Page 13 of Protector (Alpha Ties)
THIRTEEN
AX2
General Thompson uploads directions to his home directly to AX2’s chip, then tells his driver he is excused for the night.
If the beta is confused about the dismissal, he doesn’t show it.
“Yes, sir,” he says, before turning to leave.
“You’re not too tired to drive, soldier?” the general asks quietly, his gaze locked on his wife, and her. The blonde woman has her arm looped through her daughter’s, supporting her as they cross the parking lot.
“Sir, I can operate at full capacity for thirty days before I need sleep,” AX2 answers.
Her face is tight, and AX2 feels her discomfort through the barbed wire lodged between his ribs. Every cell in his body hums out of tune with the urge to cross the distance between them and carry her back to the vehicle, sparing them both the pain.
He doesn’t. Her command to stay still fizzes along his nerves, agitating instincts awakened when he buried his teeth in her nape. For three long years, she has been in control, and he has been made to be obedient—roles she clearly intends to preserve, despite what has happened between them. What she ordered him to do.
But for him... For him, it’s never going to be the same. Because as much as the thought sickens him, there is no changing the fact that he is her alpha now.
“Thirty days? Christ. It’s no wonder she thought you weren’t human, eh?” General Thompson mutters. He glances at him, then briefly puts his hand on the other alpha’s forearm. “Thank you.”
The touch, as much as the unexpectedly hoarse note to the older alpha’s voice, makes AX2 look from his hated mate to her father.
“Without you, we would have lost her,” he says, too softly for the two women to hear. “You keep her safe, and whatever you need from me, for the rest of my lifetime, all you have to do is ask.”
The drive to the Thompsons’ home is silent, save for the hum of the engine.
The general sits in the passenger seat, the women in the back, intertwined.
She sleeps, on and off. AX2 feels her consciousness drift in and out of focus as he maneuvers the car out of D.C., down the interstate, and finally onto quiet country lanes. Only when she sleeps does his aching mate bond ease, its presence in his chest turning soft and almost… pleasant.
The general’s house is a large Virginia estate sat on fenced acres of land in the middle of the countryside. The sun has long-since set by the time they arrive, but AX2 clearly sees the armed guards patrolling the grounds.
“Everyone’s been vetted,” General Thompson explains as they pull up to the gate. “For now, until Addie’s been debriefed and we’ve assessed what kind of resources the enemy might employ to return her, you’ll stay here.” He rolls down his window and allows the guard at the gate to scan his retinas.
…Return her?
“You can continue.”
AX2 jerks, but manages to disguise the movement with a flexing of his hands around the steering wheel. Wordlessly he drives them through the gate and up the long driveway, his attention on their surroundings even as his thoughts writhe like angry serpents in his skull.
He hadn’t considered the Russians who grabbed her might come for her again. But why wouldn’t they? He hasn’t been briefed on why she was taken in the first place—and over the past five days, he hasn’t had thought for anything but that aching, new sensation in his chest. While she slept fitfully in her hospital bed, he spent every second staring at her face, the haunting memory of her body softening under his overlaying every echo of torture she ever inflicted on him.
Mating her did nothing to quell his hatred for her. But the thought of someone taking her from him?
Instincts snap and snarl at him to hunker down on top of the sleeping woman in the backseat, the unpleasant reminder that someone might hurt her sending an acid shock through his biological systems. If something happened to her, he would?—
AX2 blinks as the panicked thought bubbles up from the most primitive parts of his brainstem.
He would die .
Just as surely as his chip would have ended him if he’d managed to take her life, his broken biology won’t allow him to live if she is killed by someone else’s hand.
An odd sort of elation mixes with the instinctive terror the thought of her death forces through his system. If she dies, his tormented existence will finally end.
As if disturbed by his thoughts, she stirs in the backseat, waking fully as the car comes to a stop in front of the steps leading to the double front doors.
“We’re home, sweetheart,” her mother murmurs. “Safe and sound.”
Her daughter chuffs a breath through her nose, but doesn’t word the uncertainty making their bond tight behind his ribs. She doesn’t feel safe.
When she reaches for the door handle, he’s moving before he’s decided to, exiting the car to double-check that the house is indeed secure. For her.
“Oh!” Mrs. Thompson makes a small, startled noise when he scales the facade of the old estate, intent on the roof.
“Leave him to it, dear. He’s bringing his new mate to an unfamiliar place—he’s going to be on edge for a bit.” Despite the somber drive, there’s now a smile in General Thompson’s voice. He feels safe here, AX2 realizes, in his own domain that he has personally ensured is secure.
But his daughter doesn’t share his sentiment, and even if part of AX2 wants Russian agents to swarm out of the damn house and murder her on the spot, his instincts won’t allow him to let her feel unsafe.
The roof is free of threats, and he jumps down the three stories, landing in front of the door with a dull thunk before his mate can reach for the handle.
She startles at his sudden appearance, a small huff escaping her lungs, and when he pushes in front of her to block her access, she narrows her eyes in warning.
AX2 ignores her and opens the door, ensuring he’s shielding her body with his own.
Warm light radiates out from within, and when he steps inside, faint traces of food, cut flowers, and domestic cleaning agents curl in his nostrils.
He’s been in houses like this on many of his missions, but the contrast to the cold light and stench of bleach in the compound where he’s lived for the past three years is still sharp. Grand and ostentatious as this house might be, it’s a home.
AX2 doesn’t wait for permission. He walks across polished wood floors and expensive rugs, scanning for threats.
There are none to be found on the ground level, and though his bond twangs unpleasantly at the separation from his female, he moves to the first floor to continue his patrol.
While the ground floor houses the communal areas, the first floor is dedicated to the family’s private rooms. He knows the instant he steps into her space, even if there is little to differentiate the layout from the four guest rooms he has already secured.
Her scent.
AX2 falters for a moment, stunned by the intimate sensation of her essence wrapping around his body and floating into his nostrils. It’s not fresh, and he knows immediately that she hasn’t spent time here for a few months, but… the layers of it run deep, stretching back years. This was her childhood room. This is where she grew up.
Became a monster.
It’s startling to think of her as a child. An innocent. Startling and unwelcome.
He moves around her room, checking the closet, air vents, light fixtures—any place a foreign object might be hidden. Nothing shows up until a floorboard squeaks under his weight. Frowning, he pushes the rug covering it out of the way with a foot and crouches to investigate.
The edges of the board are ever so slightly worn, suggesting frequent disturbance. When he pries it up, it comes easily.
Years of dust covers the items filling the cavity below.
AX2 brushes his fingers over them, and chuffs through his nose at the uncovered treasure.
Glass marbles; a number of sticks; a rock with a hole through it. A diary decorated with horses and protected by a flimsy lock. A tarnished silver pendant in the shape of a heart; several cut-out pictures of a young man that look like they come from multiple magazines; a folded piece of paper from a “Steve” with terrible penmanship, asking if she wants to be his girlfriend. The checkbox labeled “no” has been ticked, but the note is still safely tucked away among every little trinket the girl who grew up in this room deemed important enough to keep hidden.
AX2 thumbs an old coin that looks like it spent some time buried in soil before it made it to this hidey-hole. How can this be who she was? How can a girl who saw value in a rock with a hole, who kept a diary adorned with horses, have grown up and become someone who implants microchips into men’s brains and tortures them into obedience?
He eyes the diary again, hesitating for a moment before he plucks it from the dust and shoves it into a pocket in his cargo pants.