Until Mercy: Happily Ever Alpha World, page 11
I pack as much clothes as I can into three of my suitcases, and I grab the tin of money under my bed. I have nothing important here that I can’t fit into a bag.
Except Kellan.
Suddenly, the room that was spinning stands still and a ringing comes barreling into my ear. My heartbeat slows and I feel what I know is heartbreak. I can’t say anything to him. I won’t bring him into this. Link killed a man for looking at me with a twinkle in his eyes.
What would he do to the man I love?
“Please no,” I cry then, losing everything all on my knees as I hit the ground and sob. It’s a heart-wrenching cry, a sound I’ve only made once before, and that was when I watched a man lose his life because of me. Difference is, I didn’t love that man. I didn’t build a life of safety, love, and bliss with that man. That man wasn’t Kellan, and now the one man I have felt genuine love for, I’m losing. Kellan saved me from a world that left me feeling alone and desolate and never knowing what love is.
Kellan is my soul mate, and I’m going to have to sever my soul in half and leave. I love my life with him, but I love him and the chance of his safety more.
“I came to end it with you, but then I saw your face, Kellan. You touched me. Your hands touched me and I couldn’t do it. I thought I could think of a way to get us both away and save us from the terrible things Link was capable of, but—” I stop, tears welling in my eyes, and his brows draw in sympathetically.
“You asked me to marry you, and I saw that in order to really love you and protect you, I had to let you go. But I needed that night with you. To have one last moment of feeling like me. To have the one thing in my life that ever gave me solace and ever made me believe that the life I had before you was just a terrible memory I could forget.” I touch his face, bringing my forehead to his.
“You should’ve told me, Mercy. I could have protected us.” He kisses the tip of my nose. “I woke up the next morning, and after finding your note with the ring, I felt like a part of my fucking life had been ripped away from me.”
“You don’t think I understand that? You don’t think I still understand that? Being apart from you was like living in a world where the sun set and never came up again.” I climb into his lap when he tries to fight off tears. I wrap myself around him and pull his face in my palms.
I knew this talk wasn’t going to be easy, but if I’m going to trust that whatever we decide to do after this will keep him and everyone I love in my life safe, then I need to tell him just who Link is and how dangerous he can be.
“I need you to forgive me for everything. I broke your heart and I broke us.” I put my hand over his heart, sitting back enough to look at him. He hasn’t said anything, and I know he’s trying to process this. We made love; we didn’t talk about everything. We connected again, all while being completely apart in words. We have amends to make, and we can’t cover that with lust and passion and love.
I can’t fix us after what happened until he forgives me. He doesn’t speak, just keeps his eyes on my hand where it lays against his chest. Kellan has never been ashamed of the man he is, his emotions, his thoughts, his heart. He has always been open with me. In fact, it’s one reason I loved him most. After Link, I became a walking heartless mess. I didn’t want to love; I didn’t want to believe there was still good in people.
But Kellan restored the faith. He surrounded me with his words and his laughter. He showed me when he was sad, when he was jealous, when he was happy, and when he fell in love with me. Hearing him not tell me how he feels after all the emotions of the past few days is leaving me dire. I need his words.
“Kellan, please talk to me, baby,” I speak softly.
He finally looks up. His eyes are red, the tears still there but not falling.
“I’m fucking angry, Mercy. I want to yell at you. Make love to you until you feel me so deep, force you to spend days making it up to me. Until I can believe that every day I wake up you aren’t going to be gone.”
I debate what to say. I could lie to ease the heartbreak, or—like I know I should—I could be honest.
“I want to. I want to run so far away, but the difference is I want to take you with me. Kellan, it’s been years since I left, but that love I had for you only grew. I couldn’t leave you again, even if I tried. But the risk—”
“Mercy! Fuck the risk, dammit. I’m just as good as dead without you as I am in the hands of a fucking lunatic with some mark on my head.” He stands, and I stand back as he paces the hotel room.
I don’t blame him. I stay silent and let him have a moment to express what he feels, because I’d rather have him mad as hell at me than not saying anything at all.
“You left me because you didn’t believe in me and in us. What we had.”
I shake my head. “Kellan, I did. It wasn’t that.”
“No! It was. And that’s my fault too. I put us in this bubble, because part of me knew you had secrets that would tear me apart if I let them. I hid you from family and friends. God, Mercy—I didn’t even question you or anything about you. I decided to trust you and love you, and I let that cloud me. But you didn’t do the same.”
He moves toward the door, and I realize just how much he’s held in. I was naïve to think this wouldn’t come out eventually. Things are different now. It’s not just him and me anymore. He knows why I ran, his family is involved, my friends are involved, and we’re in the middle of a hotel room filled with lust, heartbreak, fear, and this strong desire to forgive and make up.
But my secrets and the pain I caused him are clouding that right now, and I have to let him feel what he needs to.
“Kellan, please don’t leave.”
“No, I need it. I need a minute to clear my head.”
I drop my head and nod, letting him go. “Okay.”
“I’m mad and hurt, but I love you, Mercy.”
The door shuts and I move to the couch to cry. I sob until it’s a whimper that lulls me to sleep. I don’t know what else to do or where to go from here, but the emotions are enough to knock me out. And I know it’s only just the beginning.
Chapter Fourteen
Kellan
I pull up to Nico and Sophie’s house, still a couple hours before I have to be at the airport to pick up Mercy’s friends. I didn’t know where to go after Mercy and I talked. She was trying to let me in, and I understand that, but I was obviously still angry for the way she left me. When I saw her for the first time, all that consumed me was making up with her. Touching her and making sure she was still mine is all I wanted to do.
Then she started to let me in, and it only made me realize just how fucked up everything is. When she left, Mercy broke me into what could only be described as a man with nothing left, and I grew a cage around my heart until I saw her again. She broke down barriers and brought me to my knees again, but I haven’t healed since she tore apart my heart.
I love her. I want her, but I want her to beg me for mercy. I want her to make up for what she did to me. She thought I wasn’t capable enough to save her, to keep her and me both safe. Hell, I would have ran with her if she would’ve asked.
Slamming my fist on the steering wheel then running a hand through my messy hair, I take a deep breath before I climb out of the truck. I need to talk to Uncle Nico. It’s really the only thing I can do right now. I can’t talk to my parents, because I don’t want them to get the wrong idea about Mercy. Nico has been here since the day she left me.
“Kellan! Bub, I’m so happy you’re here!” My sweet Aunt Soph answers the door with an apron on and a hand towel flung over her shoulder.
“Hey, Aunt Soph, I’m happy to see you too.”
She grabs my face then, just like my mother would. “Oh no, you didn’t bring that sweet girl of yours, and I can see it written all over your face. Come in and take a seat. I’m just making Nico some pie.”
I don’t deny her. Giving her a small grin, I walk in and she guides me to the kitchen.
“So what happened?” she asks, pulling out the stool at her countertop and gesturing for me to sit.
“What didn’t happen? That would be the shorter list,” I admit, dropping my head in my hands, my knee bouncing.
“So you didn’t take my advice, I see,” Nico announces himself, coming into the kitchen. Walking up to my aunt, he kisses her cheek and takes a place behind Sophie, his hand placed firmly on her hip.
Envy seeps in. What a wall of strength and power. They’re a united team of trust, and all I wish is that Mercy would have let us build the same thing.
“No, I did—at first,” I declare.
“But?” he draws out.
“I saw her, and all I wanted to do was make up. I wanted to remember what it was like—to make sure it was still there.”
“What was still there?” Sophie tries, a lot more gentle with her words than my uncle—which is to be expected. My uncle Nico always used to say he didn’t have to be nice to anyone, but he would always be nice to Sophie. So him coming in and lecturing me is to be expected as well.
I release a deep breath. “That she was still mine. That I had her in my palm. That I owned her.”
“Oh, son, you can’t own her. She’s her own woman, but she can still be yours. She is, isn’t she? She’s here—you’re here and she hasn’t run.”
“Yet.” I let it out, lay it bare.
“There it is. You thought you could kiss and make up, but I told you it won’t work that way.”
“You don’t think I know that?”
“No I don’t, as a matter of fact.” He scoffs.
“Nico! You need to take it down a notch. He needs us to listen.” I watch his hand tighten on her hip and she grabs hold of it, giving it a squeeze of reassurance.
“Okay, so why are you here then?” he tries again, and this time it’s a little less aggressive.
“I get her fear, and I understand just how fucked up the man she’s running from is, but I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how I can forgive the pain she caused. When we made love, I felt this pain—this feeling of goodbye.”
“You’re a man reclaiming his woman after she left you. I’ve been there. I get it.”
“How? Look at you and Aunt Soph. You’re perfect.” It’s my turn to scoff.
“No we aren’t. I wasn’t always the easiest girl to keep around, honey.” Sophie rounds the island and comes to sit next to me.
“I remember when it was time for me to meet Nico’s family and I was petrified. I even ran away for a night. I wanted to get away from a past that I was running from and didn’t want to drag Nico through the mud and pain with me. But I did...a lot, and yet he stayed.”
“I wouldn’t let you leave me if you tried, woman,” he adds.
“Hush, you were just as worried as Kellan is now, except his is worse. I was gone a day and put us through hell, yes, but at least I didn’t run away from you for years. He’s allowed to feel hurt,” Sophie defends me with a soft yet stern tone.
“Yeah, he is. But he has to remember that this is his woman, and if he loves her, then he needs to learn how to forgive her and move on. You have to take care of her now, and you can’t do that if you won’t learn to forgive and to trust her.” He pauses, looking at Sophie for a moment. “This can’t be easy on her at all. She’s scared and she’s apologetic, and I’m sure she wishes she could take back what she did, but she can’t and you can’t punish her for that. Because in the end, punishing her is only going to punish you.”
He’s right and I know it, because me leaving her behind after she told me what she did was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Watching her cry and ask me not to leave was torturous. But we went from saying sorry, to making passionate love, to opening her wounds, and throwing salt on the ones I still have open, and then to me walking out.
“So what do we do?” I ask, looking between them both. Nico and Sophie are like parents to me, and there advice is treated as such.
“It’s not what we do, but how about you two just start over. Let her say sorry and let yourself accept it. We will deal with the rest in a few days when everything settles. Whoever she’s running from isn’t going to get to her right now. We have time—you have time, and you two need to work out your problems like grown people do. You need to let her fall into your safety net, or you might as well repeat history, son.”
He’s right. We aren’t young like we were years ago. We’ve grown up and we have all our cards on the table now. If we’re going to fix it and end this chase with that scumbag Link, then we have to move on and let go of what happened in the past. I have to forgive what happened, and Nico is right. The past is in the past, and the only thing I need to focus on is my woman and keeping her safe.
We wasted years apart, and I don’t want to waste anymore.
A few seconds pass, but really it feels like drawn out minutes before Sophie breaks up the silence. “Now that that’s settled, let’s get you something to eat and you can tell us everything.”
And I do. I tell them everything Mercy told me, and now that I have a name, I let Nico do some research so I can focus the next three days on making everything better between us.
“I’ll kill that piece of shit if he comes for her again,” Kingston says from the passenger seat.
“I second that,” Trey adds. I picked up Mercy’s friends at the airport after I had lunch with Nico and Sophie. I filled them in with what she told me, deciding I would save her the pain of rehashing it again. And just like Nico and I did when we learned the truth, Kingston and Trey react the same way.
Rage. Blood-burning rage.
“I still can’t believe you and her were a couple and that this is really happening,” Shayla adds from the back seat.
I look back in the rearview and see her shaking her head as her husband comforts her. She and Lana both cried for most of the story, and that only made the men more upset.
“Trust me, it still rattles my brain. Mercy was put on this earth to be mine, and there were many forces put into this situation.”
“That’s an understatement,” Lana inserts, and it lightens the mood a bit.
“So what are we going to do then? To keep her safe?”
“Nico has connections, as do I, and we’re going to dig up more on this Link guy, and I will put him away.”
“What about his connections? Aren’t you worried about who he has on his side?” Trey asks.
“Yeah, that’s why we do what we can to put him away, and if me and Mercy have to stay quiet and I have to watch our backs the rest of our lives, then I will.” I don’t skip a beat when I make that declaration. I know criminals, and I know the risk of locking him up. He will still call shots, and being behind bars will only give him the desire to seek revenge.
“All right. Well, we’re right beside you in that, Kellan. We will keep her safe,” Kingston declares, giving me a pat on my shoulder.
“Thank you. Now, let’s make this visit as normal as possible for Mercy. I know she’ll want time with you girls, and leave everything to us.”
Everyone nods in silent agreement.
“We need to take her out, maybe get her dressed up and drunk,” Lana breaks the silence.
“Agreed! Oh, a girls night out!” Shayla adds.
“You’re cute, baby. You can have a girls night while we have a guy’s night across the same bar,” Trey replies.
Kingston looks back at Lana. I don’t have to see her to feel that eye roll all the way over here.
“You guys are killjoys.” Shayla chuckles.
“No, there are bad men out there, and it’s our job to keep our women safe. Don’t even argue it; decision’s been made. You can get drunk, dance for me, and then let me take you home so you can have your wicked way with me, baby.” Kingston is just like me—my thoughts on Mercy exactly.
“Kings! You’re a caveman. Just for that, I’m going to get so drunk you’ll have to drag my sleepy, sloppy self to the hotel, where I will pass out and you’ll have to use your left hand,” she threatens, and no one says anything, letting them have their moment.
Me and Mercy left on not-good terms, and I walked out with my head on fire. I don’t want to leave it that way. The alpha in me is counting down the seconds until I’m with her so I can tell her I’m sorry. To make amends and focus on us.
“Will you two stop bickering? We don’t need another Donovan showing up nine months from now,” Trey breaks up their back-and-forth.
“I take it you two bicker like this a lot?” I ask.
“Oh, it’s been this way since day one. This is their twisted version of foreplay. One sassy brunette best friend and my tatted alpha big brother. I’ve been watching them do this since we were young.”
“So you two love being brother and sister?” I gesture to Kingston and Shayla, insinuating sarcasm.
“Yes, unfortunately.” Shayla giggles.
“Hush, you love having me as a brother. In fact, I think you wish you were as funny and charming as me.”
“Oh, God. You’re embarrassing yourself, old man. Be quiet,” Lana says from behind him. She leans forward to nudge him, and Kingston takes her hand and bites on her finger.
“You’ve loved me as far back as your memory takes you, and I’ve been embarrassing myself every day since then and you love it. So stop with the teasing or you won’t be going out tonight, because you’ll be too busy giving me another boy.”
These people are unapologetically them, and I can tell the history between the four of them is strong. I’m grateful Mercy has them in her corner. It brings me comfort to know she wasn’t totally alone all these years.
We spend the rest of the ride making small talk and getting to know each other a little bit more. Once we get them checked into the hotel, we make our way up to the room. Opening the door with the four of them in tow, I walk into silence. It’s quiet, and my anxiety rises. Did she leave me?
