His face crumples with disappointment. “But I just?—”
“Take your beer and fuck off to one of the high tables, Earl.”
“At least look at it first! Come on, Dom. Just one look.”
I stop wiping. The desperation in his voice is almost pathetic enough to be endearing. Almost.
“Fine.” I toss the rag over my shoulder and hold out my hand. “One look. Then you leave me alone.”
Earl practically throws the phone at me.
The photo is grainy, clearly taken in secret, but it’s definitely her. Phoenix Riviera, looking exhausted and annoyed, copper hair catching the light through the truck window. She’s smaller than I expected, delicate in that way omega celebrities always seem to be. Fragile things wrapped in designer armor.
But that’s not what makes my blood run cold.
Behind her, partially obscured by shadow, are two figures. One is just a silhouette—male, probably alpha based on the build, but impossible to identify. The other…
No.
My hand tightens on Earl’s phone hard enough that he yelps.
The other is Mason Aldrich.
Also known as the packmate that I haven’t seen in ten damn years.
EIGHT
PHOENIX
The doorof our room swings open to confirm I might have actually died in a plane crash and been sent to my personal hell.
One bed.
One enormous, brass-framed, doily-covered king bed with approximately seventeen decorative pillows and a quilt that looks hand-stitched by someone’s great-grandmother. The bed dominates the room, taking up at least half of the available floor space.
In the far corner, wedged between a window seat and an armoire that probably contains either mothballs or a family of ghosts, sits a loveseat. Not even a proper sofa. A loveseat. The kind of furniture that’s designed for two people to sit uncomfortably close while pretending to enjoy afternoon tea, not for a full-grown human to sleep on.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter to the empty room.
Behind me, I hear Mason and Atticus climbing the stairs. Their footsteps are oddly synchronized, or maybe that’s just my exhausted brain searching for patterns. I stand frozen in the doorway, staring at the bed like it might somehow split into three reasonable sleeping surfaces if I wish hard enough.
No such luck.
Mason appears at my shoulder first, overnight bag slung across his chest. He takes one look at the room and his jaw tightens.
“I’ll take the couch.”
The words come out clipped, decisive, the same tone he uses when dealing with difficult publicists or restaurant managers who’ve failed to properly label their allergen information. Before I can respond, he’s already brushing past me into the room, dropping his bag on the loveseat like he’s claiming territory.
“Mason, that thing is practically a child’s chair. You’ll destroy your back.”
“I’ve slept on worse.” He doesn’t look at me, just starts pulling items from his bag with methodical precision. Toiletry kit. Phone charger. The paperback thriller he’s been reading on flights for the past month. “Excuse me.”
He disappears into the bathroom, and the door clicks shut with a finality that feels like a statement.
I stare at the closed door, an uncomfortable knot forming in my stomach. Something is very wrong with Mason. More wrong than his usual stress responses, more wrong than the controlled irritation he gets when my schedule falls apart. This is something else entirely—something that started the moment that pilot said the wordsHarmony Harbor.
I turn to find Atticus standing in the doorway, surveying the room with an expression I’ve learned to distrust. That particular curve of his lips, the way his eyes track from the tiny loveseat to the enormous bed and back again. I know exactly what he’s about to say before he even opens his mouth.
