Love Like Cyanide - ch 16
alpha idol paranormal romance
Chapter 16: Dante
My cell phone starts ringing. Normally, it would startle me, but the ringer is thankfully muted. I must have passed out while I was doom scrolling, because the mattress beside me rattles with the intensity of the vibrations. I roll over, away from the phone, hoping the caller will just leave a message. I'm exhausted and not in the mood to deal with people.
Just my luck, the damn thing keeps ringing. With a disgusted groan I reach out, blindly thumping my hand against the sheets before finally finding the stupid phone. I glance at the screen with bleary eyes, seeing that it's four in the morning. The caller ID makes my blood run cold, and I'm suddenly more awake than if I had shotgunned two energy drinks back to back.
I sit up, clearing my throat, and press the green little phone symbol. I cover my mouth to suppress a yawn.
"Hey, Natalie. What's going on?"
The silence from the other side of the line is deafening. I do my best to stay calm, but the panic is creeping up on me. I say her name again, softly.
I hear her sniffle, and then she murmurs something like “Sorry” but it’s so quiet that I almost can’t hear her. I’m about to start asking more questions, but she exhales shakily and I feel my heart shatter into a thousand pieces. Why is she crying, and why is she calling me at four in the morning?
“God, I feel so stupid.” She sniffles again, and I’m ready to put my fist through a wall. “Dante… I didn’t know who else to call. And I probably don’t have much time.” Her voice is hoarse, but she’s almost whispering, like she’s afraid someone is going to hear her.
“Nat, what the fuck is going on? You’re freaking me out, Doc.”
“It’s just that —" Her voice breaks, and she curses under her breath again. “Dante, I thought I could handle it. It shouldn’t be a big deal, right?” Her tone takes on a mewling quality that I absolutely love in a certain context, but this isn’t it.
“Natalie…”
She cuts me off, her voice even quieter. I’ve been sleeping like shit, but she sounds even worse. “I feel like an absolute asshole to drop this on you right now, but Valentine and I are bonded, and now he’s in a rut, and I stupidly thought that I could handle that all on my own. I have no fucking clue how I’m going to survive a few more days of this.”
My fist knots the sheets, the fabric creaking under the strain of the force of my grip. I’m overwhelmed with a wave of emotions that wash over me. Anger, sadness, disappointment, rejection. I take a deep calming breath and let all of that go because there’s one emotion more important than any of my own. Fear. Natalie’s genuine fear.
I put the phone on speaker and I’m pulling on clothes before I have a chance to talk myself out of it. “Where are you, Natalie?”
She doesn’t respond, and I feel my rage ratchet up a couple of notches. “In my apartment. He’s passed out for a few. But I don’t know how long it’s going the last. It’s been two days, and I think I’ve only slept maybe four hours spaced out between them.”
She sobs as I stuff my feet into my shoes and grab my keys. Hearing her like that, knowing I’m not there to comfort her, is like getting stabbed in the heart and having someone twist the knife for good measure. “I know he can’t really help it right now, but Jesus, Dante… How in the hell…? Is it always this bad for you, too?”
“Send me a pin on the map, Nat. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Valentine has a condition that makes his ruts not normal. He should have fucking warned you.”
I’m trying not to run, but I’m practically bounding down the steps from my condo to my car.
“He did warn me, but I didn’t think it would be this bad.”
I want to give her words of encouragement, something soft to help her feel better. Instead, I snipe out: “You’re both stubborn fucking idiots.” I get a text with her location. “But I can give you hell about that later. Hang in there, Natalie. I’m on my way.”
She gives me a sad little chuckle. “Thanks, Dante.”
The call disconnects and my car revs to life. This is definitely not how I was planning to spend my vacation. No rest for the wicked, I guess.
~*~
“Fuck’s sake, Nat…” I growl under my breath as I park. The old tenement building looks like it’s one wind storm away from crumbling to nothing but dust and debris. She texted the apartment number, saying it’s on the fourth floor, and that she’d leave the door unlocked.
I didn’t like that idea, not one bit, but I also didn’t want to have to kick down her door when I got up there. “This is way too many damned stairs to have to scale this early in the morning,” I murmur to nobody, my footsteps echoing in the stairwell.
Finally standing outside her door, I close my eyes for a second, taking a deep centering breath. I have no idea what’s waiting for me on the other side of the door, but I know it’s not going to be good.
I’m not going to kill Valentine. I’m not going to kill Valentine. I’m not going to—
Natalie is passed out in the small entryway, leaned against the closet door. Her mouth hangs open, but her breathing is even and level. Dark circles under her eyes attest to the truth that the poor woman hasn’t gotten hardly any sleep for days. She’s barely covered with a black silk robe, the shoulder slipped down to show her collarbone, and an unmistakable claiming bite on the side opposite from where mine had been.
Aside from the exhaustion, and probably dehydration, she looks as unharmed as a woman who’s been alone with an alpha in rut can be. But still… that fucking bite, from HIS teeth, on the other side of her neck…
“I’m gonna fucking kill him.”
Natalie stirs and I feel like an absolute asshole for waking her because I couldn’t keep my stupid mouth shut. Her eyes snap open and dart around the room, the whites of her pretty blue orbs bloodshot. “Dante?” My name on her lips sounds like an answered prayer, reverent and fearful.
I shut the door behind me as carefully as I can and she holds her arms skyward, like a kid wanting uppies. I scoop her up in my arms and she wraps herself around me like a koala, burying her face in my chest. Trying to lighten the mood, since I can feel her sadness rolling over me in waves, I press a kiss to the top of her hair.
“How the hell are you still holding on so tight with your legs, Doc? They should be noodles, by now.” Her cinnamon sugar scent takes my murderous intent down a few notches, and the way she thumps her forehead against my chest makes me grin despite my otherwise shitty mood.
I cradle her in my arms like something precious, because she is. After marking her accidentally, fate be damned, holding her like this, again… It feels right. Natalie feels like home. So, maybe I’m just a fucking idiot, no matter which way you slice it.
“Don’t kill him,” she murmurs with a yawn.
I roll my eyes, even though she can’t see it. “You’re such a buzzkill, Nat. Let a guy rage a little, wouldja?”
I almost yelp as she legit bites me, rolling skin between her teeth for a second before letting go. “Greedy girl. Don’t start shit you’re in no condition to finish, Doc.”
She snorts in response and rests her cheek against the stinging skin on my chest that she just sank her teeth in to. “I don’t know what I expected you to do here, but thanks for showing up, Dante.”
I carry her over to the couch and sit down with her curled up in my lap, dragging the blanket from the back over the both of us, despite my body heat alone being more than enough to keep us warm. She needs the weight of it, the safety of it. She might not be an omega, but all women need cuddles, even if they’ve become too independent to admit it aloud.
She burrows her face into the hollow my shoulder and I lean my cheek against her hair, doing my damnedest to ignore the rolling midnight ocean scent of Valentine that gives her soothing bakery aroma a sharp edge. “You sure I can’t kill him? Just a little? Right now, while he’s passed the fuck out, would be the perfect time to strike.”
“Noooo,” she half whines. “Why are you still talking? Shaddap and let me snooze, damn it.”
In the few seconds it takes me to come up with a snappy retort, she’s actually passed out in my arms, her fingers spasming like a puppy’s feet while they’re dreaming. Her deep, rhythmic breathing makes short work of my fried nerves and I sink into sleep with her. Content and feeling like things are actually right with the world. Just this once.