Chapter 31
Chapter thirty-one
Evan
Evan was going slightly insane waiting for Camelia to come to her senses, and he was a big enough man to admit it. At least to himself.
Immediately after she had walked out of their house after her heat, the urge to go fetch her and make her stay was strong.
He had eaten breakfast and watched James internally war with himself, they’d had a deep and mildly uncomfortable conversation, and he steadfastly hadn’t left the house to track down their Omega and drag her back exactly where she belonged.
Then they had heard the news that all three of them had been...ah, too busy to pay attention to, and Evan's first urge had been to go find Camelia. She had to know. She couldn't find out accidentally, she needed to learn from them...
He grimaced. Of course she'd known already.
She had been a fucking sight, her dark eyes blazing with anger and betrayal as she had barked at both him and James in turn.
If he hadn't been so offended by the insinuation that they had lied to her, he would have been mildly impressed that she had the balls to speak to them the way that she did.
Nobody spoke to either of them that way.
And the fact that the dark hickeys that he and James had sucked into her neck were fully on display the entire time they talked...
Fuck, it had been distracting.
Ultimately, he couldn't decide if it was worse that she had learned about the new law from someone other than them, or that she had thought that he and James had been keeping the information from her. But she had given in so easily once she learned the truth...
Christ, it had been hard for Evan to turn and walk away, no matter how much he could tell that she needed the space.
He had been shamelessly stalking her social media in the days since, which was an exercise in frustration in itself.
She didn't use Facebook, beyond a post once or twice a year on hers or her father's birthdays, and her Instagram was sparsely populated with pictures of her and friends from her old university.
She hadn't posted anything from the current year, so Evan had found himself stuck looking at pictures that were months and sometimes years old, just for a glimpse of her face while he waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
God, he was going crazy.
James was no better, though Evan hadn't caught him stalking her socials. Yet, anyway.
No, instead, James sat around the house with his headphones in and muttered to himself every few minutes, short sentences that were ostensibly nonsensical. Evan had seen him do this before when he was particularly stressed, but this was a whole different situation.
It got worse when her smell started to fade from the house. Then they started to really get antsy.
She finally, finally texted after a particularly snippy conversation between Evan and James – if he'd been asked, Evan wouldn't have been able to tell a bystander what the two of them had even been talking about, let alone why it was so irritating – and his heart thudded a little faster when he saw her name pop up on the notification.
Are you home?
Evan swallowed, and his thumbs were flying across the screen before his mind even caught up to what she was asking. Yes. What do you need? Are you safe?
If she had asked him to, he would have gone to rescue her from anywhere and any situation, with James close on his heels.
It was an almost...frightening level of devotion for a girl who they barely knew anything about. Still, Evan couldn't lie to himself about it.
Her response came a moment later. I'm coming over. Need to talk to you and James.
"James!" Evan called, his heart leaping into his throat. He sat up, shoving his blanket covers out of the way and standing, already halfway out of his room.
"What?" James' voice was clipped and annoyed, and Evan rolled his eyes a little, the irritation that he had been feeling towards his friend already fading.
"Camelia is coming over."