No one else seemed to think so.
“No?” I echoed, a sting lacing through my swollen cheek, making me hiss.
I clutched the bruised spot, wincing at how tender it was. Bile churned in my belly, and I wished this sensation were unusual. Tenderly, I tapped my fingers over the sensitive flesh, groaning.
Dad hadn’t held back.
I would be lucky not to have a black eye.
A shadow swam in my vision.
The mountain of an alpha crouched in front of me. Thick thigh muscles pressed against his pants as a rough hand cradled the uninjured side of my face.
Almost too gently, he stroked my freckles, the touch at odds with the fire spitting in the depths of his eyes.
I stared at his gun, sweat clinging to my nape.
When he didn’t respond, the panicked whir grew worse. My omega preened under the touch from the gruff alpha, but I knew better. He held my lifein his hands.
I sensed that the longer the silence stretched on, the less likely it was that I would leave this place alive.
My dad was an ass, but this man was something else entirely.
“Please,” I murmured, hating the pathetic tint to my voice. “I didn’t do anything. Don’t hurt me.”
The air in the room shifted, dense with his scent. It was tinged, not as sweet and smooth as it had been even a few minutes ago. Veins throbbed in his hand as it fell from my face.
I immediately regretted my words, swaying slightly when I chased his touch. I wanted it back.
“I would never hurt you,” he said, nostrils flaring.
“Then let me leave.”
“You can’t leave. You won’t be safe.”
Safe was a relative term.
I went from the frying pan into the freezer, and neither option was going to end well for me. I had read stories about the crime families in Boston, assuming that it was all blown out of proportion.
Hard to believe that now, when I was staring into the eyes of a Dublin devil.
Wood groaned behind me, and the man from earlier reappeared. A washcloth sat in his outstretched palm. He handed it to Kaelen.
Without a word, he moved my fingers away from my face, pressing the cloth to my cheek. The initial sting of the ice on my flushed skin made me jump, but my body sagged, relaxing as it soothed away the pain.
“Do you want me to find the senator?” the other man asked.
Pinpricks skittered across my arms, making the hairs stand on end.
“Don’t kill him,” I begged.
Kaelen’s eyes narrowed, his fingers flexing. Only an idiot would bargain with a demon. Yet, here I was.
“My mom is sick. She needs him. I’ll do anything you want.”
As much as I hated to admit it, my mom was frail, and without my dad, there would be no one left to care for her. I was in no position to help her. My father orchestrated it so we needed him. If he died or left, we would get nothing. I didn’t work; he didn’t let me. I volunteered and that was it.
No one knew what was wrong with her, but she needed constant care and doctors’ visits. Her omega had retreated so far in on itself that her scent had almost completely vanished. Most thought she was a beta.
