Chapter 2

Whether by miracle or design, Devin made it to the lobby without stopping on any of the other floors. Without knowledge of the time or even the day, she didn’t know if her blind luck was getting started or running out fast. Scratching at the itch of oozing blood and crusted scabs, she watched the doors open.

Her luck ran out as soon as she set her bare sole on the biting ridges of the steely plate before the doors.

Rey appeared, rushing towards her. Her descent took too long, the lumbering mechanics so much slower than an Alpha’s sure feet on some hidden stair. Darkness and ash, shadows and smoke enveloped her in massive arms, lifting her off her feet to slam her back into the far wall of the elevator. He didn’t release her to punch the numbers into the keypad, keeping his weight crushing the air from her lungs.

Amid his snarls and growls, words tried to make themselves heard. Threats, promises… apologies. The grinding of his purr too loud at her ear. It grated her nerves as he struggled for it. Too much crowded between them as an empty chasm gaped into an endless abyss.

There’d be no escape. Not now, not ever. Devin closed her eyes, wishing that she could plunge into unconsciousness by her will alone. It was easier there in that dusky haze where nothing mattered.

“Look at me, damn it!”

Saved by the pealing chime of the doors opening, Devin kept her eyes shut tight despite the growling demand. Able to ignore him as he bustled her into the apartment with his concentration torn between his attempts to wrap her in the heavy weight of the abandoned blanket that smelled of earthy darkness and the scorched cinnamon of the Alpha pacing his displeasure up and down the kitchen island.

“You’re being an idiot, Daniel,” Beau said, slamming the side of his fist into the cold marble as he neared it.

The slurred, wet quality of his voice had Devin’s eyes opening to view the male with total disregard for the mood of the room. The fight by the docks had wounded him, purpling bruises littering his tawny skin. They made his eyes shine all the brighter for the darkness of blackened eyes. Whatever occurred when she fled, blood coated his lips in wet lines. Even the deep teal of the rug couldn’t hide the ruby shade when he spat a glob of the stuff out.

“I said, enough.” Though Rey’s voice was calm, the bitterness of his scent layered with smoky darkness spoke of his emotions. Giving a muted roar, he threw the tainted blanket away and turned to the bedroom. He showed no hesitation as he curled his fingers around Devin’s arm to tow her behind him, dragging her those last steps when she faltered.

They’d ended the false heat with whatever Beau gave her. Not the same vicious chemicals he injected her with before, the one that had her riding a high of adrenaline that made her heart want to beat its way out of the delicate cage of her ribs. This was different. Perfect clarity, a moment of calm. So much like her normal self that Devin could scarce believe it.

It meant that if either male looked at that ridiculous bed for even a second, she wouldn’t go quietly. There would be no soft sighs, no desperate moans. Shrieks and screams, blood and pain. That she could promise. She might have given up the ghost of hope, but she would take them down with her if she got the chance. This was no longer a means of survival.

Rey pushed her onto the bed, no inkling of her thoughts as he turned to the tall cabinet opposite. He rummaged through piles, muttering under his breath as if he searched for something specific, the perfect item for this new version of hell. Devin sneered as Beau filled the doorway, blocking all hints of the light beyond.

She’d scratch his eyes out first. Cup the perfect blue of it in her palm and glory in the squishy pop as she crushed it.

“Yes, yes,” Rey murmured, coming at Devin on swift feet to kneel before her.

The scorching heat of his fingers curled around her hips, easing Devin up to her feet. No yanking, no pulling. He slid her off the mattress, holding on long enough for her to find her balance. So close to him, her every breath brushed the tightening peaks of her breasts against the soft cotton of his shirt.

Devin couldn’t begin to understand her body’s reaction. Hands clenched into fists as she readied to swing, regardless of the consequences, yet she responded to his simple nearness. Her gasp shot through the darkness as he dragged a silken coverlet over her shoulders. Firm hands tucked it around her body, a heavy shield against the chill air and their sight both. It pooled around her feet, a good foot’s worth fanning out around her curling toes as she scowled at the male.

Moments ago, she’d been ready to attack. Now…

Devin didn’t struggle against his touch as his palm covered her lower back to guide her out of the room. Her heels dug in, refusing to budge an inch as she stared in bold disgust at Beau leaning through the door with both arms on the frame on either side of his head. A lazy posture, but no less dangerous.

“I told you to leave, Beau.” Rey moved to block her view of the other Alpha, callused hand running down the length of her arm. He tangled their fingers rather than the bruising grip she’d become accustomed to.

Devin hated herself for the sparkling sensation that followed his touch, tingling across her skin. She might have swayed towards him had Beau not ground the bubbly feeling under the gritty sole of his boot with his next words.

“You really going to kick me out over a piece of ass?”

“Stop.”

“Why should I? You’re acting like a Gods damned Beta, getting his rocks off on the first Omega willing to spread for him. Hell, you even paid for it.” Beau scoffed, rocking in the doorway, refusing to give any ground. “I’ve been all up in that, and I promise you, no part of her is worth that much. Not even the first time I took it.”

“You will never touch her again, understand me,” Rey yelled, leaving Devin to stand alone in the shadows as he rushed towards Beau. Fisting the heavy cotton stained with blood, he lifted Beau onto the balls of his toes. “Don’t even talk about it, Elijah, or I swear to the Gods, I will hurt you.”

“You’re letting her get to you again,” Beau shouted back, leaning into Rey’s hold to put their faces close. “She’s nothing to you, Rey, and she’s only going to be more trouble than she’s worth later on. Don’t do this.”

Beau took Rey’s jaw in his hands, tugging in the scant inch he needed to crush their lips together. Voicing a dangerous growl when Rey twisted his head aside, Beau forced him back, making him accept the next violent kiss.

Rey shoved him away, backing into the room with his arm held out behind him until his fingers skimmed over the silky material covering Devin’s hip. Holding onto her, he angled his body to keep her hidden. “That was then, this is now. Now leave.”

Devin’s attention swung between one and the other, watching the Alphas as the silence stretched on. Beau wouldn’t give way, and Rey refused to force it. Their stalemate would continue on into eternity and she couldn’t withstand his touch any longer. Not as warmth oozed across her hip beneath the thick layers of the blanket where he curled his fingers around it. She didn’t want to feel that from him. Didn’t want to feel anything anymore. Devin realized how exhausted she was. Every little hurt, the many cuts and bruises she’d endured this night alone, made themselves known with every dull throb of her heart.

A shake of her head, the barest breath of a scoff, was enough to send it all into a tumult.

Beau snarled, Rey stepping forward in challenge. Devin couldn’t bring herself to give a single damn. Shoving at the arm barring her way, she started forward only to have Rey’s arm close in behind her. Slamming her against his broad back as he pivoted to keep her well away from Beau. Inundating her in his scent and heat, senses reeling as the world tried to spin out from under her feet. Rey’s warning growl dismissed, she continued to push at him, twisting in the tightening cage of his arm.

Let them do what they wished. She was done.

“She doesn’t want you, Danny boy,” Beau said, a merciless sneer threading through his voice to slash at the air. “You think playing nice with her now is going to change that?”

“Get. Out.”

“Why? So you can pretend she wants it, that it wasn’t all the shit I gave her that made her beg for you?”

“Gods’ sake, Beau. Don’t do this.” Rey’s arm curled tighter around Devin, lifting her to tiptoes. Carrying her another step forward as if he intended to fight one handed with her crushed against his back. “It doesn’t matter, understand? This is the way it is.”

Devin despised herself all the more for clinging to Rey’s shirt as Beau’s vicious roar reverberated through the dim room. It raked its depraved claws through her, gouging out her fear to play with it. Hiding her whimper against bunched muscles, she felt so in tune with the other Alpha’s violence, she could swear she knew the pattern of events waiting to unfold.

None of it ended well for her.

“She’s no different from the last one, and if you don’t see that, you are as idiotic as you’re acting.”

His voice was too close, too deep and raw. Flaying Devin’s senses as she huddled against Rey’s back and clenched her teeth against the myriad of pathetic noises searing their way up her throat.

“That was then,” Rey said through an inhuman rumble. Rage a bloodthirsty shimmer in the air around him as he took more ground, he pushed Beau before him with the force of it.

For all his brute strength and careless violence, Beau was the weaker of the two. Not by much, not enough to be called lesser by any stretch. It was enough by the slimmest of margins for Rey’s will to overpower him. Driving Beau from the bedroom, out into the living room, buffeted by the suffocating wave of hot ash and smoke.

“Yeah, that was then, but I’m not the one forgetting what you were like after it all fell apart,” Beau said, words vibrating with his barely contained rage.

Devin was glad she couldn’t see him then. Didn’t want to be a party to the virulent hostility and toxic fury swirling through the air. Wishing she wasn’t there at all, unable to peel herself away from the unwanted comfort of Rey’s scalding heat as he carried her with him. Unwilling to leave her behind, though his predatory strides drove him out into the apartment with Beau.

“Leave now,” Rey commanded in a deafening roar, holding Devin against all that outrage all the tighter, not giving her a breath of space.

Beau stumbled out the door, losing that innate Alpha grace with a ground trembling thud as he fell to the floor before the elevator. All snarling curses and snapping teeth, he didn’t rise as Rey took up the space of the doorway. Rey sucked the oxygen from the short hall as his violent presence made him appear taller, broader. Already intimidating, he became beyond dangerous, a certain death to the first to push him.

“Stay away from the club,” Rey ground out through a subterranean growl. “Don’t come around here.”

Rey turned his back on Beau, no longer seeing him as a threat. He’d won without a single drop of blood spilled, and they all knew it. He kept Devin against him, sliding her against his body until she came to a stop at his chest.

“Don’t expect me to pick up the pieces when you fuck it all up,” Beau yelled from where he sat sprawled against the shining brass.

But Rey’s door had already shut tight, the locks engaged. Muffling the now defeated Alpha’s parting shot. Devin still shivered, the very sound of his impotent rage enough to incite her fear. He’d kill her if he got the chance. That much she could be certain of.

“He’ll calm down, just have to give him some space,” Rey murmured at her ear, hiking Devin higher against his chest.

She would have argued, might have snorted her scathing disbelief at Rey’s wishful thinking, but he gave her no chance. Though painted with more than a little of the smoky darkness of violence still bunching his muscles tight, his purr was loud and brutal. It laid the last vestiges of her to waste before it as the deep reverberation worked through her joints. Melting against the Alpha, Devin sighed as her cheek came to rest against him. Hating him for doing it, she still reveled in the loss of pain, the many aches fading away as he pushed the sound into her. Making her pliant, keeping her quiet as he peeled away the silken cover to leave her naked and dangling boneless in his cradling arms.

Deposited in the bed, she had a mere breath to realize everything was wrong before he smothered her with the thundering resonance and his heat. Rey buried her under his great weight and layers of softness.

Given no choice, unable to escape even if she wanted to, Devin’s eyes slipped shut on a rattling sigh. She needed sleep. Time to heal. Whether he would afford her those things remained to be seen. For the moment, Devin dove under the dark waves of slumber with a halfhearted prayer that she’d never wake again.

* * *

Devin had no idea how long he let her sleep, but it wasn’t enough to matter to the numbing exhaustion still plaguing her before he woke her. He’d begun with soft touches and quiet murmurs, resorting to dragging her from beneath the heavy layers of bedding when Devin refused to rouse.

Sitting at the island with the sinful softness of a sweater covering her to her knees and wrapped in the dusty blue cover from before, Devin stared at the Alpha fussing on the other side with bleary displeasure.

She wanted to sleep for a thousand years, and he seemed to be intent on feeding her.

Not a bite of it made from the refrigerator containing a collection of foreign beers, a single bottle of water, and the odd addition of a hunk of what might be cheese. At least, it’d been in there the last time she viewed the contents. What she wouldn’t give for dim sum, a plate of saucy noodles and tender crisp vegetables, but Rey unpacked fancy sandwiches and giant bowls of crunchy lettuce. Dishing them all up onto his tableware as if she couldn’t eat from waxed paper and plastic. If his intent was to take away the fact he hadn’t done more than open packets of toppings and condiments, he should have let her drowse through the charade.

Devin leaned away from the pristine white bowl full of dewy lettuce Rey slid across to her, lips turning down at the ham sandwich presented on a plate with homemade baked chips.

“There’s turkey, too,” Rey said, reaching back for the bag with some deli’s name branded across it. “Roast beef, if you prefer?”

“No.”

“Then eat the salad.”

Devin’s lip curled. Who saw crispy water as a replacement for an actual meal?

A single hard jab of her fingers sent the plate and bowl clattering back across the pale marble. Devin groaned as she wriggled off the stool made for someone far taller than she’d ever be. Landing hard, a shock wave of pain ran pell-mell up her spine, leaving her staggering towards the couch. The rank scent of cinnamon sent her reeling in the opposite direction, her only option the bed that reeked of Rey.

Better that than the other, she decided, already letting the cover drop away to crawl onto the mattress. Falling into the cradling softness that still held a hint of warmth, she dragged the blankets over her in a careless burrow.

“You need to eat,” Rey snapped, impatient hands pulling the covers away in a jerky tug. He did it again when Devin continued to drag them back into place.

“Then get real food, jerk face,” Devin muttered into the pillow she buried her head under.

“What did you call me?”

She had a moment of panic. It sizzled up her spine to crackle through her teeth. Devin clenched them tight against any other reckless words that might come tumbling out. Then she heard it. The faint chuckle, muffled from overstuffed feathers, was evil as it crept under the pillow. Velvety warmth slid through her, his amusement wrecking her feeble attempts at holding onto her displeasure. Doing things no simple laugh should be able to do as he plucked the pillow away, dragging back the blankets. Proving whatever disquiet plagued him before had been the only thing that stayed his insistence.

“What do you want instead?” Though quiet, he left no room for her to disregard him. Forcing her gaze to his with the careful caress of his knuckles against her cheek, keeping it there with a stroke of his thumb over her jaw.

“Chinese,” Devin muttered, narrowing her eyes to furious slits. She loathed the way she softened under his touch, not understanding how he could compel her attention with little more than a casual brush of his hand.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea after last time.”

“You’re going to make me eat rabbit food like Beau told you—”

Devin realized her misstep the moment it happened. She didn’t need to see the flare of his nostrils, to hear the ragged inhale as his chest expanded. Sucking her lips between her teeth, she tore her eyes away to avoid the anger coating her tongue with the taste of oily soot.

Rey wouldn’t let her. Forcing her eyes to meet the dark abyss of his, he laid her bare before the thundering roar he voiced in the quietest of tones. Rey climbed onto the bed, a prowling beast that slid the sweater up her body. Showing more of his teeth with each of Devin’s flinches, covering her with his body, he wasn’t satisfied until every inch of her was touching him.

It wasn’t enough for long.

Shoving her chin aside, Rey pushed his face into her neck and growled into the sensitive flesh as he began rubbing against her. Grinding his scent into her, the jerky snaps of his temper becoming more pronounced as his dissatisfaction grew. Cotton torn, the ragged edges burning over her chest and belly when he refused to allow even a breath of space between them, he threw the ruined wad of fabric away. Skin to skin, he smeared the bitter earthiness of his scent into her, coating her in smoke and ash. The caress of his hands were no longer soft. They didn’t incite anything as gentle as warmth. They burned her skin, setting her on fire from the inside out as he touched her everywhere.

Branding her with the smell of him. Making her know who she belonged to.

Devin railed in the quiet depths of her thoughts. Furious with her reckless tongue, and the man above her. Wishing she’d just done it, been a good little Omega. Hating herself all the more for even considering it.

She could have, though. Just kept her mouth shut and eaten the food. Gotten stronger, even if it’d taken longer.

For what? She couldn’t remember the plan, not as the midnight resonance of his growls and rumbles buffeted her.

Devin’s eyes flew open at the low moan to search for who could have made such a noise, unable to believe the feminine sound had come from her. Shocked into stillness when she realized it had been her own throat that voiced it.

Every inch of skin smothered in him fizzed with sensation. Tickling her senses, teasing her, though the violence and anger lurked under his every touch. Making her feel things she didn’t want, yet that she couldn’t stop her trembling sighs in response to. Arching against him as his nails scored her sides on the depths of a thundering growl. She was responding. Legs straining to open beneath the weight of his, to cradle the too large male against her body.

“No, please,” Devin whispered into the obscuring shadows.

She never expected to be heard. For the longest moment, she couldn’t understand why he shot up from the bed. Her hands reached for him before she could check the reaction, but it didn’t matter. Layers of blankets slapped down onto her body, hiding her beneath a shapeless lump.

The door slamming seemed too final.

After what felt like hours in the darkness, Devin found fitful sleep. The depths of her slumber harassed by vivid dreams of fighting males, of grabbing hands. Livid blue eyes ripped the flesh from her bones, cruel laughter echoing into the frantic moments when she would wake in a cold sweat with trembling breaths.

It was in one such moment that it changed. Glorious heat crushing her, driving her deep into the mattress. Arms as thick as tree trunks imprisoning her flailing arms, heavy legs tangling in hers to quiet their kicking. Panic and relief swept through her on the same breath. She recognized him in the same instant he held her immobile.

Rich espresso layered with the tartness of strawberries. It melted over her tongue, washing away the bitterness of fear.

Devin calmed, growing pliant beneath him. Letting her body relax. It was as she was closing her eyes, drifting back into the depths of sleep, that she realized he hadn’t purred for her. Nothing to coerce her into this feeling of peace. Not wanting to examine it any further, she sighed into the crook of his arm where he pillowed her cheek and let sleep take her.