She groans. “By all that is holy, stop calling Malcolm dad. Can’t you go back to ‘the mage’ or literally anything else?”
“Tomato, to-mah-to, no need to waste time being grumpy. You in?”
With the way her hair is mussed from sleep and inspiring dirty thoughts, I should receive a reward for not missing a single word out of her mouth when she looks good enough to eat. “I’ll probably regret it,” she says, scrubbing a hand over her exhausted face, “but yeah, I’m in. What do you need me to do?”
The door creaks down the hall, so before I lose my window of opportunity, I rush out in a barely audible whisper, “I think we should stay and help today.”
Kasen returns to the room and I quickly flip her over, grabbing her around the waist, and rolling so that I’m holding her out in front of me. “Back, foul beast!” Barely any quieter, I whisper, “This is the part where you’re supposed to bat your eyes at him, Scar. Work with me here, won’t you?”
Kasen sighs in annoyance. “How are you hyped up this early in the morning? It’s not even four. I swear, the rest of us can barely make it through the day since we started crashing here, and you’re ready to run a damn marathon before breakfast.” Plucking Scarlett from my arms like she weighs nothing, he uses his foot to shove me off of the bed before setting her back down and stretching out face down beside her, slinging an arm possessively over our mate’s waist so that I can’t kidnap her. “Go for a run or something and let the rest of us sleep.”
A small pang of jealousy has me biting my tongue.She has her pack link with Kasen now and is fine, so there’s no reason she shouldn’t have brought up the subject this week. We haven't slept together since that day things got out of hand with the video chat; maybe I pushed her too far, too quickly. But then again, she looked thrilled when I gave her the ring after and hasn’t taken it off since.
I shake it off, trying to get my head on straight again. It’s been one thing after another lately to where she’s barely been able to catch her breath, and we have much bigger issues to deal with right now. Someone tried to- I slam the breaks on that train of thoughthard. If I start thinking about the vile things that came out of Blake Jones’ mouth before I snapped and killed him, I’m going to have to bail on my plans with Scarlett and spend another day beating the hell out of something. But still, it’s hard to completely ignore the worry that she got to know me and... wasn’t impressed with what she found.
“Wasn’t sleeping anyway so I went back to grab some more of our stuff since it looks like we’ll be here a while-” at his sharp glare, I roll my eyes “- relax, I ran circles around the city to make sure I wasn’t followed. I’m insulted you’d think I’d be that careless. Anyway, I’m spoiled. That gas station coffee we’ve been suffering through sucks, so I snagged the last bag from home and made a call to my cousin to see if he can get his hands on any since it’s out of stock everywhere. I swear, it’s got triple the caffeine.”
The mage walks into the room and leans against the frame, all of our chatter enough to annoy him awake from across the hall. We’ve only got the furniture Kasen and I donated from our apartment to work with, so we've been stuck playing musical beds so we each get a turn to sleep with our mate.
“New bargain, you want my help, you’ll share.” Scarlett squirms out from under Kasen’s arm and I hold my cup out of her reach with a grin.
“Counter offer; your helpanda kiss for the rest of my coffee.”
“Ah yes, a sacrifice, really,” she teases, arching up on her toes to kiss me without hesitation. When she pulls back, my cup is in her grip, a mischievous look in her eye that goes straight to my cock. As the first sip rolls over her tongue, she audibly sighs in contentment. “Hate to say it, but you’re right. Caffeine addiction is real and that other stuff just hasn’t been cutting it.”
“Beck,” Malcolm drags the word out, and I lift an eyebrow in surprise at his ominous tone. “Why do you think your cousin will be able to get his hands on coffee if it’s out of stock?”
I share a nervous look with Scarlett, but she just shrugs, as lost as I am, and continues to sip from my travel mug. “He’s the one that sent me it to try in the first place? Works at the manufacturing plant.”
Malcolm’s eyes narrow on my face as he stands straighter. “What’s his name?”
For a split second, I contemplate not saying anything, well aware I’m pissing him off the more I speak, even if I’m not sure how. But I’m not going to sacrifice my life of luxury as a trophy husband to protect my dumbass cousin, so I have no problem throwing my cousin under the bus. If he did something to piss off the mage, that’s on him; leave me out of it. He’s more than capable of handling his own messes.
“Hawk Cromwell.”
The muscle beside his eye ticks. “Scarlett, love, give Beck back his coffee, please.”
She stops drinking, but doesn’t pass it back, clutching it defensively now that she knows it’s the last of it. “Why?”
“Because Hawk’s fucking with his cousin, and we got caught in the crossfire,” he explains, and at that, Kasen steals the cup from Scarlett’s hands, removing the lid.
Nostrils flaring, he stares down at the remaining coffee. “What’s wrong with it?”
Malcolm presses two fingers to his temple and massages it in annoyance. “Not poisoned, but it’s drugged. There’s an additive to make it addictive, which explains why we’ve all been in a bitchy mood the past few days; we’ve been going through withdrawal.”
I cant my head, contemplating. “Damn good marketing scheme. No wonder their business has blown up over the last year. How’d you know, though? You saw the bag on the counter so you knew the brand and didn’t say anything.”
Malcolm huffs in annoyance. “I hadn’t seen it before since they’resupposedto only be distributing it around the middle of the country where things are the roughest right now.”
Scarlett actually laughs. It starts as a surprised chuckle before devolving into full-on slap happy hysteria. Tears gather in the corners of her eyes as she gasps for breath between laughing, returning to sit on the bed, and I share a confused look with Kasen.
“I think she’s finally snapped. Lack of sleep catching up with her?”
He scrubs a hand over his grinning mouth.“Your cousin’s part of the Underground, dumbass.”
“Not-” she takes a breath “- just that.” Swiping at her tears, she manages between fits of laughter, “The only reason Malcolm found me in the first place was because he was there to help rescue Hawk.”
Her face is turning red. “Kasen’s uncle is mated to the owner of the shop I frequented growing up; we only lived an hour apart.” She sucks in a deep breath, slapping a hand on the mattress. “Everything in our lives was orchestrated so we’d run into each other and we still managed not to for almost thirty years. We’re all just Fate’s puppets andstillmanaged to fuck up its plans no matter how hard it tried. Imagine.” A gasp. “It’s face! No wonder it was pissed off and threw a vampire at me.” Cackling, she falls back on the bed, clutching her sides, and despite her morbid train of hysteria, I can’t help but grin.
