Chapter Fourteen
Tyrone
I lay outside her bedroom window in bear form until her breaths slowed and her tears stopped.
I could pretend all of her tears were from relief and feeling safe with us, but I knew better. She was in pain. We’d offered her some pain meds, but she refused, claiming the marks and bruises didn’t hurt so bad anymore.
And the pain in her body was only a small part of her anguish.
We hadn’t asked her about the abuse she endured under her father, or parents. Millie would tell us in time.
My bear walked away from her bedroom after she fell asleep. I had to do perimeter runs, which I enjoyed, but being away from her was hard.
The animal inside me wanted to snuggle up next to her. Dry her tears with his fur. Keep her warm. Serve as a shield from the world and anything else that threatened to harm her.
All good things but too soon.
Our routine was that the designated person ran three rounds of perimeter checks.
My bear wasn’t ready to stop. I must’ve made the round at least a dozen times when I stopped in my tracks realizing that the sky had evolved from a navy starry night to violets, peaches, and rose hues.
I’d run all night, not getting a wink of sleep.
My bear was calmer before we got Millie. Now that she was here, right here in our den, he’d gone nuts.
I wanted to get some sleep, but my bear wouldn’t allow the shift. Exhaustion set in. I made my way back to her bedroom window and curled up under it again, letting the soft rhythm of her breaths lull me to sleep.
It was the first time in a very long time that my sleep had been dreamless.
It was bliss until Cannon’s alpha voice forced me out of the best sleep of my life.
“What?” I asked, shifting back and throwing on some pants I’d stashed by the house.
“What are you doing here? Sleeping under her window?”
“So?” I gruffed back. This alpha clearly hadn’t had his coffee.
“Why?” His hands were on his hips, and his ears were red.
“My bear wanted to?” I threw my hands in the air and let them fall to my hips. If he kept on yelling, he would wake up Millie and then he wouldn’t be the only one pissed.
“Why?”
His questions were starting to grate on my nerves. “Can we get to the point, Cannon?”
“You were sleeping here, under her window. Before that, you were running the perimeter. Safety checks. Did you scent something off? Is that your reason for sleeping here?”
Oh.
Oh…
He continued, “You have to tell us when something is going on. If there’s a threat to our land or our omega or us, you have to tell us, not just set up camp under her window.
What if they had attacked and you were alone out here?
They attack you, kill you, and then what?
Climb right through her window and kidnap her? Worse?”
Cannon was jumping to all kinds of conclusions, and none of them were correct. He was so upset that by the end of his tirade, I thought there was a deeper issue than just this moment. Something to do with his past, maybe?
“Cannon, alpha, I slept here because my bear was restless. I ran all night because of said irritation. He wouldn’t let me shift back and decided to sleep here, near her. That’s all. I didn’t scent or detect anything amiss.”
“You would tell us if you did.”
I scoffed. That didn’t help things. “I would. Absolutely. Immediately.”
Felix came around the corner of the house, also yelling. “What in the hell is going on? I can hear you two all the way in the kitchen.”
“We had a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding?” Cannon fumed. “I think it’s you trying to get close to the omega first. As though you didn’t already have a connection to her through the dreams.”
“What?” I yelled. Yeah, now, I was yelling too. Millie was probably wide awake by now. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“You and our omega sharing dreams. You’ve already got this bond with her that neither of us do.” Cannon crossed his arms over his chest. Oh boy. The alpha’s insecurity was on full display.
Felix put his hands up, stepping between us. “That’s not his fault, Cannon. He has a gift. He’s the reason we have a sleuth now and found our omega. Let’s not keep score. If we start that shit, this is never going to work.”
Cannon stopped and backed up a few steps. “But he didn’t tell us.”
“I didn’t know!” Okay, that came out a bit louder than I’d intended.
“Can you guys, please stop?” Her voice, so tiny and sweet, tore through the tension. We all whirled to see her standing in her pajamas, looking utterly defeated. Disappointed. Tired. All of the above.
Cannon was the most affected by it. His posture relaxed, and so did his breathing. “I’m sorry, Millie. We didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I don’t care about you waking me up. I care about this sleuth fighting. Especially over me.”
“I’m sorry I assumed you didn’t tell us there was something wrong. I saw you under her window and thought there was danger.”
The alpha could apologize. That was rare.
“I’m sorry for yelling,” I responded. “And for waking you up.”
“Everyone okay now?” Felix asked.
We both nodded.
“Good. Let’s restart this damned morning.”