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.