35
Kage
The call came just after midnight, waking me from a restless sleep. I frowned at the unknown number flashing across the screen. Who the hell was calling me at this hour? I debated letting it go to voicemail, but something in my gut told me to pick it up.
“Kage,”
I answered gruffly, my voice thick with sleep. After having no luck at Phoenix's apartment, we crashed at our place in SoHo. It was the middle of the night, and I wasn’t expecting any calls.
“It’s Hudson.”
The voice on the other end was deep, professional, but there was an edge to it that caught my attention immediately. “I’ve got something for you.”
I shot up from the bed, my heart racing. I’d been calling in every favor I could think of to track down Phoenix, and Hudson, a guy from my hometown who’d served in special forces, was my last resort. I could only hope that calling in this particular debt had finally paid off.
“Phoenix,”
I whispered, already throwing the blanket off me and getting out of bed. “Have you found her?”
“Atlanta. There’s an address that came up—belongs to someone named Dove. I ran a few checks, and she was in the same Omega orphanage as Phoenix. That’s all I’ve got for now.”
Dove. I remembered Phoenix mentioning her before—her sister with the hotels. “You’re sure it’s her?”
“As sure as I can be with what I’ve got,”
Hudson replied. “I tracked her phone, and this is where it led. If she’s not there now, she’s been there recently.”
A rush of adrenaline shot through me. “Send me the address.”
Hudson rattled off the details, and I punched them into my phone. “Thanks, man. I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me shit,”
Hudson said flatly. “Just go get your girl.”
The line went dead, and I stood there for a second, phone still in hand, processing what I’d just heard. Phoenix was in Atlanta. And she was with someone she trusted—at least, that was a relief.
I stormed out of my room, heading straight for Zephyr’s. He was awake, sitting at the edge of his bed, staring at the floor. The look on his face told me he hadn’t slept much either—not since Phoenix had left.
“She’s in Atlanta,”
I said bluntly, my voice cutting through the silence.
Zephyr’s head snapped up, eyes narrowing in confusion. “What? How do you know?”
“Hudson called me. He traced her phone to an address there. She’s with Dove—one of her sisters.”
Zephyr stood, his shoulders tense as he ran a hand through his hair. “And what? You think showing up unannounced is a good move?”
“I think it’s the only shot we’ve got. She’s out there, Zeph, and she’s been alone for too long. We can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
He stared at me, the conflict clear in his eyes. “She left because of me. You think she wants to see me now?”
“I don’t care if she wants to see you,”
I growled, my patience wearing thin. “She needs us. Whether she likes it or not, we’re her pack. I’m going to make this right.”
Zephyr looked away, his jaw tight. “And what if we make things worse?”
“We can’t make things worse by being there for her,”
I said, my voice softer this time. “She needs to know we’re still here, that we’re not going to abandon her.”
For a long moment, Zephyr just stood there, staring at the floor, his body taut with indecision. Finally, he sighed and nodded, though he looked like it pained him to do it. “Fine. I’ll go. But if she tells me to leave—”
“We deal with it when we get there,”
I interrupted. “Now get your stuff. I’m waking up Parker.”
Without waiting for a response, I left Zephyr’s room and pounded on Parker’s door. It took a few moments, but eventually, the door swung open to reveal a bleary-eyed Parker, who looked like he’d been in the middle of a decent dream. That wasn’t going to last long.
“What the hell, Kage?”
he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.
“We’re going to Atlanta,”
I said firmly. “Phoenix is there. Get dressed.”
That woke him up fast. Parker blinked, the exhaustion fading from his face as the gravity of my words sank in. “You’re serious?”
“Dead serious.”
I glanced at my phone, checking the address one last time. “She’s with Dove, but we need to move fast.”
Parker didn’t argue.
He just nodded and started pulling on clothes.
Within minutes, the three of us were packed, ready to go, and climbing into the car.
Zephyr sat in the passenger seat, staring out the window, his expression locked in a silent war.
Parker was in the back, his eyes distant as he processed everything.
I started the engine and pulled onto the road, my mind racing with possibilities, fears, and hopes all colliding together.
We’d fucked up—there was no denying that.
Phoenix had been pushed to her limits, and we’d let her slip through our fingers.
But now we had a chance, however slim, to set things right.
The silence between us was heavy, but I didn’t care.
All that mattered was getting to Phoenix.
Finding her. Letting her know that no matter what had happened, no matter how hard things had gotten, we weren’t going to let her go.
We were her pack. And we weren’t leaving without her.
The dark road stretched out ahead of us, and I gripped the steering wheel tighter, my jaw clenched in determination. Whatever it took, whatever walls we’d have to break down, we were going to bring Phoenix home.
◆◆◆
I had never been as grateful for our success as I was right now.
Without it, there was no way we would have been able to be in the air on a private jet within an hour of Hudson’s call.
But here we were.
The flight itself felt like it took days, not hours.
We tried to use the time wisely, forming a plan that didn’t make me feel like I was losing my grip.
The one thing we all agreed on was that there was no way we were leaving Atlanta without Phoenix.
The car ride from the airport felt like a blur.
My head was a mess of thoughts, each one more suffocating than the last.
Beside me, Zeph and Parker were just as tense.
As we drove through Atlanta’s busy streets, I glanced at the address Hudson had given me.
It wasn’t far now.
We turned into a gated community, and my first thought was that Dove, Phoenix’s sister, wasn’t just well-off.
She was rich.
Super fucking rich.
The house that came into view wasn’t just a home—it was a damn mansion.
Towering pillars framed the entrance, and the sprawling lawn was immaculate, perfectly manicured like something out of a magazine. It didn’t fit the image I had of Phoenix’s past. It was nothing like her apartment in New York.
The car slowed to a stop at the front steps.
I glanced over at Zeph.
He hadn’t said a word since we left the airport.
His eyes stayed focused on the massive front doors, but I could tell he was nervous.
Maybe even scared. It wasn’t like him to hang back, but today he did.
I got out first, Parker following close behind, and when I looked back, I noticed Zeph lagging, letting us take the lead.
He was letting me handle this, and I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or worse.
We walked up the stone path, and my hand hovered over the doorbell for a moment before I finally pressed it. A deep chime echoed through the house, and I took a deep breath.
It didn’t take long for the door to open, and standing there was who I assumed was Dove. She looked nothing like Phoenix. Her features were sharper, her expression unyielding. Her eyes, cold and piercing, scanned the three of us before settling on me.
“You must be her Alphas,”
she said flatly, no hint of warmth in her voice. It wasn’t a question, just a statement. Her arms were crossed, and she stood in the doorway like a gatekeeper.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, we—uh—we’re here to see Phoenix.”
Dove’s eyes narrowed, and her lips pressed into a tight line. “No,”
she said, her voice cold and final. “You’re not seeing her.”
I blinked, caught off guard. “Wait, what? We—”
Dove’s voice snapped through the air, slicing clean through my denial. “You have no idea, do you?”
She stepped forward, fire in her eyes. “My sister is sensitive. She feels everything so fucking deeply. And then to be rejected right after her heat?”
She shook her head, her voice trembling with disbelief. “For an Omega, there is no time more vulnerable than that. You might as well have stabbed her straight in the heart.”
Parker flinched beside me, his jaw tight, but he said nothing.
“We didn’t reject her,”
Kage muttered.“That’s not—we never meant—”
“No,”
Dove snapped, cutting him off cold. “Don’t you dare try to twist this. You may not have said the word, but your actions screamed it. She gave you everything. Her trust. Her body. Her heart. And the moment she was at her weakest, you pulled away. Left her alone to think she meant nothing.”
Dove stepped forward, her finger jabbing toward me, though her anger seemed directed at all of us. “You think you can just show up here and see her? Like a bunch of fucking demanding pricks?”
Dove’s words hit like a slap to the face, and I couldn’t deny the truth behind them.
“Phoenix has relapsed,”
she spat, her eyes flashing with fury. “She’s been drowning in her own pain, and where the hell were you?”
Her voice broke slightly, but she recovered quickly, her anger hardening again. “She’s shut down, spiraling. She’s barely eating. She’s had to take leave from the job she loves, and you want to waltz in here and make everything better with pretty words? No. Absolutely not.”
The silence that followed was deafening. I wanted to argue, to tell her that we were here to help, to make things right. But what could I say? What defense could I offer that wouldn’t sound hollow?
Dove shook her head, stepping back toward the door. “You can’t see her. She needs space. She needs help. And right now, I’m the only one trying to give her that. So no, you don’t get to come in here and fix her. You’ve done enough. Leave her the hell alone.”
The door slammed in our faces before I could respond, the sound echoing in my chest. I stood there, frozen, staring at the closed door like it might magically open again if I wished hard enough. But it didn’t.
Beside me, Parker let out a long, shaky breath, running a hand through his hair. “Fuck,”
he muttered, the weight of the situation crashing down on him. “We really messed this up, didn’t we?”
I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t. My chest felt tight, the guilt gnawing at my insides like a living thing.
Zeph finally stepped forward, his eyes still fixed on the door. He didn’t look angry, though. He looked… broken. The usual fire in him was gone, replaced by something darker, quieter. He didn’t say a word, just turned and started walking back toward the car. Parker and I exchanged a glance before following him.
The drive away from the house was tense, the silence thick with everything we weren’t saying. No one had expected this to be easy, but hearing it from Dove, seeing the rage and hurt in her eyes, made everything feel so much worse.
We weren’t leaving, though. I knew that much. “We’re staying,”
I said, breaking the silence. “We’ll try again. She’s not getting rid of us that easily.”
Parker nodded quietly from the back seat, and even Zeph gave a small grunt of agreement. We weren’t leaving Atlanta until we figured this out. Until we found a way to reach Phoenix.
We drove in silence for a while, eventually pulling into the nearest hotel where we checked in and dropped our bags in the room. Parker sat down heavily on the edge of the bed while Zeph paced silently.
“She’s not going to forgive us overnight,”
Parker said. “But we have to show her we’re not giving up. We owe her that.”
“We owe her a lot more than that,”
I said. “We owe her everything.”
Zeph stopped pacing, his eyes meeting mine. “We’ll make this right.”
His voice was quiet, filled with an intensity I hadn’t heard from him in days. “One way or another, we’ll make it right.”