Outside the window, the gray had turned to green as the rolling moors of North Yorkshire rose to meet us. The landscape turned wild as stone walls cut through fields like scars. Sheep dotted the hills, white specks against green.
My shoulders relaxed for the first time in days.
"We're almost there," Fritz said.
I finished the brownie, licking chocolate from my thumb. "Thank you. For bringing me. For not making me explain."
"You don't need to explain. Sometimes you just need space." He tilted his head, studying me. "But you're coming back, ja?"
"Yes."
"Good." His smile was genuine, warm. "Because Etienne might actually murder Henry if you don't, and I quite like having both of them alive.
The roar of the blades sent a murder of crows shrieking into the gray sky. It was nice to see I wasn't the only thing in North Yorkshire currently being startled outof my wits. If three alphas were a 'pack' and crows were a 'murder,' I wondered what the collective noun was for one omega and her three spectacularly bad decisions. Acatastrophe, probably.
“Ready,” Fritz mouthed as the helicopter touched ground.
I nodded.
As the blades slowed to a whine, I saw a familiar figure standing by the gate to the field.
Maeve.
She was wrapped in a cardigan that looked like it had been knitted by a frantic grandmother, her arms crossed over her chest as she stared at the helicopter like it was an alien spacecraft. Her black hair whipped around her face in the downdraft, and even from here, I saw the skeptical set of her jaw.
I pulled off the headset and hopped out, my boots hitting the damp peat. The smell of wet earth hit me immediately. It was a world away from the polished marble and heavy scents of London.
For a second, I just breathed it all in.
The wind cut through my jeans. I'd forgotten how the North Yorkshire air bit. How it made your eyes water and your nose run and your lungs feel clean.
"Look at you," Maeve called out, her Irish lilt cutting through the wind. "Miss Fancy Pants arriving in her whirly-bird. I suppose you're too good for a bus now?"
I ran to her, throwing my arms around her. She smelled of laundry detergent and her body soap. It was the smell of home.
"I missed you," I said into her shoulder.
"I can see that. You look like you've been through a hedge backwards," she muttered, though she squeezed me back hard enough to make my ribs ache. Her hands found my shoulders, pushing me back so she could look at me properly. Her eyes flicked to the mark on my neck, and her expression went flat. "So he really did it."
"He did."
"Bastard."
Her eyes moved past me to Fritz, who was hopping out of the cabin, looking entirely too handsome for a damp field. His shoes were going to be ruined. Probably cost more than my caravan.
“Is that him?”
“No.”
"So who's the golden boy?" Maeve asked, her voice cool.
"Fritz," I said, pulling back. "He's part of the pack."
Maeve's face went flat. "Right. An alpha. Lovely."
Fritz approached with an easy smile, his hand extended. "Maeve, I presume. Presley's told me a lot about you."
Maeve looked at his hand like it might bite her. After a long, uncomfortable moment, she shook it once, quick andperfunctory.
