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I am so sorry, Cyn.So, so sorry.
All I could think about was the woman lying next to me. That it didn’t have to be like this. That there wassomethingI could have done to help her before it had gotten to this point.
I am so, so sorry I let you down.
ELI
Eli’s Penthouse
Austin, Texas
It had been three whole days since Iris had disappeared, and I felt like I was about to crawl straight out of my skin. She still hadn’t called back, though I was quickly losing any hope of that regardless, especially with the discovery of Demi Smith. It was as if Iris had simply disappeared into thin air, and the only proof she’d ever been here at all was the clothing she’d left behind in my guest bedroom.
My anxiety hadn’t been this bad since I was a young teenager — all that puberty-induced angst combined with the constant uncertainty coupled with being forced to see Brock and my mother every other weekend. I was glad I’d actually gone to a therapist when I was younger; I didn’t have the time now, and I certainly wasn’t going to go through the hassle of finding a provider in the midst of this.
The breathing exercises helped. That was enough for now. I couldn’t afford to be distracted from this. We couldn’t just leave Iris to her own devices and hope for the best.
Three days of minimal sleep were starting to grate on me, though. I’d had sleepless nights before. I had been a good college student, but I’d taken an accelerated course load, and sometimes that came with a price. I never went into business meetings unprepared, and if I had to cut out a few hours of sleep, so be it.
But it wasn’t like this. It lasted a day at best. I didn’t feel nauseous constantly. Life went back to normal after the crunch, but there was no normal, knowing that the person I’d been working with was probably in danger.
The strangest part was my wolf. He had never been bothered by those other things before. Brock, yes — but that was because he was part of the pack. (I’d never say he was part of the family, my mother’s fated mate or not. That was a privilege, and not one he was ever going to be given.) But generally, stress never got to him. Especially simple “human” stress, like exams or business meetings.
But now? It felt like my wolf waswallowing, and it was so foreign, I didn’t know what to do about it. He’d never felt like this before.
It wasn’t as if we were even isolated. Remus and Nic were in and out constantly, and if not them, then Clay and Jaxon were around. There were plenty of people — and wolves — and most of them were my pack members. There was absolutely no reason for my wolf to feel this way, especially over the absence of one wolf. One wolf we hadn’t known more than a few weeks.
Despite that, despite every way I tried to logic my way out of this, his distress only grew with each day, and I just couldn’t shake it.
“Do you want a coffee? I was going to pick up from the café down the street.”
Remus’ voice broke my train of thought for a moment. I paused. “I…no. I don’t think I need any more caffeine today.” I was jittery even before my first cup, and I usually drank two or three a day.
The older alpha hummed, pausing in the foyer once he’d put on his shoes. “No? Do you drink tea?”
“Iced. But I don’t—”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Remus cut me off. “We could both use a refresher.”
He left without giving me another chance to argue and I sighed, staring at the closed door. Both Remus and Nic had been almost constant figures the past few days. It felt weird, but I didn’t argue, either. Doing something was better than doing nothing, and Remus’ presence specifically was…oddly comforting. More so than my father’s, even.
I assumed it had something to do with Remus and I being related, but without the relationship strains I had with my father. Maybe it would have been different if we’d grown up together…or maybe not. It was confusing to me that he felt like the most calming presence of all, but at the moment, I wasn’t in the position to argue. I simply dealt with it.
When I was younger, I’d always wanted someone like that. An older brother. In my imagination, I’d hoped an older brother would protect me from Brock the way I couldn’t myself — or the way my father apparently wouldn’t. I never got one — not until it was far too late to matter. Myles was a close confidant, but I could never tell him, and he wasn’t in any position to help, either. If my father wouldn’t intervene, why would my uncle?
I blinked, something occurring to me. I’d considered Myles as close as I’d get to a brother, given that we were related by blood, but perhaps I hadn’t been thinking of it just right. Or perhaps it was because I hadn’t spoken to Maverick in years, but…
When I was ten and Mav was twelve, a family within Longbow had taken him in to foster. It didn’t happen often within wolf packs, but someone had clearly made sure to keep tabs on Mav after he’d been taken to the hospital. He didn’t talk about it much, but the story had been picked up by the news; it was hard to ignore a boy who’d been attacked by his own father and shot the man in self-defense.
There were questions afterward about how a child had been left in the care of an alcoholic parent. What was the government doing about welfare? How had this kid slipped through the cracks? Why hadn’t someone intervened earlier? The questions raged on, even after Mav was released from the hospital to a foster family.
In retrospect, I’m sure my father had facilitated the move between our pack and the pack Mav had been born into. He had the money and the influence, after all, so he’d have been better able to shield Mav from human institutions if he had to. And if Mav’s father had any friends bent on revenge, well…Mav would be safer in someone else’s territory.
I met him a few weeks after that. I assumed my father was trying to help Mav find friends his age. We formed an instant connection. My father never put two and two together, but I always suspected that if anyone knew about Brock, it would be Mav. He never said anything about it, which was fine by me; I didn’t want to talk about it, either. But his was the couch I’d always crash on.
That had all changed when he turned eighteen. Where I excelled in school, it wasn’t Mav’s strength. After graduation, he enlisted in the British Army. There was no way he’d be talked out of it, even if he would be banished. That was the price for taking part in largely human institutions…especially ones with strong intelligence and technology capabilities. Mav knew. Mav knew, and he went anyway. He felt strongly about it.
I’d been soangry.I was sixteen — not exactly a master of my own emotions at that age — but I was soangrythat the person who’d been my best friend over the past six years wasabandoningme, and for what? For a country? For a government that hadn’t even taken care of him as a kid? It seemed so backward. I was furious.
