She should have spent the rest of her life in convalescence somewhere out of the city. Somewhere nice.
But my father had paid far too much for her and her father was the loudest voice of the branch families for her to be able to do that. So my mother had spent the rest of her life ricocheting between lucidity and screaming like she was being murdered.
My next breath caught in a wheeze as I thought about Perrie meeting the same fate. The constant need to be sedated, the puttering aimlessly, the inability to even make her own decisions.
The inner alpha, which normally sat happily in the back of my mind, was now doing its damndest to take over and find the omega we’d all but claimed.
Find, find, find, find, find, it repeated over and over like the beat of a drum and I felt a pounding headache coming on.
Then, about halfway through the ride, my phone pinged. Fearing the worst, I pulled it out and read the message:
RHODES: Got her. Heading back to the house.
“Boss,” Collum called from the front seat, probably also getting a text from the other guys on the team.
“I know, Rhodes texted me. Let’s get there as fast as possible.”
The car accelerated and I slumped back in my seat, still trying to regain control over my composure.
But my inner alpha was still protesting, not believing the rational side of me that knew Perrie was safe and she was with Rhodes.
If anything, the panic continued to grow.
Perrie was supposed to be my wife by contract only—partners who were friendly but in it for a greater purpose of creating a generation of Keanes free from the bullshit traditions and the influence of the branch families.
That had started to change the moment she came into my study and I had her underneath me… and the subsequent weeks following where I spent every spare moment I had with the omega.
The tower which had previously been a dark place for me where I’d almost punish myself daily taking care of my mother’s plants had become completely Perrie’s now.
From the printed copies of the pictures she’d taken on campus and around the estate lining the walls to just the general shift in the air whenever she would come downstairs and sit in one of the wicker chairs to watch me care for the plants.
Maybe it was time to finally stop kidding myself. About how I felt about Perrie and how I felt about Rhodes, all of it was bullshit in the grand scheme of things.
The car had barely pulled into the long circular driveway before I was throwing the door open and hopping out.
“Sir!” I heard Collum call behind me but I ignored him as I stepped inside the large front door where Oona was waiting for me. She was dressed in her nightgown instead of her usual gray dress and apron, probably because it was just after eleven o’clock at night and she was in bed when all of the commotion began.
“Where is she?” I asked, ignoring the older woman’s fluttering as she tried to take my jacket.
“In the east wing, sir, Rhodes took her there as soon as they returned. May I ask what is going on? The two of you have looked like right thunderclouds as soon as you stepped through the door and no one will explain—”
“Later,” I promised, turning my feet in the direction of the tower.
I barely remembered the walk there, or even crossing through the greenhouse to the stairs, but in a blink I was throwing open the door to find her and Rhodes sitting across from each other mid-conversation.
It all hit me as Perrie turned to me, her eyes guilty. I had done this. I had put her in this fucking tower like it was some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. It was like I had practically put out into the universe that I wanted my wife to be kidnapped and it was firing off a warning shot.
My inner alpha, which I’d barely been keeping at bay, finally took over and the normal, rational Edison Keane was gone and in its place was something far more feral.
“Edison—” Perrie began, starting to stand.
I crossed the room in two long strides, pulling her right off of her feet and throwing her over my shoulder.
“Hey!” I vaguely heard her squeal as I turned to get her the fuck out of this tower.
“Edison, hang on,” Rhodes said, grabbing my arm. It was clear he expected me to be levelheaded about all of this. Perrie was fine and it was obvious there had been some kind of misunderstanding and she hadn’t been taken by anyone dangerous.
But it was all too damn close.
“Mine,” I bit out a growl at him, incapable of forming any other sort of words to verbalize how I was feeling and the other alpha flinched away from me before holding his hands up in surrender.
We stared at each other and for a moment the haze of rage and fear cleared enough to see that he was worried—about Perrie or about me I wasn’t sure—but there was so much of it on the normally stoic man’s face that it nearly knocked me right out of it.
“Can you please put me down?” Perrie’s voice was muffled by her face on my back, reminding me exactly of the events of the night and it all came crashing right back down again.
I ignored Perrie’s question and turned to leave, hurrying down the stairs and away from Rhodes. He wasn’t my pack, he’d made that clear and my instincts wanted nothing to do with him at the moment.
No. All I wanted to do was get Perrie back to my room and look over every inch of her skin for any kind of blemish or injury.
“Sir! You can’t just carry your wife like she’s a sack of potatoes!” Oona gasped as I passed by her again.
“I don’t think he’s exactly listening right now,” Perrie called comfortingly to the housekeeper, her head bouncing against my back as she did so.
“Oh, oh my!” Oona continued to follow us through the house as I made a beeline for my rooms. “Do you want me to get someone to, I don’t know, stop him?”
Another growl rattled out of my chest at that. I’d like to see anyone try. My inner alpha seemed to agree, pleased that I was finally letting it drive as we stepped into the final hallway that would take us up to our destination.
“No! It’s fine, I can handle it,” she said and I didn’t hear anything else from the older woman so I assumed she’d left us alone.
