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Matt and Anders from Sam’s team and Oliver, an alpha who defected from the farm, volunteered to rescue Constance and Sadie. They left just before I went into heat, not knowing Constance had passed away. They got stuck in a snowstorm and were only just making their way down from the mountain with Sadie this morning. A frown marred Lexie’s face as Sam talked.
“Did you know Constance, Lexie?” I asked.
“I think I might have,” she answered. Sam looked shocked.
“Why didn’t you say anything when I told you this earlier?” he looked a little hurt. She turned around and grabbed his face to kiss him.
“It didn’t click when you were talking to me earlier. All the problems here had me distracted, but hearing you tell it again, something clicked. I had a contact who would sometimes help me get an abused woman out of the safe house and into another one in the mountains. I never asked where, exactly, because I trusted her implicitly and it was better if I didn’t know. It was often an older beta guy who would come, but sometimes it was a young woman. I suspected she was an omega. She wore a lot of perfume, but I never asked and she never talked much. It never occurred to me they could have been with the Network, because it wasn’t omegas I was sending them. It just fits that it was Constance and Sadie. We used code names, so I can’t be sure.”
“She’ll be here soon, but if she’s a contact of yours, I trust her already,” Sam said sweetly. Lexie just smiled up at him.
I was just untying my apron when I heard hurried footsteps coming down the main stairs. I rushed out and was instantly swallowed up in a giant hug by Ryder, Cary, and Nick. They squeezed the breath out of me. I was a little disconcerted at how much I had missed them. They stepped away, and I saw Wolf hanging back. He rubbed the back of his neck self consciously as I swept my gaze over him.
He was wearing clothing similar to River. Tight dark jeans that looked criminally good on his thick thighs, and a black long sleeve t-shirt that was stretched to capacity. He’d pulled his hair back from his face, in a bun, and he had a short, neat undercut. His beard was shorter, too. Trimmed of its wildness, but still sexy.
With that straggly hair out of the way, his face was more visible. I’d thought his eyes were intense before, when they were all I could really see. I’d been mistaken. Now that sharp cheekbones and a heavy brow framed them, there was no escaping them when he looked at me.
“Wow,” I whispered, as I reached up to trace his cheekbones. “You’re a work of art.”
He was gorgeous in a rough hewn kind of way. As if someone had carved him out of the earth. He had the spirit to match. That wildness was still there. The make-over hadn’t tamed it; it was just camouflage.
He relaxed into my touch. “Only you could see beauty in me.”
“Beauty is too small a word for you,” I replied. There was something about Wolf that seemed barely contained. He’d let some of it out that first night we’d met, but it had only been a whisper of his power. I don’t think we’d seen the depths of Wolf yet. He was a prime alpha. I knew that intimately. But where Damon and Sam spilled their dominance everywhere, Wolf’s was a part of him. Only a hint escaped. He was no less deadly for it.
“Where did you get the clothes?” I asked, changing the subject. There was no way Cary’s clothes would have fit him.
“Lexie had them dropped off. She said Leif left them behind for me. The jacket didn’t fit, but the rest does. Kind of.”
I’d have to thank Lexie and Leif later.
“Okay,” Lexie said, coming out of the kitchen as she clapped her hands loudly, startling me. “We have a million things we need help with, so stop hogging the big, strong men and let them get to work.”
I grinned at her as I gave my guys another hug, then let them go. The next couple of hours passed in a blur. Lexie was right. There was a lot to do. If the Palace had permanent power, it made the building a valuable base, even if the omegas chose not to stay here.
Lexie gathered the omegas together, then pushed me forward to talk to them about Emma and Rose’s ideas for the future of the Palace. I frowned at her, but she insisted they trusted me and didn’t know her. So I took a nervous breath and jumped in. It went better than I would have thought, even if I stammered a bit at having so many people listening to me talk.
A surprising number of the omegas were on board with turning it into a place of refuge and training, run by omegas. Some were fearful of repercussions after everything the Palace had put us through. Which was exactly why we needed to do it. To show them what omegas could do, and that we weren’t weak, the way the Palace wanted us to think. That we were stronger than even we knew.
So we divvied up jobs to any omega willing to pitch in. Things like figuring out laundry and compiling a list of useful resources we could find throughout the Palace. Then Lexie, Angel, Rose and I headed to the conservatory to see if Rose’s ideas for it were workable. Although, Rose found somewhere else to be when some of our guys came to help. They couldn’t seem to stay away, and I couldn’t find it in me to mind. I didn’t want to overwhelm Rose, though, sensing she was naturally timid and a little wary of alphas. So we let her flee back to the kitchen, where she seemed more comfortable. She took Angel with her, at Angel’s insistence. I was quickly working out, food highly motivated Angel.
Nick gave us advice about what kind of plants might grow well in the conservatory. He’d picked up a lot helping around the farm over the years. Then we got some of Lexi’s farming team on the phone to find out what we needed to do to prepare the soil better. They gave us detailed instructions we wrote down, then they offered to send us some young plants and some seeds they had stored. So, we put Wolf and Sam to work, pulling out the existing plants and piling them up. While Lexie and I mapped the garden beds and figured out a new layout.
We were all focused on our work when I got the feeling I was being watched while I bent over a garden bed. I looked up to find River leaning against the pool railing, his gaze running hotly over me. It seemed to be his new favorite pastime.
“Do you need help with something?” I asked him as I straightened. Maybe he was hot and needed help to undress. A girl could hope.
“No. I just came in to tell you we have visitors,” he replied. “Sadie’s here.”
“And when was that?” Lexie asked with a smirk.
“About five minutes ago,” he replied darkly, eyeing my skirt.
thirty-two
Samwasupandmoving instantly, shooting me a glare on his way, until Lexie stopped him with a hand on his bare chest.
“Hold up. Clean off, then get dressed first. You’re not meeting another omega in your trunks.” Sam looked down at himself and then grinned at Lexie.
