“How am I supposed to do that without them revolting?”
It was what I’d been fighting against for the past two years and she was practically telling me to give in to it.
“Sometimes,” she said mysteriously. “You have to engage in smaller battles in order to avoid an all-out war. This family is at a turning point, Master Edison, and I worry for you and Rhodes and Perrie if you don’t acknowledge that something needs to finally happen in order for the Keane clan to survive to create another generation.”
Her words echoed my own nightmares that I’d been having since the night of the college party Perrie ended up at.
By not acting, I was putting her in more danger and I couldn’t allow my omega to be hurt. It went against the very grain of my instincts.
“Just a thought, sir,” Oona hurried to say, reaching across the desk to put a warm, dry hand over mine. “But you know that I will be here to support you for whatever you choose.”
With that she turned and left me to my thoughts.
If I was going to challenge the authority of the older generation, I would need to put contingency plans in place to keep Perrie safe. If anything happened to me, her life would be forfeit—especially if she was pregnant with my child like I hoped she would be after her first heat.
My musing was cut short by the sound of my cell phone ringing.
Glancing at the caller ID, I saw Rhodes’ sleeping face popping up on the screen. Perrie must have gotten a hold of my phone at some point and changed his contact picture.
A smile was already pulling up on my lips as I hit the green answer button and held the phone up to my ear. “Hey, Rho, you would not believe the fucking morning I’ve had. Did you dip out of her class for a second? Was Perrie trying to get you to pose for her again?”
I fully expected the other alpha to make a snarky comment about him not being interested in nude modeling, but instead I was only greeted by a shaky breath. “Edison.”
His tone had me sitting up stock-straight. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know—” There was a pause as I heard someone ask him a muffled question. “No, you need to take her to St. Stephen’s memorial where her oncologist is. I don’t care if it’s further away.”
Then the sound of a siren filled my ears.
I was already standing up, my desk chair falling backwards as I tried and failed to yank my jacket free. “What the fuck is happening, Rhodes?”
“I don’t know, one second she was fine and then the next there was blood everywhere!” Rhodes had never been prone to panic before, but now as I listened to him babble, I could hear tears in the man’s voice.
“You’re going to St. Stephens?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
“Hurry, Edison.”
I didn’t need to be told twice as I hung up the phone.
“Oona!” I barked, hoping the woman hadn’t gotten far from my office. “I need my car pulled up.”
Twenty Nine
“Are midterms always this boring?” Rhodes asked as he hovered behind my shoulder, watching as I arranged items on the table for an array piece. When the professor had dragged in several carts full of items and announced the assignment with a vague theme, I knew the day would be a long one.
I’d spent the past hour collecting all of the items that would suit the word “eager.”
The vagueness of it made my brain hurt a bit as I tweaked the Barbie doll that I’d managed to prop up on an old model car.
“They wouldn’t be so boring if you were still trying to blend in like a student,” I reminded him, glowering at the suit he was wearing.
Most of the time he played along like he was a student even though everyone already knew he was my bodyguard, but today he’d refused upon seeing that he would need to paw through the carts.
“Are you still butthurt about the D you got on that assignment?” I teased, reminding him of the last time he’d turned something in for the professor to grade.
“I am not,” Rhodes sniffed, looking away from my grin with a frown. “But it definitely deserved at least a B.”
I huffed a laugh and shook my head. “Whatever you say.”
Stepping back I surveyed my work, my lips pursing as I wondered if the scene I’d set up would convey the ‘eagerness’ of summer.
Barbie was sitting on the hood of her car, one plastic hand lifted as all of the shells and other beach-y things I could find in the cards surrounded her on the sandy beach I’d set up. It would be a bitch to clean up after, but the effect underneath the bright lights I’d turned on was nice.
Turning to my camera and my computer monitor, I lined up the shot, humming under my breath as Rhodes stepped back to let me work.
For the next ten minutes, I shifted the camera tripod around to get different angles, checking the shot in the monitor before moving it again, trying to get the perfect reflection of light on all of the items I’d chosen.
It was about fifteen minutes in that I started to get lightheaded and I was busily shifting some shells around when my vision blurred a little bit.
Straightening, I looked up at the lights, thinking the heat was what was doing me in.
I was almost done, I just needed a couple of more shots with the new item positioning then I could turn them off. I just needed to power through and then the ice water in my bag would be enough to perk me up.
