21. Aerin
21
AERIN
A fter Clary’s haunting words, and bursting into tears as I mourned my powers, getting out my frustration seemed to help me refocus.
Once I was all cried out, I realized what was truly matters.
Right now, what’s most important isn’t my malfunctioning powers. It’s that omegas are going missing. We need to figure out why and stop it.
“I’m okay now,” I tell Mack, wiping the rest of my tears away.
He doesn’t move from his position crouched in front of me.
I don’t know how long Bennett has been gone, but I wish I had stopped him from leading Clary out.
“Something is wrong with you. We have time to talk,” Mack says.
“I’m fine. I’ve stopped bleeding now. See?”
He glances at my nose but doesn’t move. “But you had a nosebleed. That’s a sign that something is wrong.”
“I was just trying too hard. That’s all. I’m fine now.”
“Aerin…”
I get to my feet. “I know most of the bigger packs in the country, but I don’t know all of them. My dad will have most of the Alpha’s numbers, so I think we should call and speak to them, find out if they know something.”
I step around him, but he grips my wrist and tugs me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me. “I know what you’re doing, and I know why you’re doing it. This is equally important, Aerin.”
I lean into his embrace for a little longer. “Finding missing omegas is more important than me having a tantrum about my powers.”
When I step back, he cradles the nape of my neck, holding me there. “We’ll talk about this later, okay? And it is no tantrum.”
“We’ll talk later,” I agree, but I hope we won’t. I gave myself a nosebleed trying to kick-start my powers into working, and all I have to show for it is a bloody washcloth. Whatever is wrong with me isn’t something I can fix on my own.
That doesn’t matter now. Our priorities have shifted in a massive way.
“Come on.” I lead the way into the kitchen and the dining table, which has become the hub of our most serious conversations lately. “Do you have a map and a notebook?”
“Sure.”
He helps me into the dining chair and as I call my dad, he briefly disappears, returning with a map and a notebook. The notebook is not the same one he was using before to list the requirements for the new home he’s planning for us and which he still hasn’t told me about.
“This had better be important,” Dad says the second the phone clicks.
“Omegas are being stolen from packs across the country. Is that important enough?”
“Moses, cancel my next meeting,” Dad calls out.
A door snicks closed as Mack opens the notebook and nudges it—and a pen—toward me.
“Which packs?” Dad asks.
I glance at Mack. “That’s the problem. We’re not sure. A shifter was just here…”
I give my dad a brief rundown of everything Clary said and watch as Mack sticks a pin in New Mexico and Virginia. We know these are places where people have attempted to grab omegas. Unsuccessfully in one case, and successfully in the other.
“And you let him go without more information?” Dad says mildly.
I hear the disapproval in his voice.
“Yes, I let the shifter who was watching my mate and then caused her to hurt herself go,” Mack responds, just as mildly.
Tension crackles between them, and I wait to see how this will play out.
My dad has never managed to intimidate Mack, and he has tried more than once. Dad knows that no amount of posturing will change that.
Mack’s priorities have always been to look after the pack and me.
“He was a source of information,” Dad eventually says.
“He was a threat to Aerin,” Mack responds calmly. “We need to know if any other packs have been affected. Ivy and my dad have stopped several attempts in Virginia. I assume nothing has happened in Minnesota.”
I bounce my gaze between Mack and the phone.
Mack is the most easygoing and calm shifter I’ve ever known. Yet, in a handful of words, he’s taken control of the conversation and directed my dad with ease.
My dad chuckles. “I don’t know why I keep underestimating you.”
I take Mack’s hand and squeeze. “Because you’re used to people shouting over you or being aggressive. Mack makes sense.”
“We’ve had no trouble here,” Dad says after a thoughtful pause. “I’d have Moses call some of the Alphas I know, but some will speak only to me, especially since this concerns such a sensitive subject.”
“What you mean is they will assume you might have something to do with their omega going missing and they will want to know—from you—that you had nothing to do with it?” I guess.
When Dad doesn’t respond, the answer must be yes.
“I’ll call you in thirty minutes, maybe an hour. Keep the phone close.” Dad hangs up, and Mack and I study each other.
“Why do I have a feeling that when he calls back we’re going to run out of pins to stick in that map?” I ask.
We eat as we wait, and Bennett soon returns from escorting Clary out of Winter Lake.
“He didn’t cause any trouble,” Bennett says, taking a seat at the table. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think he’s involved in this.”
“Me either,” I agree.
The phone vibrates, Mack answering it before I can.
Dad sighs. “I really wish you had kept that shifter around. He might have information others don’t.”
That doesn’t sound good. “What did you find out?”
“That an unknown pack is out there determined to make a name for themselves, and they intend to do it by taking omegas,” he says.
“But why?” I ask Dad.
“No one knows,” he responds. “Could be hostages. Could be some other reason.”
“How many packs?” Mack asks.
“Do you have a map and a notebook?” Dad asks.
“Yes.” I’m ready with a pen.
“Moses, go. Maybe we’ll spot a pattern in the packs who have been targeted,” my dad says.
And we do. Almost all the packs in the Midwest have been hit. Not all had their omegas taken, but most did. While Dad hasn’t been able to speak to all the Alphas from the region, the ones he spoke to confirmed they had.
Unknown shifters, aggressive, unfamiliar and clearly trained, hit them, and their omega was gone almost before they knew she was missing.
“So, who is doing it?” I ask.
“That, Aerin, is the big question,” my dad says. “If we know who, maybe we’ll also learn why.”
It’s the middle of a bright, sunny day.
I grin as I follow the sounds of high-pitched screams and outraged yells outside.
I jog down a wide back porch and to the garden where a blonde-haired girl with pigtails is determinedly holding a ball behind her back as a boy tries desperately to grab it.
As soon as they see me, they start trying to out yell each other.
“Mommy!”
“Mom!”
I crouch in front of the little girl, sweeping the hair back from her face. “Sweetheart, what have I told you about sharing with your little brother?” I kiss the top of her hair, inhaling her soft fragrance.
She sticks her bottom lip out. “But I don’t want to share.”
“Didn’t he share his last sweet with you, even though it’s his favorite?” I gently remind her, “
She releases a heavy sigh with a puff of air that blows up her bangs. “Fine.”
They run off, playing.
They are either the best of friends or enemies. Often within five minutes, but I wouldn’t give up this life for anything.
I watch them, smiling, as familiar arms wind around me, settling on my rounded belly.
I lean back as I inhale Mack’s warm cedar scent. “Are you sure you still want a football team? We have two and there are some days I swear my ears are bleeding with all this yelling.”
Mack presses a kiss on my throat. “Did you say something, love? My ears are ringing.”
I spin around and throw my arms around him, meeting his laughing eyes. “I love you, Mack.”
“I love you, too.”
His lips are touching mine when my world explodes.
Someone is shaking me, and the bedside lamp is blinding me.
“Mack?” I rub my bleary eyes as I focus on his frowning face.
“I have to go out,” he says.
“What’s wrong?”
He gets up from the side of the bed, walking over to the closet. “Bennett called. There’s been trouble at the hotel.”
I’m still more asleep than awake, so it’s hard to focus on Mack as he pulls a shirt over his head. “What kind of trouble?”
“Sara called Bennett. She said she heard growling and what sounded like animals fighting in the backyard. Then something rammed the back door.”
I sit up. “Something did what?”
He stuffs his feet into boots and crosses over to me. “She’s not sure if it’s foxes or whatever, but after that shifter scratched the tree, a wolf I’m starting to think wasn’t Clary like I thought, Bennett asked her to call him if she heard anything again and he’d check it out.”
“So the wolf is back,” I whisper.
He kisses my forehead. “And maybe back with friends. We’re going to check it out. Tina and Warren are already on their way. So are Penny and Colton. Bennett is picking me up here since he’s dropping Helena off with you.”
I open my mouth, ready to complain.
He kisses me. “You’re staying here, where it’s safe. And in case this is some kind of trap, Helena, Adela, your grandparents, Zoe and Chris will be here with you. No one is staying alone tonight.”
“I bet Adela loved you for waking her up in the middle of the night,” I say to distract myself from the ominous feeling churning in my gut.
“She volunteered when I called her. I’m sure it’s nothing, but I want us to be prepared.”
The closed curtains mean I can’t tell what time it is, but I wince when I see how late it is on the alarm clock on my bedside table. 2 in the morning.
I try to convince myself that everything is okay, but the bad feeling in my gut is growing.
“Don’t worry Aerin. I’ll have Bennett, Colton, Warren, Penny, and Tina with me.” He flashes me a grin. “It’s probably overkill to face down a pair of brawling foxes, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.”
I don’t return his smile. “And if it isn’t a pair of brawling foxes?”
He draws me into a far too brief hug. “Then they’ll be plenty of us to handle whatever it is.”
I grip his arm when he moves to leave. “Why do you have to go?”
He smiles gently at me. “Because I’m Alpha, love.”
“Couldn’t you be the sort of Alpha who leads from behind?”
“Yes, I could, but I’m not. I know you’re worried, but I’ll be okay.”
There’s nothing to suggest I’m right to think this way, but I’m more than worried. I’m terrified he’s walking into a trap.
“But what if you’re not?” I glare at my bump. “And I can’t go with you because of Thumper.”
“Aerin?” He tilts my head up, so we’re eye-to-eye. “I need you and Thumper safe, warm, and happy. I’ll be okay.”
“You promise to let Bennett go in front of you?” I feel terrible for saying it. Helena wouldn’t appreciate hearing me say this, but I love Mack and I don’t want anything to happen to him.
The corners of his eyes crease when he smiles, and he kisses my forehead. “I think I might be the better fighter.”
Of course he is. He effortlessly beat my former mate in a challenge.
“I know that.”
I’m just so scared of losing him. Especially now.
“Aerin, everything will be okay.”
I can’t find it in me to release the grip I have on the front of his shirt. No part of me wants to let him go. “I have a bad feeling.”
“You’re sure it isn’t Thumper stepping on your bladder?” His eyes sparkle.
I don’t crack a smile at his terrible joke. Dread is eating me alive. If he leaves, something bad will happen. I don’t know how I can be so certain of it, but I just am.
“Go back to sleep and that dream,” he says.
“What dream?”
He gently lays me down and kisses me before pulling the covers over me. “The one where you were asking someone to share with their little brother.” He kisses me again. “And where you were telling me you love me.”
“It was a nice dream,” I concede. The best dream.
“When I come home, you can tell me about it.”
“Okay,” I admit. “I probably won’t sleep, but if I am, wake me up. I need to know you’re home safe, okay?”
“Okay.”
I watch him leave. Downstairs, I hear the rest of the pack who must have arrived while I was still asleep. They’re moving around in the kitchen and the den, talking quietly among themselves as if they don’t want to wake me.
I lie in the dark, knowing it’s going to be impossible to go back to sleep.
But that feeling Mack took my heart with him doesn’t go away. I can’t sleep when a piece of me feels like it's missing.
I get up and pull on a robe, determined to wait up with the others, and hoping the feeling of dread growing inside me is just Thumper, not a sign of something worse to come.