I couldn’t respond to that because it was technically correct. It wasn’t as if I could accuse her of intimidating Libby into doing what she wanted.
“Give me something else, or get out,” I said.
“It’s a long story, but you need to dark bond me.”
What?
For a second, I thought I’d gotten lost in her soft, lilting voice and hadn’t heard correctly. Then I caught a flash of something in her eyes—desperation was the closest descriptor I could come up with. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip.
What had her so desperate she would ask for a dark bond?
They weren’t a bond omegaswanted. Fuck, it was illegal for me to dark bond an omega like her. That kind of connection gave the alpha complete control. Kiara would have to listen to every command I gave her, and she’d never met me before.
“You need to leave,” I said.
Rounding the coffee table and reaching for her shoulder, I froze before we could touch. This close, I spotted things I hadn’t noticed from afar.
The dark spots on her dress were definitely blood. Faint scents were on her, lessened with chemicals like she’d tried to use dampener on her clothing. That wasn’t what was most telling, though.
Just above the neckline of her dress, above one of those stains, was a smear of dark red upon her ample cleavage. It was flaking off, falling down into her clothes.
She stared between my outstretched hand and my face until she glanced down at her chest. Horror grew in her expression and she jumped up, scrambling back toward the glass windows.
“I can explain that,” she said, her voice wobbling.
Could she? Or would it all be lies? I doubted I had a truthful, law-abiding omega in my house if she was half-drenched in blood and asking for a dark bond.
What were my options here? Calling the police was the most reasonable thing to do. They were the ones who could test that blood and figure out what had happened to cause it.
Going against my better judgement, I didn’t pull my phone from my pocket.
“Go ahead, then,” I demanded. “Explain.”
She flinched at my tone, and a flash of regret stabbed me.
“I didn’t mean to do it,” she said. “I promise, I didn’t.”
As a corporate fixer—one who dealt with plenty of under the table business—I’d heard that more than once. That gleam of panic in her baby blues was familiar.
“Tell me what you did, Kiara.”
One of her hands pressed to her sternum, the other stroking through her hair. Fidgeting, like she was about to lie. She didn’t look away from me as she spoke, trying to sell her words as truth.
“A man in my apartment building attacked me, so I hit him with the fire extinguisher. I didn’t think he’d bleed so much or get so… hurt.”
That was when she glanced away, and I saw what Liberty had.
She did have the look of someone who was dangerous when you stood in her way.
I wonder what the man did to her? He must have been standing between her and something she wanted desperately.
Even though I didn’t quite believe it was as simple as that, a quiet rage boiled in my stomach on her behalf. No one should dare rough up an omega.
“And then I ran,” she continued, “and just kept running. That was how Soren found me.”
Of course.Soren.
“Fuck,” I growled.
