26. Pix
Pix
The hotel staff couldn’t tell me where they all disappeared to, just that one night, everyone checked out together and was gone. I look out the window and try to calm the panic. It’s daylight; we’ve been driving all night, checking different places. We’re on our way back to the Sanderson home.
It’s the only place I can think of them going.
I instruct King where to park and get out of the car, rushing up the steps to the front door. I open it with my keys and a readiness to kill anything that might be causing them harm.
“MARK!”
There’s nothing, nothing, nothing, and then Mark appears silently from his bedroom. His deadly expression disappears before anyone else but me sees him.
“Pix? What’s wrong?” He yawns and scratches his bare chest, his eyes assessing everyone in his house.
I rush to him and pull him into a tight hug. “Where were you? Why weren’t you answering your phones?”
He frowns. “You weren’t answering our phone calls. We came home because we got a text saying it was all sorted. You used the codeword.”
I pull back, staring at him. “No, no, I didn’t.” I whirl, looking at Blaze, trying to convey my panic.
“I’ll check,” he says. “Easy, Daega, we’ve got this.”
“GET UP!” I shout.
Five dogs appear from Mark’s bedroom, standing, growling on the threshold but not crossing over.
Mitchel and Yvonne come out quickly, obeying my panicked demands.
“Pix, darling.”
“Why would you come back? Where’s Bonnie? Sariah?” I shout.
Vicious snarls and snaps at the air, the thick black fur bristling. The sheer size of the Rottweiler has Rolly hesitating.
“If she bites me, I’ll kill her,” he says coldly.
“She won’t, but if she tries, you’ll be dead before you can stop her,” I say absently, it’s the truth. The dogs are trained to kill.
“Don’t test that theory,” Rolly says cheerfully.
“Friends!” Mark says with a long, hard look at my alpha.
All five dogs instantly break off and stop growling.
“Release.”
They pad out of the room, walking easily through my mates, getting their scents.
“So, want to explain?” Mark growls, deliberately ignoring the death threats.
“Bonnie is fine,” Mitchel says. “They’ll be over in two shakes.”
I can’t breathe properly. How did this even happen? How did he get the code? Is someone compromised?
I scrape my fingers through my hair and start pacing, ignoring Tramp, the black staffy, as he follows me around trying to get me to sit and pat him.
“Pix, if you continue to ignore him, he will get the others, and then you will end up at the bottom of the puppy pile again, and I won’t save you,” Mark says in a tight voice.
I blink out of my distraction, having awful flashbacks to the five large-breed dogs that had me pinned on the ground for half an hour while Mark tried to frantically calm them down.
They might be well trained, but when it comes to the emotional health of their people, they are basket cases and suck all the feelings up into themselves, becoming almost hysterical.
I ignore the very interested stares of my alphas and kneel in front of the black, whining ball of hysteria.
“I’m fine. I’m fine.”
He slobbers all over my face. I freaking hate it.
Mark is happy to let them slobber all over him, but I have always detested it.
What the hell is fun about having saliva from something furry and feral on your face.
Especially as these dogs lick each other’s butts.
I endure the frantic molestation of my cheeks and pat the dog a few times.
“You are gross. And I am fine. Tell the others-”
I’m slammed into the carpet. Dogs collapse on me, whining and licking.
“Interesting.”
“Shut your damn face, Rolly!” I snarl.
“I am just impressed. I mean, we have the manpower, I think if we all knew how easy it was to subdue you, we could have saved a lot of hours in courting.”
“Rolly!” I growl.
“Just imagine it. Five alphas flattening you to the ground…ooh, you like it.”
“I do not!” I shout.
“You absolutely do! Little liar.”
I open my mouth to protest but have to shut it quickly as a dog's tongue flies too close to the sun. Holy hell, I do not want to be tongue-kissed by the canine. I yelp when a massive paw steps on my inner thigh, far too close to my balls.
“Mark, get your bloody dogs off me, or I’m going to have five fur coats.”
“Don’t be mean to my babies!” Mark coos and slides up onto the kitchen bench, crossing his feet at the ankles.
“Off of my bench!” Yvonne snaps. “So unhygienic.”
Mark doesn’t move, he just leans against the wall, his arms crossed, watching us.
“Where is Sariah?” Mark asks with that casualness he always uses when he speaks about her.
“Location unknown. Still,” Mitchel says.
Mark looks down at his hands, spits out a few vicious words and growls. “I’ll be back in four days.”
Mitchel looks up. “Mark.”
“Not asking permission.” Mark looks at the dogs and cocks his head to the side. “Hmm. Let’s go hunting.”
All five dogs get off me and line up.
“You can’t take them all!” Mitchel growls.
“How can I choose? They are all so pretty. Aren’t you, my darlings? Who wants to go hunt the naughty Sari with me? Do you want to give her kisses? Yes? Aww, of course, you do,” he says in a baby voice to them.
They stare at him in rapture, frantically wagging tails of joy.
Mitchel growls, but it’s foiled by the amused smile. “How can anyone take you seriously when you baby those damn dogs like that?”
Mark blows his parents a kiss.
“Come on, babies, let’s go hunt down that naughty kitty cat.”
I’m scrambling to my feet among the chorus of happy howls.
“Mark!” I protest. “You be careful. You don’t know what he’s like-”
“I can handle myself, thank you very much. Plus, my pack won’t let anything happen.” He indicates the dogs, and to be fair, they are a hell of a lot more impressive than my alphas, NOT that I would ever tell them that.
He walks out the door, all five dogs at his heels.
“Interesting,” Blaze says thoughtfully.
I wipe the drool from my face. Mitchel throws me the sanitizing wipes, and I clean my face, neck, and hands thoroughly.
“Daega?”
I turn to glare at Blaze.
“Are you a cat person?” he asks softly.
“I’m not a dog person or a cat person,” I snap.
Yvonne smiles softly. A look I’ve come to understand means maternal caring. “No, Pix is our strange little oddball. He’s a bird person.”
They all turn to look at me in shocked pleasure.
“Birds?” King asks with a smile. “That is just so perfect. Because, you know, we kind of already have a couple.”
I roll my eyes. “You are all so funny.”
“He’s a bird person,” Rolly says in delight. “Well, now, it all makes sense.”
King glances around. “I want to head back soon.”
Her image fills my mind, blooming into it, bringing a wave of anxiety with it. There’s this heaviness on my chest and a voice in my head whispering to get back, get back right now.
The front door opens, and Bonnie rushes in, scanning my alphas until she spots me. She rushes over and pulls me into a hug.
“You dumb shit. I was worried.”
“You’re the ones who disappeared.”
Except, they didn’t. Or we didn’t. What does all this mean? How did it all happen? I don’t know how he managed to infiltrate our connections. It’s been cemented from years of familiarity. We know each other; how we talk in person, on the phone, in texts. We trust each other.
Maybe that’s the problem.
“We can’t trust anything right now,” I say quietly. I don’t really expect anyone to pay attention to me, but everyone does.
“We’re compromised,” Bonnie whispers in my ear. “Where is your omega, Pix? Is she safe?”
I shiver, the thought blooming in my mind, leaving a trail of terror in its wake.
I close my eyes. “What do we do?”
“Well, I’m sick of running,” Bonnie says and pulls back. I see the lineup of the Prince Pack; the similarities between their relatives in my pack aren’t easy to notice unless you actually know to look for them.
But all of them wear identical expressions of cold murder.
“We’re going to stay here and do what we do best: kill anything that comes at us. You go and take care of your end.”
I take her hand, squeezing it hard. “We’ll end him.”
“Of course, you will. You are Pix O’Connell. No one can stop you.”
I step back away from her, and it’s hard, so hard.
“Mark will find Sari and make sure she’s safe. The girls are safe. Everyone is prepared for this; we always have been. But you look good, Pix. You look healthy, happy. Something is changed. Being in a pack suits you,” Yvonne says softly.
I’m not sure why I needed to hear her approval, but hearing it allows something in my chest to loosen.
I take another step back. This is my family. I might be leaving them to die. She needs me.
“Be safe. Be smart. Be deadly.”
I turn on my heel and walk out of the house. We have a much bigger problem than we ever thought. I pull my phone out, twirling it between my thumb and index finger. I do that in the car for hours, and then I press the electric window button and hurl my phone into the random woods.
My alphas do the same.
When we get to a town we've never been to, we steal another car. In the middle of nowhere, King dumps the old car, lights it on fire, and gets into the stolen one with the rest of us.
Now, we’re ready to head back.
I’ve been waiting for the attack to come, but he’s already made his moves. I underestimated him, I got distracted.
“We need to make a stop!”
I get them to turn around and drive to the town Raven took me to. I find the cottage. It’s empty. There’s no one there. I knew there wouldn’t be.
The neighbour comes out and looks at me.
“Are you Leonie’s son?”
I nod, lying through my teeth.
“I’m sorry for your loss. It was a terrible, terrible crime, and the whole neighbourhood is shook.”
I stare at the woman; her grey curling hair, the weather-aged lines on her face, but more importantly, the shock and grief. The honesty.
Not running.
Dead.
I exhale and have to grab hold of the fence to hold myself up.
“And the child?”
“The police are looking for her, but there was so much blood. They don’t think she survived.”
I turn around and walk away, pretending I can’t hear anything. I yank open the car door and get into the passenger seat.
“Get us home, now.”
“Should we attempt to get back to somewhere more isolated?” King asks.
“We’ll see once we get home and know they are okay.”
It takes hours, and it’s getting dark when we finally pull up in the drive. I run up the paved pathway, making sure I don’t land in the gravel, and bang on the door. They don’t open it, so I fish in my pockets, pulling out the keys.
I open the door and jump to the side when I register the crossbow aimed at my face.
It takes Sage less time to realise it's me and drop the weapon so that the deadly point is aimed at the floor and not my heart.
“We called you!” he snarls. “You have been radio silent.”
“We’re compromised,” I say, scanning the dark. Where are Roseland and Merle?
There’s a whimper from deeper in the house, and then Roseland appears with a limp and sick omega in his arms.
“What’s wrong with her?” I ask as I hurry over.
“Bond sickness apparently or rather a psychological version of it. We thought bonds might stave it off, but she frets the minute anyone leaves now, and she’s been beside herself since the minute you all walked out the door. It’s been thirty-six hours!” Roseland shouts. “Where the fuck were you?”
I go to him and turn her face to me. She’s pale and moaning almost constantly. I kiss her, and she latches on with a strength that surprises me. Her fingernails bite into my skin, and she almost rolls out of Roseland’s arms to wrap herself around me.
I kiss her until I can barely recall my own name.
As soon as I break away for air, King is there, dragging her into his arms. I think, before all this, I might be offended to be forgotten so quickly, but seeing the way she forgets everything but our alphas makes me proud and satisfied on a deep, deep level.
“We all need to sit down and talk,” I say to Sage.
“Yes, we do. There's a lot going on.”
“What happened to you?” I ask, startled.
“Oh, we found a body.”
I stare at him, wanting to be surprised but being unable to find it in me. Of course, they did. Of fucking course.
The room spins, but I reach out, and Blaze is there, giving me his strength.
“One problem at a time. Get rid of the technology. We need to ditch everything,” he says. “Then we need to decide if we’re going to stay here or go.”
“We can’t leave while she’s in this state,” Roseland says softly. “But leaving is probably problem number two.”
“Tell me everything,” Sage says in a voice that brooks no argument.
I open my mouth and tell him everything we found.
Merle sits up, her whole demeanor changing. “I’m sorry, did you say the cottage I took you to is empty, the old lady murdered, and the kid presumed dead?”
I stare at Raven.
“Yes.”
She exhales roughly.
“Looks like you’re going to get your wish, after all, Kestrel.”