Instead, he made a beeline for the kitchen, ignoring the ache in his lower back that promised a hell of a limp if he didn’t start stretching before sex.
The kitchen lights were blazing so bright they could’ve doubled as a hospital trauma bay.
Wade squinted against the glare, blinking at the chaos. Snack wrappers everywhere. Foil glinting. Three mugs left abandoned, one upright, the other two on their sides, coffee slowly crawling across the granite. The bowl of fruit looked like it had survived a raccoon attack. Brownie plate half gone, jagged edges of chocolate staring back at him like broken teeth. Four paper plates, each with a different constellation of crumbs.
But the kitchen was empty.
Not empty, really.
Just missing the people who gave it a pulse.
He’d expected a circus. The usual squabble, at least. Preston and Jalen dissecting a recipe, Sasha glued to his phone, Newt hovering above the fridge and dropping cereal on the other mates, who’d learned to ignore it.
Instead, just silence, broken by the hum of the fridge cycling on and the automated whir of the coffee maker prepping for another round no one was here to drink.
Something wasn’t adding up.
His gut soured with every second. He scanned the room again, this time slower, like maybe the first pass had missed a mate hiding behind the trash can. Not likely, but stranger shit had happened in this house.
Still… Wade ran his palm across his jaw, trying to fit the facts together.
Glancing at the island, he spotted four cell phones. Not a single one plugged into the charger. The sight of them abandoned hit him sideways.
No one in this house went anywhere without their phone. It would be easier to pry a spare rib from Zeppelin or get Newt to eat a hot dog.
Was this some weird prank? Or had the mates gone full Stepford overnight and decided to ditch their digital leashes?
He checked again. All four, just sitting there.
Sasha’s with the custom rainbow case Quinn had bought his mate.
Preston’s tucked under a napkin but still visible.
Jalen’s, locked and grimly black, like the man himself before his first coffee of the morning.
Newt’s, blue and covered in so many stickers it was a miracle the thing even recognized touch.
Each one abandoned, as if the men had all simultaneously decided they’d had enough connectivity for the night.
Not likely.
Not with these guys.
Brownies, coffee, half-eaten fruit, and phones. Zero people.
His wolf, buried bone-deep, went uneasy.
Bet his hackles would have bristled, if he hadn’t just spent most of the last twelve hours fucking his mate into a limp ragdoll.
Something was badly wrong.
Wade reached for his own cell, not even feeling the motion of his hand. His fingers moved on their own, punching in Zeppelin’s number.
His alpha answered before the phone could finish a full ring.
“Yeah?” Zep’s voice came through, rough and distracted.
“Need you in the kitchen,” Wade said, keeping his voice level despite the alarm bells clanging in his head. “Something’s wrong.”
