I froze, my grip on the phone going slack as my jaw dropped. My heart pounded in an uneven rhythm, bile crawling up my throat. But that couldn’t be… For a moment, I was sure that he’d said…
No, it’s impossible.
“Dude?” Greylen stared at me with wide eyes. Dragons had excellent hearing, so there was no way he’d missed that, being only a few feet away.
“Are… are you sure?” My voice sounded strangled, my chest squeezing uncomfortably.
“Because I can fucking measure it? No, asshole,” Orsen growled, then grumbled low before sighing. “Fuck. It’sher,Bash. I’m… I’m sure. Only… she’sclaimingher name is Rowan and that she’s never met us before.”
“What the hell?” Grey cut in, and I shook my head, waving a hand to get him to shut up.
“Never met us? You can’t be serious. You sound… Dammit, Orsen, you sound like you’re losing your mind.”
He scoffed, and I could picture my clanmate rolling his eyes. “I fucking may be. Or—whatever. Not the point. Look, Imayhave lost my temper a bit. Seeing her here was just so… There’s a possibility I scared her.”
Jesus, like we needed more shit to rain down. “Ugh, fucking hell. What happened?”
“Don’t growl at me, fucker. She was with Griffin. They were in his room, drinking and laughing, and fuck… Just thinking about it. I saw red and attacked him. Bash, he washalf-fucking-nakedwith our mate. You’d have done the same.”
The guy wasn’t wrong. I pinched the bridge of my nose as I squeezed my eyes shut, dropping my head. After a beat, I straightened, nodding as I said, “You’re probably right. But… shit, what the hell?”
Greylen moved faster than any human could, grabbed our camping gear, and threw it into the bed of my truck without a word. I could sense the raw energy coming off him in waves. I cast him a glance. After a quick “bye, see you there,” I hung up with Orsen, shoving my phone back into my pocket.
I just stood there for a moment, far too interested in the rocks shoved into the dirt at my feet.
Fuck.
Our mate was potentially alive.
Oh, and an Alpha had attacked a beloved member of our horde, which was going to go over real well with everyone. We’d been gone for a fraction of a second, and this was what we were heading back to?
Everything was going to shit.
“Hurry up and get in the fucking truck, or I’m shifting and flying back to the den alone,” Greylen growled from the driver’s seat.
In a rush, I hopped inside. I hadn’t even closed the door before Grey took off, speeding down the dirt track. He’d left half our belongings out in the woods, but neither of us gave it a second thought. The shit was safe enough. We could go back for it later. You know, if we wanted to even leave the house ever again.
None of it seemed to matter. We needed to see whether what Orsen said was true. If, against all fucking odds, our mate was indeed alive.
My heartbeat screamed in my ears, my thoughts too messy to process, and I stared straight ahead as Grey raced toward the house. Something buzzed in my blood, but I ignored it. I couldn’t get my hopes up. This was a mistake, a really fuckingrudemistake. Emmy wasn’t back. She couldn’t be. Life didn’t work like that; we weren’t that lucky.
And still, I rubbed my thumb over my pocket, finding the familiar circle under the denim, the one that was always there because I carried the tiny thing with me every damn day.
Don’t be a lie. Just… don’t. Please be real.
Rowan
As I walked down the hallway toward Ma, I glanced behind me, half expecting to see one of the dragons glowering. My head was still spinning after the chaos, my entire body stuck in fight-or-flight mode as I tried to will the adrenaline to back off. A crash was coming soon, and I knew it was going to hit hard.
Running felt like the best option.
Only, I didn’t want to leave Griffin.
“Is what they’re saying true?” Ma asked as I approached her. She was holding my medic bag, someone must have grabbed it from Griff’s room, and giving me a look, as if I was some sacred deity returned from the dead—not a normal human with slightly above-average healing skills.
“I don’t know,” I told her honestly, my shoulders sagging as I looked at the closed door beside her. “Is Griffin in there?”
She nodded. “He’s in good spirits, but he could do with being looked at. He refused to let Dr. Jenkins anywhere near him. I think he’s more worried aboutyou, my dear.”
