Maybe he’s dead, the nasty little voice that always decided to make itself known whenever we did our daily phone switch on whispered. Maybe that chest wound really did him in.
It had been bleeding a lot. More than I’d ever seen anything bleed before.
“I wish you could reach out to your contacts to ask how things are going.” My voice was glum as I slumped down into my chair and stared out the window at the crowded street outside.
It was almost February, but that didn’t seem to slow down the number of tourists that packed the cobblestone streets outside. A few streets over there were patrons filling the Temple Bar pubs, looking for a pint of Guinness even though it was only just after nine in the morning making the same cheesy ‘it’s five o’clock’ somewhere jokes to a bartender who really couldn’t care less.
“You know that will expose us,” Rhodes said, beginning his usual lecture about keeping me and the baby safe—one of his favorites for when my impatience got the better of me.
I was only half-listening as I continued to watch rain drizzle down the large cafe window.
Then I felt a tug on the bond.
“I’m listening, Rhodes,” I told him absentmindedly. “You don’t have to yank on the bond like you’d yank on my jacket in order to get my attention.”
Rhodes stopped mid-lecture, frowning at me. “What do you mean? I didn’t touch the bond.”
We both paused, staring at each other. I felt another tug, this time stronger.
My chair squealed on the tiled floors of the cafe as I pushed myself into a standing position, my eyes scanning the outside street with a renewed interest.
People still passed by the window in a blur, but I wasn’t looking at them. No. I was looking at the figure across the street standing in a dark coat with an umbrella held low so that it obscured their face.
But I didn’t need to see their face. I’d know that arrogant posture anywhere.
My feet were moving before I could really register what was going on and I heard Rhodes call after me, still confused because he hadn’t felt what I felt.
Three months ago my wayward, injured alpha had cut us off from his end of the bond, probably out of some misguided notion that we shouldn’t feel his pain, or in the worst case scenario, his death.
It felt like I lost a piece of my soul that day.
A piece that was now standing in the rain not ten feet from me as I ran across the road, nearly stumbling on an awkward piece of cobblestone, making the figure drop the umbrella entirely and revealing the face that I already knew would be Edison Keane.
“Damn it, Perrie,” his voice that I hadn’t heard in so long met my ears over the sound of rain and the passing bystanders as I threw myself the rest of the way, expecting and knowing he would catch me. “Why are you running like that? You’re pregnant!”
I didn’t care about his scolding, I grabbed the lapels of his coat and dragged him in so that I could inhale his vanilla scent deep into my lungs. “You’re here. How are you here?”
A moment later another body was slamming into us as Rhodes made it across the street. His emotions were all over the place—anger, worry, and most overwhelmingly he was ecstatic over the return of our third packmate.
Pulling Edison’s face to mine, I relished in the desperate kiss we shared, not quite believing that he was actually standing in front of me until I watched him pull Rhodes in for a kiss of their own.
“We should get out of this rain,” Edison said a few moments later once we’d gathered quite the crowd of people watching our reunion. “I’ve rented a suite in a hotel nearby.”
“Where are the others? Why are you by yourself?” Rhodes began to question as we walked hand-in-hand in the direction of Edison’s hotel. “How did you even find us in the first place?”
“I’ve always known where you were,” Edison explained as he nodded to the front desk person, handing the man his umbrella. “Your neighbor, Mrs. Doyle? She’s Oona’s cousin.”
Mrs. Doyle was the friendly old woman who lived up the road from our little cottage. She was always checking in on us, but I figured that she was just nosey and lonely as she lived all by herself with just her dogs for company.
As soon as we stepped onto the elevator I gave his shoulder a hard shove. “So you knew where we were but you couldn’t get us any message telling us you were okay? What the hell, Edison?”
All of my relief that my husband was okay was quickly replaced by anger. I’d barely kept it together—but at least I didn’t feel the guilt that Rhodes had.
It oozed off of him for weeks because he felt like he’d failed to protect Edison which was his entire job.
“I couldn’t,” Edison said with a shake of his head, pressing the top button for the penthouse and scanning his room card. “That night I only took out about half of the older generation and it took me up until last week to make sure that each and every one of them was taken out of commission and that it was safe enough for me to bring you two back.”
I didn’t say anything until the elevator doors opened into a well-lit suite. “Collum and the rest of the security team is a floor below this,” Edison continued, slowly answering the questions that Rhodes had pelted at him rapid fire on the street. “I was by myself because I wanted our first meeting after three months to be, well, private. Though the tourists snapping photos of us will probably live on in their iPhones forever.”
He was trying to make a joke. I knew it, but I still didn’t find it very funny.
Edison glanced between the two of us before shrugging. “Well, I had to try at least.”
I flopped down onto the hard leather couch that filled up most of the suite’s space, pulling a throw pillow into my lap for something to hold on to as I watched my two alphas settle in across from me.
“You were shot that night. How did you survive?”
“I didn’t do it alone. Liam Flannagan and his men had taken most of our guys who were in the mansion that night hostage and I was running out of options,” Edison began, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees as his fingers hung threaded together between them.
“So you used the maids,” Rhodes provided with a shake of his head. “Well there goes that secret.”
“The maids?” I frowned, thinking of Aoife and Quinn, the sweet girls who always helped clean my room. “How did you use the maids, you didn’t use them as distractions did you, Edison? Because I won’t stand for you using those poor girls like that.”
Even as I spoke, Edison’s grin told me that I was way off.
Rhodes leaned over to me and put his hands over mine. “No, Perr, the maids are anything but distractions. Oona has trained them to defend themselves and the manor if need be.”
“Oona? Sweet housekeeper Oona? Oona, who looks like Mrs. Claus?” I snorted with disbelief. “Yeah, right, and I’m secretly a ninja.”
