“Dammit.” The word was spoken through his teeth, more a hiss than anything else. “Give me a minute, Sigma.” His voice sounded completely different.
A sense of danger skittered across her skin, his power suddenly swelling into the room like an ominous cloud, closing in against her mind like a metal compress. Her breath turned shallow, her thoughts tripping over themselves. It was eerily similar to what had happened to Sato in the hotel room in Nevada, and just like that time, her mind snapped back to her father.
To when he would lose control.
Sato hadn’t acted like her father, but faced with that dangerous roll of influence again, Isobel’s mind was suddenly blank, filled with the trauma of her childhood. There was no room for her to kneel on the ground, to stretch out her back for her father’s belt, to turn her head to the side against the ground where the carpet fibres would tickle her nostrils.
And she was too scared to reach for her phone, to call Reed.
She let out a low sound of distress, turning around with her shirt still tugged down to show him that she was fine. She wasn’t bleeding any more. It was instinctual, and it seemed to work. Niko’s eyes narrowed in on her pale skin. His hands switched from the counter to her hips, drawing her up onto her toes. It didn’t seem to be enough because he pulled her up further, higher and higher.
She scrambled to draw her legs up, needing to feel something beneath her, and he sat her on the counter, her legs tucked beneath her. It put her a little higher than him, his face level with her chest. Niko was wearing a completely alien expression, like the real him had stepped out for a while, allowing some kind of Alpha predator to take his place. It terrified her, but he was the last person who would hurt her—outside the wrestling ring—and she repeated that fact inside her head. Niko stood up for her. He was doing all of this so she could protect herself. And he had helped her through a panic attack with all the patience and kindness of a person who was used to caring for victims of violence—not like he was a perpetrator of it himself.
It didn’t matter that there was a dangerous rattle emanating from his chest.
His strong hands drifted up her sides, uncaring that her shirt was still damp with sweat, his focus narrowing in on the few spots of blood showing through the material. She watched warily, both of them ignoring the trembling of her body as his hands drifted back down, gathering the hem of her shirt and pulling it up.
His eyes flicked up to hers once, his Alpha ring so swollen it almost seemed to be merging with his pupil, the black and gold meld of colour turning him into a stranger for a brief moment, and then he was ducking, his warm breath scattered low across her belly. He pressed his face against her skin, breathing deeply, like he was trying to regain control of himself, but his attention was dragged up higher, past her belly button, to the bottom of the chain. He pushed her shirt up further, and a low growl vibrated out of his mouth, teasing along her skin.
He flattened his tongue to the base of the chain, causing Isobel to jump in shock, but he didn’t stop there. He dragged his tongue up the length of the chain, pushing her shirt higher and higher, until the material was at her chin, bunched there, blocking his path. He buried his face in her shirt, his whole body vibrating, and she hesitantly tunnelled her fingers into his hair, feeling the sweep of panicked violence that emanated off him.
She tried to focus all of her energy on him—to ignore the fluttering in her stomach, the coolness of his saliva striking a line all the way up her sternum. His quiet rumbles were making her squirm and she fought back the insane urge to pull her shirt the rest of the way off and see where else he licked.
Christ.
Maybe she should have been spending a little more time with her surrogates.
Or any time with her surrogates.
Niko suddenly pulled back from her with a shudder, releasing her shirt. “How did you know what to do?” he demanded in a roughened tone. “Why the fuck does it feel like you’ve had experience with this?”
She couldn’t make sense of his tone, or the muddled press of emotions battering against her chest.
Fury, possession, disquiet.
“With Alphas?” she dared to ask, the words barely more than a squeak. “My father is an Alpha.”
“He’s one Alpha.” Niko’s perfect brows pulled down, his lips pressing tightly together as he frowned. “And he lived outside the settlements. He’s practically human.”
She chewed on her lip, wondering if they were even talking about the same thing.
“How did you know what to do?” he asked again. He wasn’t moving back or releasing her, but at least his eyes were only focussed on her face and her shirt had mostly fallen back into place.
“My father has rages. My mother taught me to always submit when he’s angry.”
Niko breathed in deeply, his nostrils flaring.
Rage.
The sweep of his emotion lashed out at her, but his face remained impassive, his eyes burning. “It’s not the same thing,” he whispered. “We don’t have rages. We have … well, according to Elijah, it’s our hindbrain. Your father is an abuser. It’s different. We don’t want to hurt you. The last thing we want is to hurt you …”
He trailed off, easing back slightly, his face dipping at the last second like he was quickly scenting her skin before he lifted her from the counter. “Your skin broke. I tasted blood.” He set her on her feet, and then backed several paces away, running his hands down the front of his wrinkled shirt. “It must not have been deep enough to scar you.”
She froze, realising what could have happened, before quickly shaking her head. “The chain healed the skin right after it pierced it. How is what just happened to you different to what happens to my father?”
“Surging only happens in Alpha formations. Our hindbrain can be triggered to take control, turning us into … well, our base instincts. While we struggle to hold onto our humanity, the trigger usually needs to be remedied. You were hurt. It triggered me. You offered up your skin for me to taste and scent, which allowed me to reassure myself that you were okay.”
She stared at him, a slow realisation dawning. “You weren’t supposed to tell me that, were you?”
He smiled slightly, shaking his head. “I just … um.” He motioned to her chest. “I figured I owed you an explanation.”
She snorted out a shaky laugh. “Yeah, maybe. You were a gentleman about it, though.”
He looked like he was blushing. “We shouldn’t linger in here. I’ll see you at the dorm in an hour. Don’t come in smelling like blood unless you want a riot on your hands and … go easy on Kilian.”
“Go easy on him?”