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“I agree,” Max said, as he clapped me on the shoulder and grinned. Now that we knew it wasn’t dangerous, he was practically vibrating with excitement. He loved figuring out how things worked. “Let’s go.”
“I, uh, don’t think I’m ready to go down into the labs again, yet,” Wolf mumbled. “I’ll stay here.”
Shit. I hadn’t even thought about that.
“That’s okay,” Hunter said, his voice sounding rougher than usual, as he flicked his gaze to Wolf, then away again. “I’ll stay with you. Maybe we could go outside and talk?”
Hunter was naturally cocky. But his levity had disappeared abruptly. He was standing with his arms crossed over his chest defensively, as if he expected Wolf to reject him when he’d been the one to run earlier.
“I’d really like that,” Wolf said. The rest of us suddenly found interesting things to look at, as the two brothers walked out of the room together and out the front doors.
Damon, Max and I bolted for the window. River just watched us in bemusement. “Really? We’re going to spy on them?”
“Hell yes,” Damon growled.
Max just sighed. “We can’t even blame it on the girls making us do it this time.”
“It’s not really spying, more observing their interaction, so we can monitor their health and wellbeing,” I said. “They’re both highly dominant alphas in a stressful situation. We’re really providing a public service.”
“Sure,” River said, his tone sounding extra dry. Yet he still came over and joined us at the window.
Hunter and Wolf had stopped under the trees at the edge of the lawn.
“Can you guys hear what they’re saying?” Max asked. “Hunter feels really nervous.”
“No,” Damon said. He turned his head, though, as if he was straining to hear. I knew alphas had advanced senses, including hearing, but if he could hear anything from here, I would have been amazed. I wished I was more in tune with Wolf’s emotions right now, so I could make sure he was alright. There was something about Wolf that made him seem intensely vulnerable, despite his size and incredible strength.
Wolf was standing in a defensive posture, listening intently to whatever Hunter was saying to him. When he suddenly moved like lightning, lifting Hunter up in a bear hug and squeezing him hard. Max and Damon both tensed instantly.
“Relax,” I said, before one of them could jump through the window. “Wolf hugs with his whole body and doesn’t really know his own strength. They’re good.”
Hunter managed to wrangle his arms free and hugged his brother back just as hard.
Damon let out a relieved sigh as he stepped back from the window. “Okay, let’s leave them to it now. Our job is to check out the device downstairs.”
We backed away reluctantly and gave them some privacy.
As we walked through the labs, I looked at them with fresh eyes. I’d been so focused on the computers and the power when I was down here yesterday, I hadn’t really noticed the locked cells at the back. Hearing Maia and Wolf talk about them gave me chills now. Picturing them in there, left alone in the dark, made me angrier than I ever remembered feeling before. I must have stopped walking without realizing until River squeezed my shoulder. He was standing behind me, staring at them, too.
I looked over to see everyone else had halted as well.
“Is this…?” Damon asked. He didn’t seem able to finish, but I knew what he was asking.
“Yes, this is the lab they used for Maia, other omegas too, but mostly Maia,” I answered.
Damon visibly shuddered. “We shouldn’t have brought her back here.”
“She insisted, and you have to respect her choices. She’s earned it,” Sam said. He looked just as shell-shocked as Damon, though.
“We saw it in the videos we got from their hidden lab server,” Max added, “but it’s different being here.”
I didn’t even want to think about what was on those videos.
Damon muttered something about burning the place down as he turned away abruptly. He headed for the doorway to the stairwell that I’d pointed out when we first entered the room. We’d left it ajar. River flicked the switch at the bottom and flooded the room with light once again.
“That’s a lot bigger, if it’s the same technology,” Max said. The device down here took up half the long room.
“It doesn’t have that lock opening anywhere that I could see,” I told him.
