Chapter 14
“Okay, so I’m torn,” Sunny said as she set her bag next to Seneca’s on the coffee table.
“About what?” he asked.
“It’s the end of our weekend away! We didn’t go far, of course, but I really liked being here in the apartment with you. Our little love nest.”
He turned and pulled her against him, loving how it always felt so perfectly right to hold her. “So what are you torn about?”
“I’m excited about going back to the house, but I also really enjoyed the apartment.”
He hummed. “Yeah, me too.” He leaned over and kissed her. “I liked getting away with you for the weekend without getting away. It’ll be nice to be back to our house.” He put his bag over his shoulder and lifted hers. “Ready, baby?”
“Yep. Can we eat dinner in the market?”
“You bet.”
She beamed at him and just like whenever she smiled at him, he felt ten freaking feet tall.
They walked from the apartment and made their way through the park at a leisurely pace. It was near dinnertime, so the park was still busy and there were plenty of humans around.
They were near the security building on their way to the employee cafeteria when Sunny froze next to him, her hand tightening in his.
“You okay, sweetheart?”
“It’s…oh my gosh,” she whispered. “It’s enforcers! From the prowl.”
“Shit. Which ones?” He dropped their bags and lifted his phone to his ear.
“The two with the black shirts and baseball caps. They’re Dario’s friends. Wade and Jesse.”
The call connected on the first ring. “Jupiter.”
“Are you in the security building?” Seneca asked, stepping in front of Sunny to block her in case they looked their direction.
“I’m walking there now. Why?”
“Two enforcers are here, between the security building and the cafeteria.”
“Shit. Take a picture and send it to me. Don’t engage with them, walk to the security office and wait for me.”
“Got it.”
He snapped a picture and sent it to Jupiter, then hurried Sunny to the security office, staying to the side and out of the males’ line of sight. The males were walking slowly, clearly looking around.
A few moments later, Jupiter leaped up the stairs to the security office and called for the others inside to join him.
Wanting to avoid a confrontation in front of the humans milling around, they quickly surrounded the males and moved them into the employee cafeteria.
Thankfully, they’d gone along without a fight.
Jupiter waved at him from the door of the cafeteria and Seneca said, “You stay in the security office. I’ll be back.”
“Hell no, I’m not leaving your side,” Sunny said.
“Sunny.”
“No.”
He wanted to argue with her some more, but he could tell by the set of her jaw that she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “All right, but you stay with me.”
“Of course, I’m not an idiot.”
He gave her a quick kiss. “I know you’re not, but in the heat of the moment, sometimes we do dumb things.”
“I promise not to get heated.”
He took her hand and walked over to the cafeteria with her, and by the time they were inside, the alphas were there, the two males surrounded.
The males saw Sunny and both growled.
“Shut that noise off immediately,” Marcus said with a growl.
Their growls stopped, but they glared at her. Seneca moved in front of her again, ready to let out his claws and fangs and protect her.
“What the hell do you want?” Seneca demanded.
“We’re here for Fallon,” the first male said.
“That’s Jesse,” Sunny said with a low voice. “The other is Wade.”
“There’s no one here by that name,” Marcus said.
The males both growled. “You’re lying,” Wade said. “We know she’s here. And she belongs to Dario and the prowl. Turn her over to us.”
Marcus growled. Seneca knew his dad had tried to bluff, but they clearly had some idea that she was in the park, otherwise why would they have shown up?
“Fine,” Marcus said, his voice laced with authority. “Fallon is under the protection of our people. She’s not going anywhere with you.”
“Dario is her alpha, period,” Wade repeated, adding a snarl. “He arranged a mating for her, and she is obligated to be Alpha Otto’s mate in trade for the alliance. Turn her over, immediately.”
Sunny tensed behind Seneca, but she stayed quiet.
“Fallon is not leaving, but you are,” Jupiter said. “When someone is given sanctuary, no alpha or their enforcers can undo it. Leave now, or we’ll make you leave.”
Wade turned his glare from the alphas and security team to Seneca and Sunny.
“How about we just take the half-beast with us instead? Fallon will surely come along if she’s in danger.”
Seneca took a menacing step forward. “Touch her and die.” He let out his bear enough that his eyes changed, his vision sharpening, his fangs and claws elongating. He let out a deep growl. “Try me.”
The males paled as they realized that he was bigger than them, not only as a human but as a shifter.
“This isn’t over,” Jesse said.
“The hell it’s not,” Seneca said.
“If you come back,” Joss said, his eyes flashing to the amber of his wolf, “we’ll consider it an act of war. Let your alpha know that Fallon and Solstice are under the protection of every shifter here, and he would do well to forget about them.”
The males looked like they would argue, but they were simply outnumbered by the alphas, not to mention the security team and Seneca, who would gut them in a heartbeat if they made a move toward his mate.
Seneca backed away from them, moving Sunny away with him to give them room to leave, sending a silent warning for them to think twice before coming back into the park.
The males stalked by, glaring at Sunny. Wade said, “Sanctuary won’t protect Fallon forever. Or you, half-beast.”
Seneca growled angrily. Alistair shoved Wade forward and the two were escorted by the security team and several alphas from the cafeteria.
“They’ll follow them out of the park and make sure they get on the parkway,” Caesar said. He let out a growling sigh.
“Fallon said she turned off her phone when she left because she was worried about being tracked. Do you think they tracked me originally and when she fled, they figured she’d come here first?” Sunny asked, wringing her hands.
“That makes sense,” Caesar said. “To be safe, let’s get Fallon’s phone and check that they’re not actively tracking her.”
Seneca hugged Sunny. “We’ll bring her phone to you.”
“Can you have security keep an extra eye on the apartment?” Sunny asked.
“Of course,” Caesar said.
They hustled across the park, scanning as they moved. Seneca’s bear chaffed at not getting to beat those males within an inch of their lives.
When they reached the apartment, Sunny walked in and said, “Where’s your phone? Did you turn it on since you left the prowl?”
“What? No, of course not. I didn’t know if they could track me or not, so I just left it off.”
“Well, grab it anyway, and your bag too. We need to look for tracking stuff.”
She explained what happened and Fallon frowned.
“They came here looking for me?”
“Yes,” Sunny said.
“Well, I hardly brought anything.” She got up and went into the bedroom and came back out with her phone and bag. “And I only had time to grab a few things: some clothes, a hairbrush, and my old tablet.”
“Your what?” Sunny asked.
“My tablet. That I read eBooks on.”
“Did you turn it on?” Sunny asked.
Seneca noticed that Fallon looked a little guilty.
“Yeah. I wanted to see if my mom tried to reach out. She wouldn’t have texted me, but she might have emailed me. So last night I was bored and sad, and I hooked up to the park’s Wi-Fi and checked. She didn’t email me, so I sent one to her and then turned it off.”
She handed the tablet to him, and he powered it on and checked the settings.
“I just turned it on for a minute or two,” she said.
Sunny looked at him. “Could they track her with that?”
He hummed. “What’s this app? Safewatch?” he asked.
“Oh shit,” Fallon said. “It’s a tracking app my mom suggested I install because I kept losing it.”
“The prowl had Wi-Fi, and the enforcers and alpha could see everything,” Sunny said.
Seneca turned off the tracking app and deleted it, then turned off the location in the settings.
“Listen, Sunny didn’t turn off her phone until she got here.
So it’s possible that Dario or his people figured you might come here.
But I think it’s more likely they didn’t mind Sunny leaving and weren’t tracking her, so we could assume they were watching your mom’s online activity, then saw your location update when you logged into the device to email her. ”
“Oh gosh, I’m so stupid.” Her eyes welled with tears.
“You’re not,” he said. “You didn’t know that turning on your tablet would let Dario know where you were. He’s the one to blame, not you or your mom.”
“What if I put everyone in danger?”
“We’ll handle it, don’t worry,” he said.
He gave Sunny a quick kiss and said, “I’m going to run the phone and tablet to Caesar so he can check them out. I’ll be back, stay inside.”
Sunny walked him to the door. “Be safe.”
“I will, sweetheart. I’ll be right back.”
He walked away, stopping to tell Javan, who was on patrol, that he’d be right back. He was angry at himself for not asking if Fallon had any electronic devices with her, but mostly he was scared.
Scared that Sunny had been in danger because of the tablet and Dario tracking Fallon, and he hadn’t even realized it.
He didn’t want to be in that position again.
She was the most important person in the world to him.
He wasn’t about to let her be harmed because some asshole jaguar thought her friend was a pawn to be traded for an alliance. Dario could fuck all the way off.
He caught up to his dad in the cafeteria as he was walking toward the stairs to go down to the private living area. “Can we move Fallon down into our living area?”
“You’re worried?”
“Well, hell yes. But also, Sunny is rightly worried too. That’s her adopted sister and best friend.”
“We don’t have a spare home for her.”
“She can have the other bedroom in our house.”
Marcus nodded. “Go ahead and move her. But she doesn’t get any codes and can’t go anywhere in the park without an escort, period.”
“Absolutely.”
After dropping off the devices to Caesar, he hurried back to the apartment and waited while Fallon packed her few things, and then they were back in the cafeteria and heading down to the sleuth’s private living area.
He watched Fallon walk into his and Sunny’s spare bedroom, then turned to his mate. She jumped into his arms. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Caring about my friend. I appreciate it so much.”
“I’d do anything for you, sweetheart,” he said, holding her close. “You and your family.”