The others trained on the mats while he brooded, and he half-watched Gideon smash Eli into the ground then work to free himself from Carter’s mighty chokehold. While they wrestled, he pondered the nowhere that had become their investigation into Lang.
Carter had tapped just about every resource he had. Eli had put out his own feelers. Silence. Gideon’s call to the Circs down in North Carolina, with their guy who could see the future, panned more of nothing. The Circ had seen a murky future, where someone did something monumental but nothing was clear.
It aggravated the hell out of him, so much so that Alex didn’t want sex, satisfaction, or even a fight from Gideon or any of the others. Tired, angry, frustrated. His three states of being since running into Kennedy Knight.
And that, there. He couldn’t fault her for any of his feelings. He knew that. And his misplaced sense of blame made it worse.
Pushed to the limit, he set the weights down, worried he might hurt himself if he continued without a break. That’s when he noticed only Gideon remained in the gym with him.
At his questioning look, Gideon nodded toward the double doors. “They needed some air. You’re scaring away all the good vibes in this place and leaving nothing but frustration and irritation behind. That’s what Carter said.”
“Oh? So he’s an empath now?”
Gideon sighed. “That pissy tone isn’t helping. No. He said what the rest of us can sense. You’re unsettled, Alex. We both know this has more to do with Kennedy than—”
“The hell it does. It has to do with a stalled investigation.” He pushed to his feet and left the weight bench. He allowed his beast to look out from his eyes and saw in deeper colors, in flashes of heat and in minute detail.
Taking in the sight of his leader relaxed him a bit, because Gideon radiatedhome, pack, safety.
Part of Alex’s frustration had to do with Kennedy, he knew. Because of her, he’d been keeping his distance from the others, wanting her touch more than any of his pack. And he didn’t understand why.Shit.They’d barely spent much time together. Except for that marathon fuckfest in the hotel with Eli, he’d barely been alone with her.
And that bothered the hell out of him.
He growled. “Fine. It’salsoabout Kennedy. Gideon, my beast is driving me insane. It wants her to the exclusion of everything. I can’t think. I can’t eat.”
“You’re a little off.” Gideon agreed. He sat on a bench and watched Alex with piercing green eyes. “I’ve been giving you space, man, but you’re getting out of control. You’re raging deep inside. Whenever we’d have fighters like you in the ring, they’d either decimate anyone who came near them, or they’d leave themselves too open, lost to everything but anger, and end up dying on the mats.”
“I’m not that bad off.”
“Not yet. But if you don’t fix it soon, I will.” Gideon stood. “This thing with Lang goes in cycles. Sometimes we have a hit, sometimes he’s quiet, moving behind the scenes. But we’ll find him,” Gideon promised, his banked fury soothing the animal inside Alex begging to be set free. “I won’t rest until we do. In the meantime, you need to get stronger. And you need to get a handle on your beast before it decides to start handling things for you. Then it’s only a matter of time before you turn into a Myers or Yates yourself.”
Gideon left him to his thoughts.
Alex didn’t like the idea of becoming anything like those pricks who’d killed his sister. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t overcome Katie’s death and move on either. Of course he’d always miss her. He’d loved her. Growing up, it had been him and her against the world.
His parents had never been cruel or unkind, but they hadn’t understood their psychic children, and that vague affection they doled had left its mark on Alex and Katie both. They had understood, even at a young age, that their parents would never recognize, never be able to love them for who they truly were. The Palmers expected cardboard cutouts of what a dutiful child should be, and anything more confused them.
So Alex and Katie had taken refuge in each other, giving their parents the semblance of normalcy they needed while being true to themselves with each other.
Alex had people who saw the real him right now. A pack—a team—of likeminded individuals who wanted love and affection, who craved togetherness, and who could comprehend his wild nature and not back away.
Not like a certain redhead who didn’t care for him as much as he’d thought. As he’d hoped.
Stupid, but he couldn’t help it. In such a brief span of time, he’d fallen for Kennedy, and he didn’t even know her favorite color. What made her laugh or cry. What she liked to do when not running from psycho Circs intent on torturing her.
God, was he crazy or what? Was he that superficial that a stellar body and gorgeous face was all he needed to fall in love?
While his beast saidyes,Alex threw down a hardno.Then he realized the thing was teasing him. It knew Kennedy on another level, a sense of who she was inside. Her scent, her taste, her touch. So much of her had connected with his beast, and the creature didn’t understand why Alex fought it so hard.
Shut up.
He didn’t want understanding right now. He wanted…
Kennedy pushed through the doors of the gym and walked toward him wearing a pair of baggy workout pants and a T-shirt. “Hi, Alex.” She paused and frowned. “Are you okay?”
His heart threatened to hammer out of his chest. “Fine.”
“Oh. You looked…intense. Should I come back later?”
