Page 100 of Allegiant

I move to open my mouth, but Harley beats me to it. “We need to support Samson. He loves it, Rowan loves it, so we’re gonna love it too. And what better way than to actually do it?”

Ansel’s eyes shine slightly as he pulls out his phone. “That’s just beautiful. I love it. I’ll text Neo and he can alert everyone else. Where are we meeting?”

“How about in the ballroom,” Harley says. “There’s enough space in there for us to move, and there are speakers.”

“And there’s a pole,” Cade says, rolling his lips slightly.

“Because it’s under construction. It’s a post.”

“Same thing.”

I snort, and Ansel rolls his eyes, but I’m pretty sure he means it.

“Neo wants to know if this is a code yellow,” Ansel says, and I look over at Harley, unsure what that means.

Harley just nods. “Yeah, tell them it is or else they won’t come quickly enough. And we have shit to do while Nugget is occupied.”

Ansel bobs his head, and then Harley ushers me forward, Cade and Ansel on our heels.

“Don’t worry, boo. We’re gonna dance our little hearts out and make you and Samson proud,” Harley says.

My eyes sting at the sentiment, at the way his family loves one another. And maybe…if I stick around, they can love me like that too.

26

SAMSON

I try to dance in my small shed, a way to burn off some steam and center myself, but it’s hard when Rowan’s not here to watch, to instruct, to move with me.

I find that he centers me in ways dance can’t.

It’s becoming a bit of a…not a problem, per se, but something else. Something bigger, something significant.

I’ve never missed someone like this. Where several minutes feel like hours. Where in his absence, I feel like something is slowly being cut from me.

Is this how my brothers feel about their partners? It’d make sense given how much they hate being parted from them.

I end up cutting my dance session short. I set my axes down and wipe my sweaty face and chest with a rag, glancing down at my phone. My heart sinks when I realize he hasn’t messaged, but then again, I don’t really expect it. I’m sure Harley has roped him into something dangerous…

That thought makes me move a little faster, pulling my shirt on as I nearly sprint across the grounds. I don’t want to be like Cade, who hovers over Ansel, always lingering around him. I’m not that whipped. But I like Rowan. More than like him, actually. I want to be with him all the fucking time. But I realize that can’t be healthy.

He can have friends outside of me.

He can hang out with my brothers and their partners, have fun, and be wild.

If they behave.

And only if they do.

Actually, that’s just ridiculous because I’m pretty sure none of them ever behave. Except maybe Wylder. He might, but he doesn’t count. He’s far too stubborn and stringent. The rest, especially Harley, are mischievous fuckers. They like to burn things down and blow things up. I mean, I do too, but still.

I don’t count when it comes to him.

I push through the front door. It’s eerily quiet except for Nugget barking and Dottie cooing at him. I should find her and ask her where my brothers are, but it would be all for naught. She’d simply squirt me in the face with her vinegar concoction and tell me I should use my eyes. I’m better off pulling up the cameras in the house and trying to find them myself.

Fumbling with my phone, I click on the app Neo uses to monitor each hallway and room in the house. He put it in earlier this year, trying to keep tabs on people coming and going. What I see when I flick the screen to the ballroom makes me stop in my tracks.

“What the fuck?” I murmur as I stare down at the screen. “Is he…is he teaching them how to dance?”