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“I wish I could say for sure.” Brody was doing a good job at keeping calm, but there were signs that he was just as uncomfortable being separated from his mate as I was. He was clenching and unclenching his hands, shifting his weight from side to side. And when his head perked up like he was listening, I found myself straining to hear what he heard.
After a long moment, I heard a deep rumble of an engine. “Are they back?” I asked, my pulse picking up with hope. Maybe Jude couldn’t stand to be away. Maybe he was coming back to take me with him.
“No,” Pax mumbled, still pouting.Noseemed to be one of the few words he’d mastered.
Brody’s shoulder sagged in disappointment long before the vehicle came into view. I was damn jealous of those heightened shifter senses. “It’s Joe’s security team.” He turned toward his cabin. “Come on. Jude will never forgive me if you die of hypothermia, and if you’re going to hold Pax all day, you might as well sit.”
Turned out Brody was right. The guards sent by Dylan’s father were… well, rough would be a polite way of saying it. Another word to describe them might’ve been “depraved.” They were some seriously shady dudes. There were only six of them, and they didn’t say much, but they all left the same oily taste in my mouth. My survival instinct told me these were not nice men, but it quickly became clear that they’d been given orders to keep their distance. When one of them was caught ogling Sasha’s ass, the ringleader of their little team punched the alpha sharply across the jaw, then before the guy could hit the ground, he’d gripped him around the neck and snarled right in his face. “Keep your head on straight, or I will take it clean off your shoulders. Got it?”
Fangs out, eyes glowing an eerie yellow, the chastised alpha forced himself to nod. “Understood, sir.”
Once the armed guards had dispersed into the woods out of sight of the camp, the rest of us converged into Shan and Brody’s cabin for a playdate of sorts. Our goal was tokeep the kids happy and distracted. The fire was warm in the grate.
“Hey, Wynn, Pax, look at me! Can you do this?” Malachi did a somersault on the king-size bed. “Ta-da!”
“Me too!” Wynn chirped predictably. He tried his best to mimic his role model, managing to do a weird flop-roll move, before holding his hands above his head and saying, “Da-da!” The others applauded their antics.
I looked down at the little white-haired boy still curled in my lap, his thumb tucked into his mouth. “What about you, Pax? Do you want to try?” He shook his head and went back to playing with the buttons on my shirt.
When I looked over at Brody, I saw a fleeting look of concern before he could properly mask it behind a comforting smile. “Who wants a sandwich? I made peanut butter, banana, and… marshmallow!”
Malachi cheered, which made his brother cheer too. Pax did nothing but sigh. Was it normal for a child to be this despondent? With some coaxing, I finally managed to get him to eat something, but he remained listless throughout the whole day.
We kept the kids busy playing I Spy, guessing games, and some old board games that had no rules as far as I could tell, except for moving their chunky wooden players around the board as quickly as they could. Vestasang songs in a language I didn’t recognize. Mary and Sasha taught the kids how to braid using scraps of yarn, and when it was time for bed, Mal did his best to read the younger pups a story from a picture book. From the snippets I heard, I suspected he was ad-libbing most of the story. It had been a while since I read Pinocchio, but I was pretty sure there hadn’t been dragon shifters.
While Brody put thekids to bed, Stuart coaxed Mary and Sasha into playing a game of poker, but I wasn’t in the mood. I felt antsy and anxious being away from Jude. I swore I could still feel him, and I rubbed at my chest absently as I dropped into an armchair in the corner and picked up a paperback that was sitting on the end table. The cover had a long-haired Adonis, his shirt torn to shreds to show his bare chest beneath.Mm, spicy, I thought, flipping it open.
“That’s one of my favorites,” Vesta said from the rocking chair they’d brought in for her, chuckling in her throaty voice. I wasn’t sure how she knew which book I was holding, since I was pretty sure she was blind, but she had a certain way about her. I knew Jude was worriedabout her, but she’d seemed lucid tonight, though maybe a little distant.
“What have you seen?” I asked her, and I heard the conversation behind us drop off as they listened for her answer.
“I-I don’t know anymore. I used to see the reflection of time spread out before me as surely as looking in the mirror. But now, it’s all… fog and shadows.” She frowned, her wrinkles deepening. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t know.”
She grew agitated, frustrated by everything just out of reach, so I did the only thing I could think of—I read to her. “‘The duke was not a nice man, but that was probably his best quality…’” Vesta fell asleep in her rocking chair before I’d even finished the first chapter.
It took forever for Brody to get poor Pax to quiet down, but eventually, he tiptoed out of the kids’ room and closed the door softly, before walking over to the large window facing the forest behind the house. The sky outside had deepened to a rich indigo. “They’re probably making their move on the lab as we speak.”
“Oh,” I said, dropping the book into my lap.
I knew the plan, I’d even been a part of thinking it up, but still, the realization that my mate was currently putting himself in danger made me feel like I’d swallowed a bag of bricks.
Brody turned to look at me and must’ve seen the emotions written plainly on my face. He crouched down in front of me and took my hands, rubbing his thumbs back and forth over my wrists. “Hey, it’ll be okay, Morgan. This isn’t their first rodeo. They’ll watch each other’s backs. They’ll be home by morning, just you watch.” He sounded so sure of his words, but it was impossible to cover up the shadow that lingered in his eyes.
He was just as terrified as I was, and that somehow made me feel less alone.
As the night grew late, everyone got quiet. Sasha crawled into the bed with me, while Mary and Stuart shifted into their wolves and slept curled up on the floor in front of the dying fire. Brody went to sleep with the children; I suspected it might’ve been to soothe his wolf’s protective instincts. I might not have been a shifter, but I could relate. I laid in bed with my hand on my stomach, grateful to know, for now, our child was safe.
I didn’t think there was any way I’d be able to sleep, not until I knew for certain that Jude and the others were safe, but at some point, sheer exhaustion dragged me under. I didn’t even dream. There was only darkness.
I woke up witha gasp when claws sank into my shoulder. “Morgan!” Brody’s face was wild, with fear, yes, but primarily anger. This wasn’t just the protective father; this was the Alpha Omega protecting his pack, and he was a force to be reckoned with. “Get up and get dressed, we need to go. Now!”
Adrenaline helped clear my mind, but my body felt sluggish, clumsy. There was a series of muffled pops from outside, and through the window, I saw the flash of lights from the forest. “What—” I spun around, trying to make sense of what was going on. Was that gunfire? Was this the attack we’d been expecting? I was suddenly very glad that Dylan’s dad had insisted on the security guards. Brody jerked the curtains closed, hiding us from view.
My eyes settled on the empty rocking chair. “Where’s Vesta?”
“She’s gone.”
“Gone? But I was supposed to be watching her!” Guilt and panic flared inside me, making my brain start to fray at the seams. Where could an elderly woman go without anyone noticing?
