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He nodded and walked into me, wrapping his arms around my waist.
“You’re a sap.”
“Yes, I am,” he agreed. “For you, I really am.”
“Go open the back door,” I directed him, and he left me to run down the alley. He had to then take two lefts to arrive back on our street to dash to our house.
I was lifting my bags up and over the fence when a weird feeling hit me, the same as it had earlier in the day when we were in separate cars, and I called him on the phone. I had made certain he added his number and email while we were waiting for everyone else to show up at the police station. He answered on the second ring as he walked out onto his back porch and waved at me. Instantly, I felt better, and obviously I was overreacting, because he was right there.
“Are you all right?” I asked him on the phone instead of yelling. It was late, and there were neighbors to consider.
I got a big smile in reply, but he didn’t say anything.
“Honey?”
Quick breath. “I love it when you call me honey.”
I grinned at him. “There’s only this last big suitcase, then the duffel and the garment bag and I’ll be in. We can––”
“I’m starving,” he rushed out. “Do you think you could go grab us something to eat? Would that be all right?”
“Of course,” I said, hefting my last big bag over, then the duffel. “What would you like?”
“Whatever you want, just don’t forget I’m a vegetarian. It might take a bit, this time of night, to find something. I’m certain you’ll figure it out.”
I stopped mid-lean toward my duffel, turned, and looked at him.
“Thanks, love,” he finished, then went back inside.
Bending again, I grabbed the duffel, hurled it over the fence, closed the garage, then stood there, thinking.
Why the reminder about what he could eat? Did he think I’d forgotten he was an omega? And why wouldn’t he offer me names of places he liked so I could go directly there? What was the point of sending me out without any frame of reference on a wild goose chase? It would take forever for me to…to…
“Fuck,” I said to myself, quickly scaling the fence and dropping to the ground on the other side, crouching down and bolting around the side of the house to the right, not the left or straight to the porch as would be expected.
Pulling my phone as I crept between the hydrangeas and the fence, I called Wade, while being careful to keep quiet.
“We’re talking a lot lately, don’t you think?” Wade greeted me instead of saying hello.
“We are, and I think I have Wynton Coe in my house.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I’m fairly certain, though I can’t quite see inside yet, that somehow, Wynton Coe is in my house with my mate,” I said, realizing suddenly how tight my chest was. “I… Wade…”
“I’m here,” he said, reassuring me, before yelling for Avery, who had to be somewhere close, to get cars over to my house right fucking now. “Avery’s got everyone moving, and we’re on our way.”
“I don’t know if I’m overre––” But then, through the window in the guest bedroom, I saw into the living room, where Wynton Coe was standing next to the oxblood sofa that was one of my favorite things in the house. He was leaning his right hip against it as he pointed a Glock at my mate. “No,” I rasped. “Not overreacting. He’s here.”
“Okay, we’re gonna come quiet, no lights or sirens, but we’re coming.”
“Good,” I said, and hung up.
I was torn. Did I shift to my wolf, leap through the window and hope the element of surprise would give me enough time to tear out his windpipe? Did I leap through as a man, and hope when I rolled free that I would be able to grab him and break his neck? I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure, and I was always sure. But the last time I’d taken a chance, I’d ended up with three bullets to the chest and nearly died. It hadn’t mattered then, not really. I would have died doing the right thing, saving omegas, and that would have been all right.
Everything was different now.
Suddenly my life had taken a turn. There was light and warmth and a man who thought I was beautiful, inside and out, and God… he loved me. He really loved me.
