He nodded. “I’d planned to check in with some rogues anyway. He’ll be a good practice run. We’ve got place for him if he wants the option. We just need to fit in the visit.”
“Good. It’s not easy being alpha material without wanting alpha responsibilities,” Drex said.
Austin knew that from experience, even in a Dick town, as Drex had said.
Drex stepped away and hesitated. “A word of caution. My friend said this rogue had cagey eyes and seemed jumpy. He wasn’t threatened by my friend, and so he didn’t attack. With someone of your caliber, though…” He shrugged. “I’m just guessing, but we do rash things when we think we’re cornered, and someone like you might be triggering. He might attack before he knows why you’re there, and he’s mighty. Watch yourself.”
16
Tristan
Two days later,Tristan slowed the Jeep as he noticed Fred in the middle of the road. She was walking toward the houses they were all staying in at the end of the cul-de-sac. She had a flowery reusable shopping bag looped around her shoulder, but it didn’t seem to have much in it.
He pulled up beside her and matched her speed. “Need a ride?”
She glanced over like she hadn’t heard the Jeep approaching. “Oh, hey,” she said, recognition lighting her expression. She kept walking. “How goes it?”
“Good. Need a ride?”
“No. I’m just going…” She pointed at the houses at the end of the street. “I’m almost there. Thanks, though. Nice day, huh?”
He glanced up at the partly cloudy sky. The heat seemed to boost the humidity to almost unbearable proportions. He wasn’t used to it. Fred clearly had no problems.
“Doing a little shopping?” he asked with a grin.
“Nah.” She looked at the bag. “I was wandering around downtown for a little exercise and this nice lady in the flower shop insisted I take this bag to hold my computer. I’ve found it is very hard to argue with these people. They’re extremely pushy in their kindness, you know? They don’t take no for an answer. I like it as much as I hate it, I think. I mean…Ilikeit, I’m not Satan, but it also kinda weighs on you, you know? Now I feel like I owe her something because I took her bag.”
He chuckled. There was something so fun and refreshing in her eccentricities. He found no end of amusement in her.
“You should buy one of her flowers,” She suggested.
“I can’t! I can’t run fast enough to get away after paying for things. Yesterday, I bought a burrito and tried to pay and got that push back I was talking about. So, I smiled and nodded and laid the money on the counter. The man pushed it back, so I tried to explain that I’m not really part of this pack thing, that I’m a Jane, and so I would rather pay for it. I pushed it toward him, he pushed it back. I slid it at him again, and he tried to push it back, but I’d already turned around and started running. Well.” She stopped and faced Tristan angrily. “He ran after me, right out of the store, caught me down the street, smiled at me and curled my fingers around the money. Then he patted me on the back and asked if I needed a hand carrying anything.That man is eighty years old!” she hollered. “How can I feel good about myself when I can’t pay for things, I can’t be as nice as they are, and I can’t even outrun an octogenarian!”
She shook her head and started walking again.
“When are we leaving, anyway?” she asked. “I can’t stand the niceness.”
“Maybe youareSatan.”
“Yeah, maybe,” she muttered. “What a thing to find out about yourself, right? I like the rude, surly Irishwoman better than salt of the earth, heartfelt, lovely people.”
He laughed. “Well, it’s a good thing you are employed by the former, then. The alphas have the meeting with the original alphas in an hour. If that goes well, we can leave as early as tomorrow, I think. Maybe the next day depending on transportation.”
“And if it doesn’t go well?”
“Then there will probably be challenges and Jessie and Indigo will probably want to hang around and make sure no one dies. But we shouldn’t have to stay too much longer.”
Fred nodded and trudged on. He figured that was his cue to leave her alone. She and Niamh had had their heads down a lot lately, working closely with Sebastian and Natasha on the information they’d gathered from Tilda and the other mages. They were a solid team, but they were still way behind Momar. They had a lot to figure out about his operations, motivations, and goals before they could start going after him directly.
He parked the Jeep and then let himself into the alphas’ house. Mr. Tom bustled by holding a stack of folded laundry. He didn’t pay Tristan any attention.
Jessie sat at the table wearing a flowing pink dress and no shoes. Shifters dressed like that when attending a meeting where there might be an unexpected challenge or an attack. It let them get out of their clothes and into their animal as quickly as possible. She held a steaming mug of coffee, and her shoulders were tight with anxiety.
“You okay?” Tristan asked, dropping the Jeep keys onto the table.
She gave him a half-smile. “Yeah.” She didn’t elaborate, which meant she had multiple things on her mind.
He pulled out a chair and took a seat across from her. “What’s going on?”
