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He grabbed a wet wipe to clean Cassie’s hand, already putting together a list of things they needed.

Phone. Cassie’s playpen. Cassie’s things that had been scattered around the cabin, because Uriel hadn’t thought he would need to leave in a hurry.

Bruiser was getting to his feet, watching Uriel warily.

A little too late, Uriel remembered that the alpha could hear his heartbeat. He had probably realized that Uriel was panicking. Fuck.

Maybe there wasn’t time to gather up everything. He had to grab his broom and leave.

Even better: leaving his things behind would convince Bruiser that he was coming back. That would buy Uriel time, even if it was going to cost him to replace everything.

“Hey,” Bruiser said again. “You’re coming back, right?”

Uriel was at the door, broom in hand, Cassie hugged to his chest. “Yeah.”

His heart missed a beat, betraying the lie. Fuck!

Realization flickered in Bruiser’s eyes. They were out of time.

Uriel threw open the door and darted out of the cabin, barely leveling out his broom enough to sit on it. Then he was kicking off, straight up into the sky.

“Wait!” Bruiser yelled.

Uriel cast an invisibility spell first. Then a sound-muffling spell, because Bruiser and his butler would be able to track him just by sound.

Cassie made a sound of protest against his chest. They were ascending too quickly, and it was making her ears pop.

“Sorry,” Uriel whispered, shaking all over. He slowed their ascent and pushed the broom to fly faster, tucking Cassie’s face against his chest to protect her from the wind.

They flew for half an hour at top speed. It was enough to give them a head start; Uriel was very good at disappearing when he wanted to.

He took a break to feed Cassie, only then remembering that he’d left his supplies back at the cabin. He couldn’t change her diapers the way he wanted to.

“Damn it,” Uriel muttered. He would have to stop at a store somewhere to resupply, buy a new playpen so he could painstakingly recast all the protection spells on it...

He would have to move out of Cartfalls. If he hurried, he might even make it back to his apartment before anyone stepped in to interfere.

The thing was, he had found a home and friends there.

Could he really leave them? What if they needed his help and he wasn’t there to provide it? What if he went back to help, only for the alphas to capture him and Cassie?

“Damn it,” he said again, burying his face in Cassie’s belly. “I’m sorry this is so messed up.”

He tried to breathe through the tightness in his chest.

His phone rang.

Uriel jumped, panicking again. In his hurry to leave, he had completely forgotten about it.

He let the call go to voicemail. Then it buzzed—a text message.

Uriel bit his lip, reluctant to look at the notifications. He was still feeling slow and heavy, and it made him uneasy. What if Bruiser had figured it out? What if he was sending accusations and he was pissed?

Uriel’s blood turned cold. He had shored up his defenses against angry alphas, but over the past few days, Bruiser had been... nice. Uriel had thought Bruiser wouldn’t hurt him.

I shouldn’t have let him past my walls.

He found a nearby town and stopped at a store, popping in briefly to buy supplies for Cassie. Then he flew back into the forest for a safe spot so he could feed her and change her diapers.