"Hey, Charlotte, what's?—"
"Um, Reverie? Can you pass by the office? As soon as possible?” Her voice sounds wrong. Off. Nervous and strained in a way I've never heard from her before. “Like, right now?"
My stomach drops. Something's wrong. Charlotte never sounds like this. She's always confident, professional, and in control.
I glance around, trying to orient myself geographically. "Uh, sure. We're pretty close, I think. We're leaving the town square now." I look to Nash questioningly, my heart starting to pound. "Can you drive to Charlotte's office?"
He nods once, already starting the truck's engine, his jaw set in a hard line.
I put the call on speaker so everyone can hear, my hands shaking slightly.
"What's wrong, Charlotte? You sound really upset. Did something happen?"
There's a pause.
A heavy, awful, terrifying pause that makes my stomach drop even further. I can hear her breathing, hear her trying to find words.
"Well," Charlotte says finally, and I can hear her swallow hard, "we're about to be hit with a lawsuit. For hiring you. My company. My business that I built. Lawsuit."
I gasp, the sound sharp and painful in the quiet truck.
"What?! Why?! That doesn't make any sense! We have a legal contract!"
Charlotte's voice is tight with stress and something else—anger, maybe, or fear.
"Your pack...your old pack. Kael is here at my office right now with a lawyer. He's declaring that you're still legally their Omega under their pack registration, so by entering into a contract with another pack, you're violating their existing pack agreement and pack law."
"What?!" The word comes out strangled, choked. My vision blurs. My hands start shaking uncontrollably. "That's—that's not possible. I left. He terminated the pack bond. I filed all the paperwork. I did everything right. I followed every legal step!"
No. No, no, no.
This can't be happening.
I left. I'm free. I'm supposed to be free.
I did everything right. I filed the dissolution paperwork. I waited the mandatory waiting period. I'm free. I have to be free.
But what if I'm not?
What if I missed something?
If there was some technicality I didn't understand?
What…if I'm still bound to them legally and I didn't even know?
The truck is completely silent except for Charlotte's breathing on the phone and my own rapid panicked breathing. All three Alphas are rigid with tension, their scents shifting dramatically to something darker, more dangerous, more primal. Protective rage.
They're going to take me back.
Force me to return. Everything I've built—the happiness, the safety, the belonging—it's all going to disappear.
They're going to drag me back and I'll never escape again.
Nash's voice is deadly calm when he speaks, but I can hear the barely controlled fury underneath.
"We're on our way."
CHAPTER 35
