once. The man attacked, Roshka appeared again and reacted, and I got caught in the middle. I fell or was shoved, I don’t know, but I ended up with the man sitting on top of me, the look in his eyes telling me what he was thinking of doing to me before he killed me.
“In the next second, Roshka had the man’s throat in his mouth, and then I was the one fighting him. I knew it was theright thing to do, to hold one of the intruders alive long enough for someone to ask questions, although I don’t know if I would have told Sergey.” Her gaze lifts from the floor as she speaks, flitting all around the room until she takes another slow breath and peers at me without looking away. “I think I was waiting for you.”
She makes an odd sound under a sigh, her eyes going back to the ground.
The Alpha steps in and takes over. “We both dealt with an intruder each, which is what held us up. By the time we got here, Roshka had the Alpha under control, and Quinn had her fingers in the dog's jaws, trying to pry them open.”
I am instantly back in the hospital, a memory of her doing something exactly like that to me ghosts through me, as though nothing but a wisp. In my dream-like memory, though, I bit her hand. Tore into it like my dog could have. But in real life, there is not even a divot on her hand, making me second-guess if it happened, or if she was a beautiful fever dream.
She scoffs at him, even going so far as rolling her eyes. “I know how to act around Alphas. But at the same time, I have to trust my instincts, which have never let me down.” The way she looks at me again has me reeling. It’s like a slap in the face or a bucket of cold water. Almost like she knew I was thinking about her.
