Kade nodded that he understood the assignment: return the wayward human without interaction, without risking any of the wolf shifters being injured by the damn silver weapons.
“What?” the outburst seemed to catch the man by surprise as well as us. “You can’t do that! You can’t send me back!” He stopped as if he had just realized what he’d said. “I mean, I’m a prisoner of war. You can’t release me!”
I studied the man again. He was young but not a child, maybe nineteen or so. He was slender to the point of skinny and there were faded bruises along his left cheek and a small cut on the bridge of his nose with a fresh scab on it. And for some reason he was much more scared of being sent home than he was of being held prisoner.
“We’re not in a war, kid,” Kade said gruffly.
While Kade was absolutely correct, there was something more going on there.
“We’re not,” I agreed slowly as I ran my eyes over the man again, exchanging a glance with Colby. “But maybe we should hold on to him for security.” Kade and Fang exchanged a confused look, but Colby nodded. “Room seventy-two is available. Put him through the showers and give him a regulation uniform,” I instructed. “Then I want him to eat. Force feed him, if necessary,” I added, rolling my eyes inwardly at the over-the-top threat. Based on the man’s condition, I had serious doubts he’d had enough to eat in a good long time, so I doubted force feeding was in the cards, but apparently, we had a game to play.
Still confused, Kade and Fang acknowledged my instructions and led the man from the room much more gently than he’d been brought in. Waiting for the door to close behind them, I lowered my voice and turned my confusion to Colby.
“What the hell was that all about?”
Julian
Chuck had already finished his dinner and left the dining room by the time I made it back to the campus. Not really surprising considering how long I’d been gone but it was still inconvenient to have to search him out with anxiety bubbling in me. When I didn’t find him in our room, I finally thought to check his office. Granted, it was after business hours, but he had told me that he had meetings scheduled with the new arrivals and his office was the logical place to hold them, right?
Except his office was empty, too. And so was the outdoor patio where he liked to watch the sun set. And just like that, I was out of ideas of where to find him. How had I spent so much time with the man in the previous weeks and not learned more about him? I was heading back to our room when I heard the faint sound of a familiar timbre down one of the residence wings. Quickening my steps, I rounded the corner just in time to see a cute young thing pull Chuck’s face down to his for an intimate moment before dragging him through the open door by their intertwined fingers.
Stumbling to a stop, I shook my head as if I could erase the offensive image as easily as a poorly drawn etch-a-sketch landscape. Spoiler, it didn’t work. Standing glued to the spot, I reminded myself that there had been no discussion of monogamy between us. Hell, we hadn’t even defined what we were doing beyondeating cold pizza. And I still had information that Chuck might need to ensure the safety of charges under his care but there was no way on earth I was going to knock on that door. Not right then, anyhow. Which left me where, exactly?
I started backtracking to our…toChuck’sroom and the solution hit me as I walked through the door and saw the spiral-bound notebook lying on the bed. Searching through the drawers, I finally found a pen and, opening Chuck’s notebook to a blank page, I began to transfer the words from my mind to the paper before me.
Tearing the pages free, I folded them carefully, wrote Kade’s name on the front, and left the room again, this time exiting the front door and following the foot path to the small row of staff cottages that Chuck had pointed out to me when we were out walking. It only took a minute for me to locate the one with the children’s outdoor toys neatly stacked beside the porch, a key identifier since I knew that Kade and his husband were the only resident staffers with a kid.
Bending down, I placed the papers under the door and exhaled in relief when they slid under easily instead of catching on a door sweep. Ringing the doorbell, I headed back the way I’d come at a jog.
And somehow during all the cloak-and-dagger sneaking around, I’d managed to forget one minor detail. Or a fairly major detail. One could even make a case for saying it was an unequivocalsituation-definingfact, which was, of course, that I was still sharing a room and a bed with the same man I was trying to avoid. And Chuck was obviously going to have questions aboutwhyI’d slipped a letter under Kade’s door instead of manning up and talking to him. Or at least givinghimthe letter, which meant having the same conversation I was avoiding by walking away from his boy toy’s door earlier.
Fuck.
Dropping onto the small couch in front of the television, my head fell back to rest against the cushions while I stared up at the ceiling and considered my conundrum. There had never been any indication that what Chuck and I were doing was anything more than a little bit of fun. In fact, I’d kind of pushed him into it once I’d started feeling better, so he hadn’t even made the first move.
Whelp, that particular serving of humble pie stuck in my throat.
Still, I was completely healed from the accident that had brought me to ODI and just like there was nothing drawing me back to Pennsylvania, there also wasn’t anything keeping me in Texas. All I had to do was Uber it to Austin and then I could hop the Amtrak home, easy peasy. Once I was back where I belonged, then I could start re-evaluating my next steps from there.
Comforted by the decision to move on, I grabbed a pillow from the bed and a spare blanket from the closet and tossed them onto the couch before stripping down to my boxer briefs. Even though I knew logically that Chuck wasn’tcheatingon me –you can’t step out on a relationship you’re not even in- that didn’t mean I was going to spend the night in his bed, even if he was bedding down somewhere else.
Turning my face to the back of the couch, I closed my eyes and tried to will myself to sleep. Surprisingly, it worked. Not that I realized that until the wee hours of the morning when I was shaken awake by a cranky, disheveled, and very confused Alpha.
“Jules!” he whispered my name, shaking me again. “Wake up.”
“Why are you whispering if you’re trying to wake me up?” I grumbled, trying to pull the blanket over my face. “And let me sleep. I’m tired.”
“Why are you sleeping out here?” Chuck asked, his voice soft. “I was worried when you weren’t in bed.”
“Go ‘way,” I huffed. “Not doing this now.”
“This?” Chuck parroted. “Whatthisaren’t you doing now?”
Lifting the pillow, I plopped it on top of my head to block him out, but I still heard Chuck’s words.
“Fine, whatever it is, we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
Since mytomorrowplans included an uncomfortable seat on an overcrowded train, that suited me just fine.
