Nikolai leaned back in the chair, taking another sip of alcohol. “I offered to drive her back. I wanted to spend a few more hours with her as I was leaving to come home the following day. We were somewhere in the desert when she asked me to pull over. She wanted to run.”
He rolled his bottom lip between two rows of even teeth, sighing. “The moment my wolf saw hers, I knew she was mine. Nothing else mattered. Adalynne was my mate.”
“You bonded.” I touched the hollow of my throat where my necklace should have been. I remembered that feeling. Like being struck by lightning and being resurrected. The moment I knew Remy was mine changed everything.
“We spent the night under the stars,” he added, the look in his eyes haunted and far away as he remembered. After a beat, his lips curved into a smile that creased his cheeks. “I’ll spare you the details, but since you’re here, I’m assuming you can imagine how it went.”
My cheeks heated, and I couldn’t help but giggle nervously. Yeah, clearly my parents hadn’t waited months to consummate their bond the way Remy and I had.
He set the glass down on the table with a heavy sigh. “I let her go. She wanted to go home and pack her things. She needed to tell her parents she had met her mate. Then she planned to come back to my pack with me. I left her a mile outside of the gates of her home with a plan to return in a few hours. Possibly even meet her family.”
“She just agreed to leave with you? After only knowing you for a few hours?” I pressed.
“Yes,” he answered simply. “She wanted a fresh start, and … Well, you have a mate. You know how intense those first days can be.”
Remy and I hadn’t had the most normal bond in mated wolf history. I’d fought it, unsure if I wanted it. I doubted I would have followed him across the world after the first night.
Then again, Mom was a different person than I was. And she also didn’t have the baggage back then that I’d carried into my bonding.
My stomach twisted painfully.
“I was in my hotel, packing my things and planning our lives together when I felt the bond break.” A shudder rolled down his body, his expression turning dark. “It was like being stabbed and drowned in the same breath. There was just this gaping, exposed part of me that had been torn away.”
I sniffled and blinked, not too surprised when a tear rolled down my cheek. I wiped it away quickly.
“My entire life I was taught the value of honor and family,” he went on woodenly. “I assumed her parents convinced her to continue with the marriage they had arranged for the sake of their pack. So, I left. I returned home to Russia to be the Alpha my pack needed.”
“You never told anyone?” I asked hesitantly.
“Tasha knew,” he replied with a grim nod. “I told her of your mother as I was packing. She was excited to meet her when we arrived.”
“But weren’t you two married?”
He smiled at me. “Yes, but you must understand, the marriage I share with Tasha is one of convenience for us both. The pack expected we would marry unless we found our true mates. Tasha did just that.”
“Dimitri’s father?” I guessed.
“They bonded when she was around Dimitri’s age, a few years older than you. Sadly they were only together a few years before he was killed. She found out she was pregnant the day after his funeral.”
“And you married her?” I frowned, not sure how that worked itself out.
“Sweetheart, you don’t understand the way of things here,” he said quietly, but not unkindly. “Natasha was the strongest female apart from my mother, who was aging herself. I was at an age where I was preparing to take over for my father as Alpha. Tasha was one of my dearest friends, but she was pregnant and in a world where offspring are few and far between. Many men offered to marry her. I offered because it allowed her to grieve without a parade of men posturing and chasing her. Besides, her mate was also my beta and best friend. I owed it to him to ensure Dimitri had a father.”
“So, you adopted him,” I murmured.
“Yes. He is my son in every way but blood,” he said fiercely. “I love him as much as I love you. You are both my children.”
Emotion nearly swelled my throat closed. I had waited so long to find this man, and while I knew we had miles to go, the little girl in me who always craved being wanted was happy.
“If I had known you existed, I would have come for you,” he swore, his gray eyes holding mine. “I would have protected you and your mother if she would have only told me.”
“She couldn’t,” I said with a helpless shrug. “You don’t understand what it was like there.”
“Then tell me,” he coaxed gently, leaning forward in earnest. “Please, Skye. After hearing what you said to your uncle and then what Elias told me, I can only draw the most horrific of conclusions.”
I sighed and leaned back. “I promise you that whatever horrors you’re imagining? What Mom endured was worse. Why did you never go back and just ask her what went wrong?”
“Because I was young and hurt and proud. Too proud.” He hung his head in defeat. “I wasn’t a man given to his emotions, and in the few hours I was bonded to your mother, I was more vulnerable than I had ever been. It was terrifying and exhilarating all at once.”
I remembered that feeling when I first bonded to Remy. I was scared as hell that fate had thrown me another curveball that would only end in pain.
I had been so blessedly wrong.
“I did hear that she didn’t marry into the other pack she was supposed to, but the reasons were vague and conflicting. And at that point, we had our own troubles on the borders again. I threw myself into dealing with my pack, and I ignored all reports from the American packs. I vowed I would never return there again.”
“The marriage was called off because they found out Mom was pregnant,” I said after a long pause. “It was a huge mess that ripped apart the southern packs.”
He nodded and lifted his glass, taking another sip.
“I’m not sure how it happened, but what I said to Linden was true. Mom said that she didn’t choose to break her bond. It was broken for her.”
Nikolai swallowed like there was glass in his mouth. “And what Elias said? About her being raped?”
I looked down at the carpet. “It was her … punishment. For betraying her pack.”
His hand tightened around the glass.
“Long Mesa never treated omegas well. They were often used for manual labor or other menial tasks. They were treated like slaves.” I drew in a steadying breath. “That changed when Mom was sent there.”
Nikolai’s head snapped up. “Your mother was not an omega.”
“No,” I agreed, “but they treated her like one. And then it wasn’t just … cleaning and shit work that she was doing. The omega house became something different. Something worse.”
His jaw clenched, the muscles in his throat working as he tried to stomach what I was alluding to.
Shaking, I lowered my head. “Yes, she was raped. Daily. Multiple times a day. By pack members, by people who visited the pack. And then my mom wasn’t enough, so they moved more omegas into the house.”
“And this is where you grew up?”