“Is he always going to be a cock block?”
“Guess we’ll have to wait and see. He’s just doing his job, aren’t you Ares,” I squat low and give my dog a giant hug before looking up at Gabe. “Don’t forget, he’s my protection dog. If he senses I’m upset, getting close to my heat, or in danger, he will react and respond. He fully jumped Bailey one time.”
“Bailey? Like Bailey Henderson?”
9
LENNON
And of course, that’s when everyone else joins us to hear me with my big mouth blaring out secrets.
“Why are you talking about Bailey?” Valak asks, clearly ignoring what his brother and I have been doing and getting protective over my girl. But it makes sense, she’s the most famous omega around, and everyone adores her. And she’d be wicked pissed at me right now, considering I told her a while back I was safe and with a pack.
Gabriel goes to say something but stops, and I watch as his eyes squint, and he leans towards the inside of my car listening to something besides us.
“Shh… breaking news. Hold up.” He speaks so quickly his words blur together as he tries to catch what the reporter on the news is saying while getting us to stop talking too.
Everyone freezes and no one misses the end of what the reporter is saying…Storm chasers are watching the formation of a large system off the coast of Pullmans Bay. Officials from the weather department also confirmed they are keeping close attention on the rapidly developing cell. They are urging residents in the area to take note and act with caution. At this stage officials are suggesting that while it will bring some uncharacteristic gusting winds and rain there is nothing on their radar to suggest the front will develop into anything worrying. The best we can do at this stage is wait. In other news…
“And… let me guess, we’re going to Pullmans Bay?” I ask everyone, but my question is aimed at Lincoln, since we’re going to his house.
“Not quite, but close enough. We’ll be fine whatever happens. And like they said, it’s an unusual event around here, especially at this time of year. I suspect it will blow out to sea.”
“We should stock up on water and non-perishables, just in case.” Valak gives a weird hiss of frustration and throws his hand up, not quite getting how calm everyone is.
“Valak, I assure you, I have everything we need at my home. We should, however, get going. People like to panic around here, and if they repeat that bulletin, we’ll get every man and his dog on the road.” Lincoln works to assure him, and apparently does a good job in a few words because Valak concedes without further argument. “We need to leave now.”
Ares moves, pushing his nose against my hip, his sign that he’s picking up on my growing unease. He’s hurrying us up more than Lincoln does. Lincoln shows Valak and Noah another landmark on the map and then we climb in the cars and are back on the road within a few minutes. Ares sits next to me, nearly on my lap, staring unimpressed as Gabe keeps turning around and trying to get Ares to move so he can sit in the back. He gives up after he gets a phone call.
Lincoln catches my eye. “Are you okay?”
He drives for a little while. The only noise between us is Gabriel on his phone, but when Lincoln looks back at me in the rear vision mirror, I jump in and answer him, having taken the time to really think about my answer. “I think so.”
“Good, dove. We’ll be there in a few more hours. I promise we’ll be very good at looking after you.”
“Looking after me?” I ask.
Lincoln has always had a different way of speaking, or maybe I was simply more aware of the words he uses and the inflection of his voice but there are not many ways to misinterpret what he’s saying.
“Care for you, make sure you are safe, treat you well, feed you up, let you rest… Need me to go on?”
I shake my head and watch the world pass for a few miles, letting what he is saying sink in. I haven’t heard someone offering to do that for a long time, but with it comes a ball of anxiety that turns my stomach to acid, the fact that Noah and Lincoln don’t know who I am eats at me.
I guess my anxiety changes my scent too, because Gabe swings around to look at me, mouthing what looks like,are you okay. I wave him off, and he goes back to what he was doing, the both of them leaving me. Ares doesn’t though; he crawls closer, pretty much laying the heaviest part of him on me, being my weighted comfort blanket. I drop my head to his, close my eyes and try to see a way out of the mess I’ve made.
Ten minutes turns into twenty minutes, and the whole time Gabe keeps talking to whoever is on the other end. It sounds serious but at the same time I’m not listening to him. Instead, it’s my conscious nagging at me. The voice in my head, basically screaming at me to tell them who I am.
“How much longer?” I blurt out suddenly. Lincoln’s eyes flick to the mirror to check me out.
“Twenty minutes,” he replies, his voice gentle and slow.
I nod, doing a great job of avoiding looking at him again. Which is dodgy as shit, but the appearance of my guilty conscience takes a lot of my focus. The omega in me naturally wants to submit and confess, while the survivor in me doesn’t.
Probably because I spend a lot of time in my head over analysing, but as we drive through the night, I spend a lot of time arguing with myself over telling them or not. Soon, I’ll have to give them a name and that’s easy; I either lie or I don’t. The problem is, I’m also not a fan of lying and the other big issue is they’re both really good people. People I have come to rely on in a sense too. They clearly wouldn’t know they’ve been the highlight of my working week recently but that doesn’t make my rambling any easier to sort through.
“All good? Are you not feeling well, dove?” Lincoln presses again, this time his voice is a little louder, and his comforting juniper scent gets more pronounced.
And I guess that is the point. I figure out that I do have to tell Lincoln and Noah who I am. Damn them for being such good looking, sweet natured alphas, jumping in to rescue me and whisk me away to the other side of the country without even thinking for a second. Seriously, why couldn’t the Alliance send a bunch of ugly, stinky alphas instead of this pack of smoking hot ones. Shit, not pack, group. My brain is already thinking long term and that’s what the real problem is.
