Page 109 of Soul of the Chaos

“Let me go.” I pushed but his arms banded around me like steel, holding me fast, making me despise my weak human body. If I were a wolf, he’d have to listen. I was an alpha—in my soul—and we both knew it. “I don’t need either of you.”

“Sasha.” The way he said my name melted some of the existential rage. Although I stopped fighting, I wasn’t ready to capitulate. Not yet. “Come back to bed. Please?”

Yeah, it was the please that did it.

“Get naked first,” I countered.

I twisted around, my hands still planted on my hips and my body pressed so close I could feel his heartbeat. Feel his need pressing into my abdomen.

“Not if you’re just using my body to mask your pain, baby girl.” He flashed a mischievous grin. “I’m all for you using my body, most of the time. However, not like this.” He leaned forward and rubbed his nose along mine, up one side and then around to the other. “If you want me, I’m here. But I’m not a substitute for Grimm and you know it.”

The look in his eyes defeated me. I sagged into his arms and soaked up his strength. Mongrel was right. He wasn’t a stand-in for the alphahole who wouldn’t take me. He was my mate. A man who loved me and didn’t deserve to be treated as second best.

I reached up a hand and stroked his rough face in apology, sighing as my beta nuzzled my palm. “Then hold me?”

“Unless I’m mistaken, that’s exactly what I’m doing right now.” The Sgt. at Arms gave me another cheeky grin—seriously, where was this light-hearted side coming from?—under that bushy beard.

Despite all the turmoil, I wanted to tug on that beard. To relish the way those thick bristles caught between my teeth as they tickled my face and feathered over my bare breasts. I wanted to feel him rubbing against the insides of my thighs, leaving the skin red and raw so I could carry the sensation of my mate with me from our den.

Beards had never done it for me in the past, yet I couldn’t imagine his face any sexier than it was now. He was my burly biker wolf with a thick, curling beard that felt as much a part of him as the webbing of tattoos and scars I so admired coating his skin.

“Asshole.” I gave him my best growl which only earned me a chuckle. “Take me to bed and cuddle me. Right fucking now, beta.”

“It would be my absolute pleasure, little alpha.”

Mongrel helped me out of my jeans and tucked my shoes under the bed with his before shucking his own pants and curling up under the covers with me. His warm arms folded me into his chest and he pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. We stayed like that a while until the words started spilling out of me. I simply couldn’t hold them in anymore when he held the silence so beautifully.

“He doesn’t want me, Mongrel,” I whispered. “He kissed me and I was drowning in him. Swept up in everything that was Grimm. Then he tossed me out of that bathroom like he couldn’t wait to be rid of me. I laid it all out there—would have given him everything—and he just threw me away.”

“Fucking idiot,” Mongrel muttered, low enough that I knew he didn’t expect me to hear. “That’s on him, Sasha. Feel me?” He stroked the hair from my face and looked down at me, eyes soft and tender as they held me in place. “You did nothing wrong.”

“Didn’t I?”

I tucked my face back into his chest, letting his scent wash over me. Our bond sang with affection, the love that was growing there, but my mind was mired in guilt.

“Winter was brought in not long after me,” I began, then backtracked. “Victor was in debt. Since he never really wanted me around, he didn’t fight all that hard when the Bone Crushers—who’d taken over that debt—made it clear there was only one form of payment they would accept.”

The Sgt. at Arms tensed underneath me, his jaw clenching in disgust. I rubbed my face against my mate, grounding myself with the touch of his skin and the whisper of his soft, curling chest hair on my cheek before I continued.

“I got home from work one night, sticky and exhausted from dealing with drunk idiots all night. Many of them were Bone Crushers ‘cause they’d run off all my regulars. The decent ones who tipped well, anyway. I turned on the light in my living room and there was Chains, Prez of the Bone Crushers, sitting in my mother’s armchair with his feet up on her coffee table. He tipped the drink he held in his hand in my direction. Like he had every right to be in my home.”

“They broke in?” Mongrel’s fingers found my hair, carding gently through the tangled strands.

“Nope. Didn’t need to,” I snorted. “Victor gave them a fucking key.”

“How come he had a key?” Mongrel’s voice had dropped, the words rumbling under my cheek. “Doesn’t seem like the kind of man a sensible woman living alone—one like you—would trust with that kind of power, uncle or not.”

“Trust me, I know. Didn’t have much choice, though. It was his property.”

And the only thing I could afford, I added silently.

Dear Old Uncle Vick had docked most of my pay to keep that shithole of a roof over my head. There was barely enough left over for me to buy my own groceries and cover the rest of the bills. And never enough for me to save so I could move out and be free of him.

Mongrel didn’t need to know all that right now, just the bare facts so I could get this out.

“Anyway, they all sat around like I had invited them in. Chains crooked his finger at me. When I didn't immediately hop to it, he sent Venom to grab me. That fucker wrapped my ponytail around two hands and dragged me into my own house. I kicked and screamed, but you saw my neighborhood,” I shrugged.

He nodded solemnly. In that part of town, nobody was rushing to anybody’s rescue.

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