Totally normal Tuesday behavior. I couldn’t fucking wait.
Roan drove, jaw tight, eyes on the road like he was plotting a military campaign. Jay sat shotgun, shoulder still taped but looking about ten pounds lighter since we’d heard Wren’s message. He was trying to play it cool, but every few minutes, his mouth twitched like he couldn’t stop smiling either.
As for me, I sprawled in the back seat, boot tapping, heart thundering. That voicemail was still looping in my head like a song you couldn’t shake.
“Same place as last time… and consider this an open invitation to chase. I’ll be the omega on the run… claim me if you can.”
It hit so hard that it rewired my pulse. I laughed under my breath. “You think she practiced that line?”
Jay snorted. “Doesn’t sound like practice.”
“No,” I said, leaning back, letting my grin stretch wide. “It sounds like a goddamn challenge.”
Roan’s hand tightened on the wheel, and I couldfeelthe energy rolling off him, not anger, not really, but something deeper. A heat that had nothing to do with the truck’s vents.
“Wren doesn’t do anything by accident,” he said. Cool confidence kissed every single word. Sometimes I wanted to just poke him, like one would a bear, to see what would make him snap. Other times, I appreciated his control and leaned on it when my own frayed. Today? I wasn’t sure which I wanted more.
“Yeah, no kidding,” I muttered. “Woman throws down a gauntlet and disappears into the mountains like some kind of mythic creature. What are we supposed to do,notfollow her?”
Jay shot me a look over his shoulder. His longer hair, fell over his forehead. Man needed a haircut, but he did messy bedhead well. Bastard. “Pretty sure that’s the point.”
I barked out a laugh. “Then we’re already playing by her rules. God, she’s good.” A shiver went through my system. The craving for her had never really gone away, even when I worked to contain the reaction. With her permission, it boiled up to the surface and I didn’t have to leash any of it.
The highway rolled by in silver streaks of early light. The mountains loomed ahead, dark and endless, the same ones we’d chased her through before. That memory was sharp and wild—Wren bare in that cabin, her body flushed pink with need and heat, her eyes blazing and the scent of herheatpounding into my pores.
She’d invited us back.
My blood was thrumming. Every nerve wired for motion, forher.I wanted to see her. Talk to her. Hell, I wanted to bury my face against her neck and justbreathe.But first, we would play this game, we would bond our omega, and she would be a part of us forever.
Roan’s jaw flexed again. The man looked like he was holding the universe together with willpower alone.
“So,” I said, leaning forward between the seats, voice light, “what’s the plan, Cap? We get there, we split up, we sniff her out? Or we play it slow, all dramatic, let her think she’s got the upper hand?”
“You really can’t help yourself, can you?” Jay turned toward me, smirking.
“What?” I grinned. “I’m contributing to strategy. I’m like—team morale.”
“You’re a distraction.” Roan huffed out a sound that might’ve been a laugh.
“Exactly,” I said. “And distraction’s avalid tactic.”
Truth was, the humor helped. It always did. Kept the edges from cutting too deep. Because underneath the jokes, the teasing, the easy charm—my blood was boiling. The wildness in me wasn’t quiet anymore. It wanted her. Wantedustogether.
Yeah, maybe that scared me a little. Because for all the jokes I cracked, all the smirks I threw around like armor, I knew one thing for sure: when it came to Wren, I didn’t just want to chase. I wanted tocatch.
Jay twisted the radio knob absently, static humming. “You think she’s already there?”
I glanced out the window, the pine trees thickening as we climbed. “If she’s not, she will be soon. She’s too smart to leave a trail she doesn’t want us to find.”
Roan nodded once. “Then we’ll find her.”
“We’re bonding her, right?” I had to ask. We had the chance before, when her heat had been so out of control, she would have done whatever we asked. Begged us to bond her if we’d forced it.
Not that weeverwould have. Roan had the right of it, leashing us, so that we filled her need and took nothing from her. Not then. Now? Now, she’d opened the door and I wanted to dash through it.
“Yes,” Roan said. One syllable. Firm. Unyielding. “All of us.” He shot a look at Jay. “You’re in this.”
“Damn straight.” Jay gave a hard nod of his own. “She’sours.”
