Chapter 17 - Calder
SEVENTEEN
Calder
The past twenty-four hours have felt like a movie.
I knew Kady Sinclair was going to be trouble, but I never expected her to get my pack locked up for a night.
I doubt the Forestville jail is home to many hardened criminals, and a friendly prison officer did give us a slice of cake because she felt sorry for us, but still.
“We’re fine, Mom.” Hale paces while speaking into his phone. “It was all one big misunderstanding.”
I can hear the faint sound of his mom talking in a worried rush, only catching portions of what she said like, “the prison called me,” “an omega,” and, “Richard Sinclair.”
I type away on my laptop, scouring the web for any articles I can find about Richard Sinclair while Ezra mindlessly flicks between television shows from the armchair he’s slouched in.
“How’s Dad doing?” Hale asks, his concern giving his scent a burned wood edge. The night in jail hasn’t bothered him, but the worry over what it could do to his father’s health has. Despite his dad putting up a strong front, we know that he’s struggling and is a mere shadow of his former self.
“I’m fine, son.” I hear Nick, Hale’s dad, say. “Give us a call if you need a good lawyer next time, okay? I could have had you out of there in a flash.”
“We didn’t need a lawyer.” Hale pinches the bridge of his nose. “They had no grounds to hold us. It was just a scare tactic.”
“You can never be too careful with a man like Richard Sinclair,” Nick retorts. “Next time, call us. I may be ill, but I’m not dead yet.”
After Hale’s mom snatches the phone back, it takes a further ten minutes for him to convince her that we haven’t got prison tattoos.
“My plants needed watering today.” Ezra sighs, slumping down into the armchair. “Dean Rivers doesn’t understand how rare they are.”
We’ve been targeted by one of the richest and most ruthless businessmen in the country, and that’s what he’s worried about?
I massage my temples. “We have bigger problems than a few flowers wilting.”
Ezra glowers at me. For someone with commitment issues, you’d think he’s married to his plants, given how well he tends to them.
“They are some of the only species in the country.” Ezra’s eyes narrow. “Everyone thought the Nymphaea thermarum was extinct until recently.”
“I didn’t ask for a botany lesson.” I raise my hand to shut him up. “Save it for your students who actually care.”
“What students?” Ezra snarls bitterly. “I’m on a temporary leave of absence, remember?”
Shit, how could I forget? Despite there being no evidence and our names being kept out of the news, Forestville is a small town.
Word somehow reached Dean Rivers that Ezra was held for questioning over the “kidnapping” of Kady Sinclair and he thought it best to temporarily suspend him.
After the Gregory Grub incident, he’s being extra careful and didn’t like the thought of a student being in a professor’s apartment. Naturally.
“You didn’t even want to take the job in the first place,” I remind him.
“I was warming to it,” he grumbles.
“Okay, there’s no use turning on each other.” As usual, Hale takes the role of peacekeeper. “We need to stick together.”
“Where’s Riven?” I ask them. “I haven’t seen him in ages.”
“Right here.” As if on cue, Riven enters the room, a thick sudoku book tucked under his arm.
He takes a seat at the table then begins scribbling furiously.
He always works through puzzles when he’s stressed.
If he keeps going at this pace, I’ll have to dig out the emergency stash of sudoku I have hidden.
“We need to speak to Kady,” Hale says, flopping down next to me.
“Speak to her?” I shake my head. “Do you not remember her father’s rottweiler bodyguard? Not to mention the guard at Omega Village—”
Ezra’s mood instantly brightens. “You mean, the sweet old lady who tackled you?”
I ignore him. He knows how to push my buttons. Besides, I’d like to see him have a tussle with Margie. She may look like a sweet lady, but that woman’s ability to get you in a headlock is as good as any cage fighter’s.
“It’s probably best that we keep our distance,” I reply, pushing down my alpha instincts, screaming out for her.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t get Kady out of my head.
Her smell still lingers in our apartment, making it impossible not to think about how wet she must have been, rolling around in Hale’s sheets. And whenever I close my eyes, I see her in her underwear—her flat stomach and small, round breasts pushed up in that gorgeous bra. She’s maddening.
“For once, I agree with Calder.” Have we entered an alternate dimension, or did Ezra actually agree with me?
Hale sighs, resting his head in his hands. “I don’t think I can stay away from her.”
“Sure, you can.” I nudge his knee with mine. “You don’t even go to SVU. It’ll be easy.”
Hale’s sentimental. He gets attached easily. When we were kids, I had to drag him away from an animal rescue sanctuary on a school trip because he wanted to bring every one of them home to his parents’ farm.
“You don’t understand, Calder.” Dark circles ring his eyes. “She’s my scent match. Our scent match.”
My chest tightens, and the room seems to spin, like my world has been rocked on its axis.
“W-w-what?” I grip the sofa cushion for support. “Did you say scent match?”
Finding an omega was never on our to-do list, but when Hale said it, something inside me seemed to click into place.
“Come on, Hale.” Ezra rolls his eyes. “Not this again.”
“You knew about this?” I demand.
Ezra props his feet up on the coffee table, not at all worried that our pack leader is convinced that Kady Sinclair is our destined mate. How can he be so cavalier about this massive bombshell?
Scent matches are rare. So damn rare that I’m not sure I even believe in them, despite my parents’ insistence that they’re real. Sure, some people smell nicer than others, but that doesn’t mean the universe is pulling them together. That type of love only exists in romance novels and bad movies.
“I’m being serious.” There’s zero signs of uncertainty on Hale’s face. “I feel it.” He puts his hand to his chest. “I think if you all stopped to think about it properly, you’ll find you feel the same way.”
“I told you, it’s just the sex talking,” Ezra responds, although his eyes dart around the room.
Ezra runs when he gets uncomfortable. Right now, he looks like he’s considering the window as a possible exit.
“I think Hale may be right.” Riven looks up from his puzzles. “She smells…” A dreamy look that I’ve never seen on him before crosses his face. “Perfect.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Need I remind you that this is the same woman who put us in jail?”
The same woman who also ignited a fire in my belly from the moment she strolled into The Valley Voice office like she owned the place. She can’t be our scent match, can she?
“She tried to stop them from taking us away,” Riven points out.
“That doesn’t matter.” I clutch at straws while my mind reels. “How can we trust her after everything that’s happened?”
“She had her reasons for lying,” Hale shrugs. “You saw the alphas she was pretending to court.”
Ezra tsks. “You’re not thinking clearly.”
“We need to talk to her,” Hale insists. “To prove or disprove my theory. It’s the only way. I’m not giving up on her. Not yet.”