Page 62 of Broken Dreams

In the morning, the same scent that’s curling around me of blackberries and coconut is in the air of our nest and on our bedsheets. Are our alphas fighting our dragons while we sleep, holding us tight in an effort to soothe us?

The thought of how self sacrificing these men are makes me rub my chest absently as I nod along to whatever Callum is saying to me. Quinn has a pad of paper and a pen in her lap, stringing together a few words here and there to remain a part of the conversation.

She’s regressing somehow. It wasn’t difficult before for her to say a word or two to me, at least I don’t think it was. I’ve never thought to ask her before, and now I can hear the distress in her vocal chords as she forces out words to say to me.

As grateful as we both are to be away from Bret and the club, it was our home. It’s fucked up to say that, and I’m certain there’s a form of Stockholm Syndrome we’re still suffering from.

“I’ve definitely lost you,” Callum says, stopping abruptly. “What’s going on, Linus?”

Startled out of my thoughts, I gaze at him with wide eyes.

“Huh?” I ask. Stretching my muscles, I can tell I’m sore from not using them the way I typically would every morning dancing with Quinn. It’s making me feel detached in a really odd way from the world.

“What’s going on in here?” he asks, his thumb rubbing against my temple. I can’t help but lean into his touch, sighing.

“It’s really dumb,” I sigh. “I think I’m going to have to start running for exercise or something. I’ll be out of shape before I know it otherwise.”

Quinn leans against me harder, her head dropping back to gaze up at me. Her baby blue eyes feel as if they’re searching my soul so deeply, I can feel a physical sensation. My lips brush along her forehead, trying to tell her I’m fine.

I know I’m not. There’s all this bullshit bouncing around inside of me. Negative thoughts, a feeling I don’t deserve this somehow, and they’re loud. The lack of movement is threatening to pull me into a foul mood.

I’m also really sad I haven’t felt the earth shattering connection of biology snapping into place yet. It’s there, just muted due to Bret playing at being a mad scientist. I’m just going to have to do the footwork of getting to know my alphas without it for now.

My thoughts are floaty and disconnected as I hug Quinn, my eyes dropping on the cutting shears that came in. Neither of us have got the courage to pick them up, but we have been looking at different hairstyles. She even pulled up some fashion colors to streak the front of her hair.

Freedom means being able to make your own decisions about your hair.

“Sounds like a little more,” Duncan says sagely.

“It’s so dumb after leaving the club. The routines Quinn and I had were important to us, and we’ve fallen away from them. We used to dance every morning, I worked out when I woke up with pushups and sit ups. I thought I could break away from them, but my body hurts, reminding me that I’m not taking care of it,” I sigh.

“So do it,” Duncan says. “There’s room here in the living room to dance, or the backyard has a paved area that would be perfect. We don’t have any neighbors, either.”

“Fuck, and we have a weight room,” Callum says, shifting as if in embarrassment. “We still haven’t given you the full tour.”

“This house is insane, I still get lost in it,” I remind him with a smirk.

I haven’t even thought about touring the house. How can I when this feels like a dream, and someone is going to rip it all away from me?

Quinn’s gazing off, lost in thought, making me realize we must do this more often than I’ve noticed. We’ve been on someone else’s schedule for so long, it’s a luxury to be able to just daydream.

Blinking, she writes out something on the pad.

I want to work.

She’s right, we’ve been in a bubble here, maybe that’s why we feel so unsettled.

“What would we do?” I ask her. The alphas are silent next to us. I can feel their worry, but I don’t think they’ll begrudge us this. “Our skills are a little limited.”

I need to dance too, she admits.Maybe a club?

“What kind of dancing are we talking about?” Duncan asks, swallowing hard. His hands are fisted so tightly I can see that his knuckles are white from here.

God, he’s trying so fucking hard.It’s such a fine line between wanting to give someone the world and knowing there’s boundaries written on your soul. You want to let the people you care about fix themselves, yet you want to keep them safe.

I understand because it’s my everyday life with Quinn. This woman makes me fucking insane.

“Quinn and I can dance to anything,” I say, knowing that’s not what he means.

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