21. Madd
TWENTY-ONE
MADD
We'd been at the apartment for five days when my mate put on his jacket after breakfast as if he had somewhere to be.
Neither of us was working, and we had plenty of food. Besides, the objective was to stay out of sight unless it was imperative we leave the apartment.
“Where are you going?”
“Out.”
I tamped down my irritation. If I’d said that to Flint he would have growled or maybe clipped my ear. But I reasoned that Conrad was used to giving information with as few words as possible.
“Out where?” I asked through gritted teeth.
He paused at the door. “There's a payphone at a laundromat ten blocks from here. I arranged a check-in schedule before we left.”
“What? With whom?” I put down my coffee. And why wasn’t I aware of any of this?
“Flint.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, why would I lie about that?”
Okay, we were having communication problems and not for the first time.
“Every third day at eleven,” my mate continued. “These are incoming only. He phones and I answer.”
But we were on day five, which technically was the sixth day. “And you're telling me this now.”
He nodded. “The first one was on day three, and you were asleep.” He smiled as if he thought he’d done such a great job by taking control of the situation and not disturbing me.
I stared at him, and he furrowed his brow.
“You went out alone to a payphone without telling me.”
“I didn't want to wake you.”
I picked up the empty mug, needing something to do with my hands. “That's not the point.”
Conrad put both hands on his hips. “What is?”
I stood up because sitting down had me at a disadvantage, and my wolf warned me to control my temper. I paced the small room because my mate had walked out of a safe house alone in the middle of dragons hunting us and hadn't mentioned it.
I swiveled around and waggled my finger at him, even though I hated it when someone did that to me.
Taking a deep breath, I said, “The point is you made a security decision without me. You left the apartment without letting me know where you were going, and you've been operating a communication channel that I didn't know about.”
I was ticking items off on my fingers, and I could hear how much I sounded like Flint when one of his brothers did something foolish, but I didn't care.
“We're supposed to be doing this together.”
Conrad folded his arms. “It was more efficient to handle it myself.”
I hated that word efficient in this context. We were mates, and he sounded as though he was back in the dragon compound, talking to his father or twin.
“We're not running an operation, Conrad.” I counted to ten before I continued. “We're in a relationship.”
His lips parted and his shoulders slumped, and I guessed this was new to him. Sharing wasn’t something he did.
“I’m used to making decisions alone.” He fiddled with the ring on his right index finger.
“I know you are, but that’s a problem for us as a couple, and we need to overcome it.”
We stood on opposite sides of the kitchen, and the four feet between us was too wide. I needed him closer. My wolf was grumbling, and I suspected Conrad's dragon was yanking at him because his posture was wonky and he was leaning to one side.
“I should have told you.”
He did the thing I’d commented on before glancing down, but I was his mate, not his nanny, and I wasn’t going to be on his ass about that right now.
“Yeah.” I beckoned him closer because we needed to be skin to skin for the rest of this discussion. He fell into my arms and rested his head on my shoulder.
“I didn’t think. Sorry.”
“That's the issue. You didn't think about me when you made that decision. You considered the plan and you forgot that I was right here.”
He flinched, and I immediately wished I could take the last sentence back. Yes, it was true, but during his life, he’d heard criticism and taken it as confirmation of what he’d been told about himself. That the people around him would eventually find him lacking and he wasn’t enough.
"Hey. I'm not your father. I'm not going to punish you for making a mistake. We’re equals in this relationship, but you have to let me in, even when it’s boring stuff.”
Conrad trailed a finger over my lips. “It’s a deal.”
“I love you, and I’m not going to desert you. You’re stuck with me.”
He grinned. “Good to know because I adore you and can’t imagine my life without you.” He smirked. “Should I brief you on the payphone location?”
I whacked his shoulder.
“That was a joke.”
“Tell me what Flint said on day three.”
Conrad leaned against the counter. Debrief mode was something he understood.
“Evander has consolidated faster than I expected. Most of the flight fell in line within forty-eight hours. Vasik is his second-in-command, and that's a problem because Vasik is competent."
“More than you?”
“Awww, you think I’m competent.”
“Very funny, and you’d better watch it or I’ll give you another whack.”
He squeezed my butt.
“He's different. I planned and Vasik executed. Together we were effective. Without me, Evander will lean on Vasik, and Vasik will be thorough.”
I tapped my fingers on the counter. “Are you saying he’ll find us easily?”
“He’ll try.” Flint's people had been running interference leaving false trails and misleading intelligence. “That’s buying time, but it won't last forever.”
“What else?”
“Evander is focused on finding us because he's not strong enough to move against the pack yet. But once he has everyone’s loyalty, that changes. If he can't find us, he'll start applying pressure to our families to draw us out.”
“We're the prize.” I sat down and pictured us as pigs on a spit being roasted slowly until our skin crackled.
“Sorry, I should have phrased it better. Evander wants you and wants me gone. Everything else is secondary to that.”
I thought about Evander running a dragon organization and hunting us with the same efficiency he used on me.
“Do you think he'd hurt me?” I asked.
I could almost see Conrad choosing his words carefully. “The Evander who brought you food? No. The Evander who burned our father alive? I don’t know what he would do.”
One thing I did know was that I wanted to be with my mate when he checked in with Flint. “I’m coming with you.”
“It's ten blocks.”
“I have legs.”
He grinned. “And very fine legs they are.”
My mate didn’t have to do everything alone from now on. “We're calling Flint together and we're walking back side by side, and at no point are you going anywhere alone. That's how this mate thing works when we’re in a sticky situation.”
It was a clear morning as we walked to the laundromat. The place was empty when we arrived, and the payphone outside was ancient and bolted to the wall. I was amazed it still worked.
Conrad checked his watch at two minutes to eleven.
“He'll call on the hour.”
“You really do love a schedule.”
“They keep people alive.”
“Awww, that’s so romantic.”
My mate rolled his eyes at me.
The phone rang, and Conrad answered. When he and Flint were done, he handed the receiver to me.
I took the phone. “Alpha.”
He asked about my shoulder and told me the kids were going stir-crazy being cooped up inside.
“Uncle Arnie is worried about you and wishes he was there to cook.” We both laughed. “Madd, Conrad's check-in reports have been thorough. He's good at this.”
“I know.”
“Stay safe.”
"We'll try.”
I hung up. Conrad was standing three feet away with his hands in his jacket pockets.
“Flint was impressed with your reports.”
He nodded.
We walked back to the apartment hand in hand. My wolf checked out everyone on the street, and Conrad said his beast was scanning the sky.
Though our argument was over, we’d face more situations where we’d butt heads. It might take weeks and months of negotiating, and I was okay with that because the alternative was Conrad disappearing and me waking up in a cold bed.
Back at the apartment, Conrad made coffee. We’d both discovered that we were coffee fiends, and he brought me a cup without being asked.
“For the record, the reason I didn't wake you on day three wasn't just efficiency.”
“No?”
“You looked peaceful and that hadn’t happened since we met except, you know, after we had sex.”
I fluttered my eyelashes at him. “Maybe we can do that again?”
He screwed up his face. “Walk to the laundromat?”
“No, silly.” I tossed a cushion at his head.
“Ohhh, the other thing. Hmmm. I guess we could.” He took my hand.