by Alison Aimes
27
With a gasp, Dahlia was thrown back into the present. The light too bright. Sounds too sharp. Especially the harsh rasp of her own breath.
Head pounding, she shoved out of Nikolai’s hold and stared up at him.
“Alpha . . .” Her apology, her sympathy, rattled in her throat. He’d struck out so cruelly last time.
“It’s okay, Dahlia.” He sounded angry, but not with her. “You did very well. Your abilities are astounding.”
And awful.
Dahlia had always hated her father. She’d never for one moment doubted he was anything but a brute. But it was still strange to learn that, in his own twisted way, some part of him had craved Nikolai’s mother’s approval.
A circumstance the omega had exploited.
Dahlia didn’t blame her for that. Fact was, she applauded Nikolai’s mother. She’d done what she’d needed to do to survive.
What Dahlia couldn’t forgive was what Naytalia had done to her children in the process.
To rid herself of one Alpha, she’d brought a bigger monster into their lives and never told them what she’d done.
So much deceit. So many lies.
“That wasn’t the rotation of the fire.” Nikolai’s voice was too cool and controlled. If not for the pain beating at her through the fated-mate bond, she would have believed him entirely unaffected.
“I’m sorry. I know it wasn’t what you wanted.” Frustration hit hard. Again, she’d failed to give him the vision he needed. A wave of dizziness swept through her, too. Her head pounded harder. “I’m sorry too that you had to see that.”
Most of all, she hated that Nikolai now knew what no son ever should.
Olan was not the only one responsible for Nikolai’s father’s death; Naytalia had played a part as well.
“There must be a reason you saw what you did.” Nikolai was all business. “Olan didn’t kill Naytalia in your vision, but he threatened her, along with Kuril. That will help with the trial evidence. Can you project that anytime you want now that you’ve seen it?”
“Yes.”
“Show me.”
It was easy, like reaching for an image she’d already composed and framed. With barely any effort, and little need to draw on his power, she projected the scene into his mind and the air above his head.
He smiled, but it was forced. “Well done.” But he didn’t look at the images as they played out once more.
“Nikolai, I know seeing that must be hard. I—”
“Don’t. I told you before. You don’t need to protect anyone from the truth. I never idolized Naytalia. I’m not surprised to learn she was less of a victim than I’d realized.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “She was never the one any of us trusted to keep the family safe. That was up to me.”
“You can’t blame yourself for what happened to the twins.”
“I don’t. I blame Olan Lundin. That hasn’t changed.”
He was still standing in the same place he’d been when he’d declared she was no longer alone. So why did Nikolai feel farther away than ever?
“You’re angry.”
“Not with you.”
She didn’t quite believe it. Was he growing as frustrated with her as she was with herself? All her life she had wanted someone to see her as more than that a pretty doll, to recognize her as having power and agency, and now, finally, when someone was giving her the chance to prove it, she was falling short. Unable to conjure up the one important vision that was being asked of her.
He blew out a breath. “Let’s leave it alone. We made progress here today.”
She couldn’t. “Even so, you don’t like me seeing these things. You don’t like me knowing these pieces of your life.”
“Damn right.” His roar burst from him like an explosion held in too long. A sharp surge of fury crackled through the fated-mate bond, so strong it hit like a fist.
She swayed on her feet. Tried to catch her breath as the pain reverberated through her.
“Omega,” he reached for her. “Hells. Are you okay?”
“Alpha . . .” She raised her hand toward him—or tried, her limbs too heavy—and then, despite her will to fight, she was falling.
“Dahlia!”
She heard the far-off sound of her name, but it was too late to answer.
“She’s fine. She just needs a break.”
Nikolai scowled as the doctor waved his med wand and recorded more of the omega’s vitals.
It would have been easier for the doc if Nikolai had put her in the medical cot, but he liked holding her close. Plus, he never wanted her back on that particular mattress looking ill and pale again.
Already, those images of her after he’d found her in the dungeon would haunt him until the end of rotations.
“She’s not fine. I was angry.” He blew out a breath and confessed all to the doc. “I didn’t control myself as well as I should.”
The beta reared back, surprised. “Did you hit her?”
“No!” His denial echoed in time with hers.
“Of course not. He didn’t touch me.” His omega sounded more upset on his behalf than she was about her ordeal.
“Right.” The doc was back to looking close to amused. “It’s a powerful connection and we still don’t understand exactly how it works. Best to be careful.” He waved his med wand once more over her head and chest. “Still, I see no problems.”
“See?” She pushed at his chest. “I’m fine.”
“Fine people don’t faint.” Nikolai bounced her in his arms as a message to settle down and then caught the doc’s attention once more. “Explain yourself.”
“She’s been through a lot and she’s tired. The power of your feelings may have overwhelmed her. You both could use a rest.”
“So, bedrest then?” He could get behind that.
From his omega’s soft purr, he suspected she could too.
“Ah, no.” The doc hid a smile. “The opposite, in fact.”
For a guy who’d recently told him sex could be the key to amplifying his omega’s gift, the doc was turning into a real cockblocker.
“Explain.” Nikolai tried to keep the menace from his voice but wasn’t sure he succeeded.
Stepping out of reach and pretending to fiddle with a monitor halfway across the room, the doc responded, “Fresh air. Relaxation. Play. Anything besides death and revenge and gifts.”
For hells sake. Who the fuck had time for that?
He’d already heard through his comms that his brothers still hadn’t identified a money link between the hits and Olan Lundin. That news brought with it some troubling implications.
But soon enough such setbacks might not matter.
He’d made huge progress in a single afternoon, his omega finally submitting and giving him her gift on command. It was extraordinary, heady stuff to have that kind of power at his fingertips, the combined force of her energy and his as sweet and addictive as the feel of her cunt milking his cock.
Everything he’d wanted finally within his grasp.
“I see.” He didn’t try to hide his lackluster response to the doc’s suggestion.
But his omega had gone still in his arms, her eyes wide.
Hells, she liked the idea. Her eagerness shimmered through the fate-mate bond.
The doc was still pretending to fix his monitors. “It might actually help to enhance the omega’s gift abilities. We often perform better after we’ve had some rest and time away.”
“I would love to visit the mountains nearby.” There was no mistaking the wistful sound of his omega’s tone. “I’ve only seen them from the shuttle window, and they look so beautiful.”
Beautiful, but they could also be deadly.
She went on before he could refuse. “All the years restricted to my quarters and the small patio off my rooms, imagining these mountains was one of the only things that kept me sane. I told myself that one rotation, I’d be free and able to actually experience powdery snow, high
towering drifts, and frozen glacier lakes for myself.”
Shit. He’d forgotten what she’d been through. How small her world had been.
“Done.” He couldn’t give her freedom, but after hearing that, he would clear the mountain himself beast by beast to ensure she got at least a part of her dreams. “I’ll need the rotation to shore up security and identify the best crew to accompany you.”
Her hands fell away from his neck. “Of course, thank you. That would be wonderful.”
Disappointment beat at him along a bond that had only moments ago been shimmering with excitement.
He scowled. “What’s wrong?”
She looked startled. “Nothing.”
A lie.
Swiveling the two of them so his back was to the doc, he spoke low. “Unless you’re after another punishment, you’ll tell me the truth right now.”
Irritation flashed in her gaze. “That’s not fair to use the bond against me.”
“I don’t play fair. You already know that. No more stalling.”
Her cheeks colored. “It’s nothing, really. I . . .” She spoke fast as his frown deepened. “I had hoped you might want to come. But I know that’s silly. You have a lot to do and I have already kept you from your work as it is. Believe me, I know how much attention it requires to run the many parts of a syndicate. My father didn’t have half of what you have, and he and my mother were still busy all the time as a result.”
Nikolai stifled a curse.
The reports of her stuck inside the Lundin compound, ignored and dismissed, catapulted through his mind with a vengeance.
“Actually, I’m coming too.” He had a shitload of work to catch up on and some disturbing growing suspicions related to the trial to consider, but he’d get to it when he returned. In the meantime, he was developing a new theory about the hit on the witnesses which he’d ask Maxheim to look into while Alexi—dragged back home and entirely unrepentant—shook down his underground contacts and Damien and his men went door-to-door, demanding answers. The Skolov operation was a well-oiled machine.
It could survive a few hours without him.
Dahlia sat up in his arms. Her hands gripped his. “You are? Are you sure?” Hope beat along the fated-mated bond. Pure, unbridled energy and goodness, too.
How the hells could anyone say no to that?
He told himself this was all part of the plan. He told himself his priorities hadn’t shifted in the least. He told himself he was following up on the doc’s theories and ruthlessly doing whatever it took to get the omega to give him what he needed as he had all along, but a small voice in the back of his head whispered that his omega wasn’t the only one who lied on occasion.
He squelched the irritating narration before it became a distraction.
“I wouldn’t miss it.” He forced a smile and tried not to notice how somewhere along the way, pleasing her had begun to please him too.
28
“Nikolai, look out!” Dahlia pressed her spine into his chest so hard he thought maybe she was attempting to make it back up the mountainside in reverse. But it was too late for that.
They were careening down the icy cliff on a lightning-fast sled steered by a string while the planet’s two far-away suns shown high in the sky. After a night with her held tight in his arms, she had gotten her wish and her outside excursion.
It hadn’t been easy not to fuck her all night, but he’d made it through, and it turns out, having her in his bed and curled against him, warm and soft and sweet, went a long way toward making up for the misery of blue balls.
So did their current situation.
She was bundled in a white fur cloak and fur boots, with her slight body tucked between his legs while the hair not trapped beneath her matching fur hat slapped him in the face as they flew down the mountain. Even cuter, she was laughing and screaming in equal measure, sometimes at the same time.
He suppressed a chuckle and turned the sled. Unlike her, he was in a single long-sleeved layer—the better to feel her against him—and the wind whipped invigoratingly against his skin as the sled tipped slightly on its side and skidded past a massive, shimmering, silver block of ice. There were no trees in this harsh wonderland, but the twisted, sparkling ice and snow that littered the landscape possessed a beauty all of its own—and as much danger.
His omega screamed again. Unfiltered joy shimmered down the fated-mate bond. “Oh, gods. You’re an insane thrill seeker.”
“You’ve got that right.” It was the only way he’d gotten where he was.
But the truth was, he knew these paths well. When he and his siblings had fled to the highest peaks to escape Olan, he’d used these chutes to sneak into town for supplies. He’d also taken his family here when they’d needed a distraction from hunger or fear. They’d managed to have some good times.
But nothing quite compared to this.
“There’s another ice block!” His omega’s excitement was almost manic, but it was also pretty damn adorable. She hadn’t stopped oohing and ahhing over everything. Even the rows of armed guards lining the paths hadn’t dampened her enthusiasm in the least. “It’s coming up fast.”
“Would you like to drive?” He was only teasing. Half the time her eyes were covered by her gloved hands.
“Yes.” She grabbed the string and yanked.
Their sled tipped to the side once more and headed straight toward another giant ice formation.
“Turn!” Hands on hers, he swung them back the other way and realized she was as much an adventurer as he as her laughter followed them all the way down.
They slowed as the ground evened out, coming to a gentle stop thanks to a bump with a snowdrift twice his size. A shower of snow landed on them.
Cheeks flushed, lashes dusted in white, she turned and stared up at him.
He might not have known what happiness looked like before, but he knew now. And damned if he couldn’t feel it pulsing in his chest as well.
“Thank you. That was incredible.” Her gratitude made him horny—and furious all over again at her family. Who the hells kept a young female locked in a tiny set of rooms for most of her life? He and his family hadn’t had much, but they had at least gotten to experience life, the good as well as the bad.
“Do you think we could do it again sometime?”
“Sometime? How about now?”
“Really? Yes. Thank you.” She swiveled fully around onto her knees and grabbed the neckline of his shirt, dragging him close as she crashed cold lips to his. Her hat toppled off.
He was still chuckling to himself and thinking he owed the doc a raise when the surge of energy slammed into him and his omega’s eyes turned black.
“Everything here, every single one of you, belongs to me.” Olan threw back his head and roared. His fangs flashed crimson, still dripping from the recent fight. He stepped over the lifeless body of Nikolai’s father and slammed his hand to his chest. “You will serve me. Obey me. Submit to me.”
One by one, the nervous subjects of Abzal who’d gathered to watch the challenge dropped to their knees as Olan Lundin swaggered by.
Nikolai’s trembling mother was on hers before the bastard reached them, not a single tear shed for the male who’d been her Alpha.
Nikolai’s knees refused to bend. He stared at his father’s empty, sightless eyes. The blood from his ravaged throat trickled bright red into the white ice. He hadn’t liked his father, but he’d respected him.
Now he was gone.
The sound of Nikolai’s siblings’ sniffling echoed over the slam of his heart, the scent of their fear and uncertainty filling his lungs, choking him with the truth: he was their Alpha now. He was the one responsible for their survival from here on out.
“Nikolai, don’t be a fool.” Naytalia clutched at his wrist. “Kneel.”
Everything inside him rebelled at the idea.
From across the sea of other bowed heads, Lundin’s gaze locked with his, the victorious Alpha’s eyes narrowing as
he recognized the challenge to his authority in the still-standing young figure.
“Think of your brothers and sisters.” Naytalia tugged harder as Olan Lundin made a beeline in their direction. “If you kneel, they will kneel. If you do not, they will follow you, to their deaths.”
The one thing he could never allow.
Nikolai’s knees folded, cracking the ice below and sending similar fractures spiking through his chest as his cells recoiled and everything inside him screamed in defiance. But behind him, he heard the tiny drop of several other knees falling to the ice and knew his siblings had heeded his example.
Zaya and Mikhail, held tight in Maxheim and Alexi’s arms, cooed as if pleased with his choice.
They would all live to see another rotation. That would have to be enough.
Olan reached them.
“Very good. Know your place and we’ll get along fine.” His voice was thick with smug pleasure. “Keep a watch on this one, though.” He pointed at Nikolai as he spoke to his men. “I sense trouble.” Then, challenge still in his gaze, he pulled Naytalia up from the ground and hoisted her over his shoulder.
She didn’t struggle.
“Come,” he told his soldiers. “I need a drink and a good fuck.” He smacked Naytalia’s ass. She cried out, but Nikolai wasn’t sure it was in protest. “Grab what you like and let’s see if this backwater shithole has anything of value in it, after all.”
Another round of cruel, crude laughter as the males pulled other kneeling forms from the crowd and strode inside the outpost that had moments before had been Nikolai’s home.
Nikolai shot to his feet. His rage was so great he shook with it.
All he wanted right then was to follow Olan Lundin inside and rip him apart.
Except Maxheim, Alexi, Damien, Anya, and even the twins, were all looking up at him with expectation in their eyes.
He was all they had in the way of protection.
His first priority had to be keeping them safe.
The purr of another shuttle engine startled him from his thoughts.