“Youdid something to me, you bastard,” Elena screamed, the sound high and shrill before it spiraled into a scream as the guard burst in, having broken the door open.
Ignoring the man brandishing the gun wasn’t the smartest thing, but Leon could not understand what Elena meant. Their argument wasn’t cause for all of this. “Come now, you’re all up in arms over that?”
Elena swayed, stunned into silence for an all too brief moment before she launched herself at him. Hands shaped into claws as she sent them towards his face, intent on gouging out his eyes. The intensity of her fury surprised him, enough so she got one swipe of her long nails in against his cheek before Leon reacted. Grabbing hold of her, he twisted Elena around in his arms until she was pinned against his body. Holding her tight enough to strangle her breaths down to shallow gasps.
“Tell me what it is you think I have done, and I’ll release you,” Leon growled at her ear, keeping the guard in his sights. Putting the power of an Alpha’s command into his voice, he subdued them both.
“You came here last night,” Elena hissed.
“You were the one cavorting around with my brotherwithout a chaperone, Miss Costanzo. You cannot blame me for that.”
“After,” Elena sobbed, writhing in his too tight grip, trying to get away only to bring Leon’s arms about her tighter.
“What do you mean?” Leon set his chin to her shoulder, listening to her miserable weeping and wanting nothing so much as to soothe the tremble from her body.
“You came here. Stole it. I have nothing to offer anyone. You’ve ruined me!”
“Stole what?”
Elena collapsed against him, crying too hard to answer. Her response dissolving into unmanageable tears that smeared her syllables into one another until there was no hope of understanding. Leon carefully relaxed his hold, cradling her as he pet at her hair in an awkward attempt to console.
“Her virginity,” Jamie muttered, sliding his gun back into its holster. Knowing he couldn’t shoot an Alpha without grave repercussions.
“You think me capable of that,” Leon snarled, anger coursing through his veins white hot as he gave Elena a rough shake. Sending a broken sound grinding through her throat as he witnessed the damage done to her smooth skin. During their struggles her makeup had come away, baring the evidence of deep bruises, their purpled hue decorating her neck and chest in livid swathes.
Someone had hurt her, but it hadn’t been him.
“I didn’t, but I knew it was you,” Elena said, trying in vain to crawl away from him before Leon jerked her back against him. Forcing her to remain pinned against his heat as she came undone.
“And pray tell how did you know it was me?”
“I smelled you. Can still smell you. The bed, my clothes. Me…”
Leon took a cautious sniff and could discern nothing but theflat, ugly soap of the hotel and her own particular scent. But there, a hint of evergreens despite the cleaning the staff had given to the room in Elena’s absence. Leon took a deep breath, turning his head away from Elena to be rid of her delectable fragrance to catch a waft of his aftershave. It could be from his time in the room just now, no doubt, but it seemed too layered, too faint to be such.
“I did no such thing to you,” he murmured, releasing Elena when she struggled free this time. No wonder she thought him a monster.
“Deny it all you want,” Elena said, her anger falling away in cracked shards as she slogged her way across the cheap carpet towards the safety of her guard. “I know what I know. You’ve taught me my lesson, haven’t you?”
Leon jerked back as if she’d punched him. His words thrown back at him. No wonder she thought him capable of it.
“Do the right thing, sir,” Jamie muttered, managing to turn the honorific into a slur as he did. “Leave her be.”
Something inside of Leon snapped. Elena was ruined. She had nothing to offer any Alpha that might take her in despite her current circumstances, and that would be the lowest of positions within a family if she was capable of pulling off such a thing.
She blamed him for it. Thought him a monster.
He’d show her just how monstrous he could be.
Glancing at his watch, he saw it was merely a quarter after three. More than early enough.
He grabbed hold of Elena’s arm once more before she could find the safety of her guard, hauling her after him as he burst free of the broken door and dragged her along to the elevators. There wasn’t time to make this pretty, but it would be done.
“What are you doing? Let me go!”
“Be still,” Leon snapped as the doors opened on the lobbywhere people stared at Elena’s unkempt hair and disheveled clothes. Judging her as little better than a whore as Leon marched her across the cheap tile towards the brass doors.
Yes. There was plenty of time.
