"Is Presley with you?" His voice was tight, strained in a way that made my spine straighten.
"What the hell. No, why?"
"Hastings was still paying her." The words came out fast, clipped. "Five thousand pounds a week. She found the deposits this morning and took it to mean she's temporary. That we don't want her. She's gone, Et. Just... gone. Packed a bag and left. I thought I meant more to her than her just leaving without a word."
My heart stopped.
"Gone?" I turned, already heading back toward the cottage. My boots slipped on the wet grass, but I didn't slow down. "I'm sure Hastings could find her in a flash if he wanted to. He has the bond."
"Maybe he doesn't want to." Fritz's voice cracked. "Maybe he thinks we're better off without her. Maybe he's decided the baby is all that matters and—"
"Stop." I picked up my pace, half-running now. "I'll make some enquiries. Call her friend in North Yorkshire. Her parents—"
"They're dead."
"Merde, yes. Right." My brain scrambled, trying to think. "Hastings must know where she is. He has a bond with her. He should be able to feel—"
"He's locked himself in his study. He won't talk to me. I can smell his distress from the hallway, but he won't open the door."
I exhaled hard, my breath fogging in the cold air. "Do you still hate it?" Fritz asked quietly. "The bond. The fact that he claimed her first."
I slowed to a walk,my chest heaving. "He claimed her, Fritz. Without a word to us. I woke up and the bond was just... there. Like he'd decided for the entire pack without consulting anyone."
"I know." There was a pause, the sound of Fritz moving, a door closing. "But I look at it differently. Hastings vowed never to have an omega. Remember? After Greta, he said he was done. That we could have our pack, raise children, but there would never be an omega in our lives. He was preparing us for a life without that kind of love. And it would have broken one or all of us in the end."
I rubbed my jaw, my stubble rough against my palm. "I know."
"Granted, I'm annoyed he didn't wait," Fritz continued. "But Et... think about it. The man who said this was a 'business arrangement.' The man who insisted we didn't want an omega, that she was just a means to an end. He was so undone by her that he couldn't wait. Do you understand what that means?"
I stopped walking. The cottage was visible now, a dark shape against the gray sky.
"Because he wants her," Fritz said, his voice going soft. "Truly. Not as a surrogate, but as ours. He broke his own most sacred rule because he couldn't help himself. For the first time in years, Henry Hastings didn't make a calculated decision. He followed his heart. Or his knot. Either way, it means he's in this just as deep as we are."
The words settled over me like a blanket.
"But why pay her?" I asked, my voice rough. "If he wants her, why keep treating her like an employee?"
"For you, maybe." Fritz exhaled. "Perhaps he decided you and this pack were more important than her. That if she left, if she took the money and walked away, at least the pack would be intact. At least we'd still have each other and the baby."
“He’d go through that pain for us?” My shoulders dropped. The anger that had been simmering in my chest for days began to fade, replaced by something that felt like understanding.
“I think he would.”
"He's still a prick for not waiting for us," I said.
Fritz laughed, the sound cracking through the phone. "Oh, absolutely. We’ll make him pay for it for years. But Presley... She's ours now. We need to find her and convince her of that."
"I agree."
"I'll fly to North Yorkshire today," Fritz said. "Check the caravan park, her friend Maeve, anywhere else she might—"
I reached the cottage and stopped.
A figure sat on the stone steps leading to the front door.
Small. Blonde. Wrapped in a jacket I recognized because I'd bought it for her.
Presley.
