Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 92941 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92941 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“You want me to go?” I asked in surprise. I’d never even been out of the country. I wasn’t sure what kind of help they expected me to give.
“It’s not like dumbass could go without you,” Chance said with a shrug. “We’re just looking for Zeke’s mate so we can introduce ourselves and let him know that he’s got family. We’re not doing any cool shit.”
“It’ll be safe,” Ambrose told me with a sigh. “But we can cover more ground if Beau’s with us.”
“Okay.”
“We’ll discuss it,” Beau said at the same time.
“What’s there to discuss?” I asked, lowering my voice as Mordecai and Ambrose started talking.
Beau glanced around the table and then stood, snatching a few muffins as he pulled me out of my seat. I hurried to catch up to him as he marched toward the stairs.
“Your mom made breakfast for everyone,” I reminded him, glancing over my shoulder.
“I got muffins,” he replied, tugging me toward his rooms.
As soon as he stepped inside, he closed the door behind us, locking it for good measure.
“What’s your damage?” I asked in exasperation.
“What?”
“Heathers?”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“Nothing.” I waved him off. “What’s wrong? Why are we up here?”
“Because I’m sick of having every conversation with an audience,” he replied with a scowl.
“You don’t want to go to Europe?” I asked, trying to figure out what his issue was.
“Of course I do.” He tossed me a muffin and set the others on the table. “But we don’t know how long this could take.”
“Okay.”
“It could be months, Reese,” he said, watching my face. “You have a life here. What about your job?”
“Will I be able to go back to my job in the next couple of months?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed, running his hand through his hair. “The heat calmed down last night but—”
“You noticed?”
“Hard to ignore,” he said with a grimace.
“Is that normal?”
“Sure,” he replied easily. “For short periods of time. Why do you think I started a fire last night?”
“Oh.” So, we hadn’t broken anything.
“I’m guessing it was a reprieve after the bathtub,” he said, his lips twitching. “Our bodies needed time to recover.”
“Speak for yourself,” I blustered. “I could’ve gone all night.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“Promises, promises,” I sang.
Beau’s expression fell. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet,” he warned. “This Charles guy might not want anything to do with us.”
“But you have to try, right?” I asked gently. “You want to go?”
“Yes.” He sighed.
“Then we’ll go.”
I didn’t have a sibling, but if I knew that Rena’s mate was somewhere in the world, devastated and possibly scared? I’d be on the first flight out.
“I’ll run down and tell them,” Beau said, scrubbing his hands over his face. “I—this is bad timing.”
“We’ve got plenty of time,” I reminded him. “Go tell them, and I’ll call Rena and Mr. Miranda to let them know we’re headed out of town.”
He nodded and moved, stopping in front of me. “Thanks, love,” he whispered, leaning in to give me a soft kiss. “I’ll make it up to you.”
He was gone a moment later, and I stood dumbly in the middle of the room, the muffin crushed in my palm.
Our relationship had shifted. It was no longer Beau and Reese, pushing and pulling to see where the limits of our bond were. Suddenly, we were a single unit who decided together whether or not to do something.
There had been no pressure from Beau. He hadn’t tried to persuade me. He’d been fully willing to stay behind, again, if I’d wanted to.
Ignoring the lump in my throat, I walked to the bedroom to get my phone.
Chapter 16
Beau
“Where are we starting?” I asked Ambrose, standing in the doorway to his rooms.
“You guys can drop me and Chance in Belgium,” he replied, tossing a Dopp kit into the open suitcase on his kitchen table. “See if we can catch any threads there. You and Danny go to Germany and meet up with Matthias.”
“Matthias is in Germany?” Mordecai and Helen’s oldest had found his mate the year before, and the last I’d heard, they’d settled down in Montana on the family property.
“He and his mate saw Zeke while he was there,” Ambrose replied, pausing to look at me. “It seemed like he didn’t really want to discuss it over the phone.”
“You think he knows something?”
“Possibly. You know how paranoid he is.”
“Fair enough.”
“I’m guessing Reese needs to pack?”
“Yeah. We’ll have to run to her apartment.”
“She should just move in here.”
“Why don’t you tell her that,” I joked. “Make sure it sounds like an order. She loves that shit.”
“I don’t want to hear about your sex life.”
“Fuck off,” I shot back, grabbing a shoe he’d left by the door to toss at him.
“Go get packed,” he ordered. “We want to head out as soon as possible.”
“On it,” I mumbled, turning away.