CHAPTER 4 JARED #3
"Renato had one more brother, the youngest, Aldo, the most beautiful one of all of them, but he left years ago and never came back. He married into the Mafia, and things ended badly for him, as they usually do in such cases."
I don't comment. I could tell him quite a bit about that myself.
"I heard a rumor that he had four sons, but they don’t come to Rainbow Springs."
Obviously, the more Davos talks, the less useful the information becomes. But he finally seems to notice my attention drifting, as I start looking around the small square, wondering what to do next.
"Go on, have a piece of candy, child." He holds the bag out toward me, but I decline, still standing there awkwardly.
Davos seems determined to be helpful. I can see him searching his memory, making a genuine effort to recall something.
"Other than them, Renato may have a few servants around the estate. And of course there are employees. He runs a large company, after all. But they don't live there; they just come by whenever there's work to be done."
It doesn't sound encouraging. An older beta and a few middle-aged omegas living together… that hardly sounds like a promising lead.
Oh, well.
I don't think I should give up, though. I should still head into that sea of green, right to the center of the spot Storm pointed out. If there's nothing there, I'll simply turn around. I can figure this out in a single day.
"Thank you. You've really helped clear things up for me."
I say it just to brighten his mood, but the truth is quite the opposite. Too much useless information is swirling around in my head. The Italian names are starting to blur together, and I'm overwhelmed by all the possibilities.
Should I visit the Santoro estate first? Or just rush into the wilderness? Try something else entirely? Every option seems to pull me in a different direction, leaving me more confused than ever.
"Oh, I’m glad I could help, sweetheart! But please, take a piece of candy." He nudges the bag toward me more insistently.
Eventually, I give in. I never eat sweets because I like to stay in shape, but he's really persistent.
"I just hope you're not getting yourself into trouble, child. People play all kinds of foolish jokes these days, you know. Those internet challenges… telling someone to go somewhere and do something. Don't let yourself get dragged into that."
I suppress a smile.
"No, nothing like that. It's not a game. I simply received some information and wanted to verify it. Now I know everything I needed to know. Thank you very much."
I give him a polite nod and start to leave, but he extends a hand holding a small calling card.
"If you ever need more information, I live nearby on Raspberry Hill. I'm just an ordinary nobody," he winks, "but I've crossed paths with a few of them, you know."
No, I don't know who ‘they’ are, but I keep smiling.
"Thanks," I repeat, slipping the candy into my mouth and the card into my pocket.
The candy tastes sour and herbal, intensely so. Davos is already lifting the bag to offer me another one, so I quickly back away, afraid he'll keep insisting, or maybe even try to discourage me from this trip, and I'm already only a step away from talking myself out of it.
I clench my teeth and get back into the car.
Damn.
My pants are soaked again. I have to stay away from alphas or this is all going to head in the wrong direction. My passage keeps clenching, almost rhythmically. The whole conversation with Davos didn’t make my preheat stop, even if it did distract me for a little while. Not good.
As I walk toward my car, an alpha and omega pair pass by. I notice the alpha wrinkle his nose slightly. He definitely caught my scent.
I climb into the car and glance uneasily at the glove compartment. My gun is inside, though that's obviously my last resort.
Okay, all right. I need to focus.
I tighten my fingers around the map. I study it for a moment before realizing that one of the roads, a very thin line on the map, will take me fairly close to the spot, about half a mile away. I should be able to cover the rest of the distance on foot through the forest.
Unfortunately, it's December. I came from Florida, and the climate here is entirely different.
There's no snow, yet by my standards it's chilly.
It's a beautiful, unusually sunny day, and the temperature can't be much above sixty degrees.
It's around two in the afternoon now, though I know it can drop to around the mid-thirties by evening.
I hope I can make the trip there and back in about two hours. According to the map, it's only half a mile from where I'll leave the car.
So I drive out of town and head down that road.
Within just a few minutes, I find myself on a narrow, cracked strip of old asphalt that quickly gives way to gravel, then to a slightly muddy, grassy track.
I keep driving, glancing at the map over and over. I know I need to stop as close to the marked area as possible.
I find a reasonably decent spot where the road widens enough to pull over and park.
Luckily, I'd had enough common sense to pack warm hiking boots, a jacket, a beanie, and warm pants.
I grab my backpack too. After a brief hesitation, I toss my dildo inside.
Hey, you never know what kind of situation you might run into.
Maybe there really is some ranger's cabin out there, and a heat wave will hit me.
To be honest, it kind of feels like that's where this is headed, because my body is acting weirder and weirder. My abdominal muscles keep tightening almost painfully every now and then, and my slick just won't stop producing.
I can't exactly call myself a heat veteran.
I've only been through two, and only one of them was fertile, so I still don't know all the ways my own body reacts or how this might unfold.
Besides, every heat can be a little different, although this one is starting off unusually rough.
Technically, I'm still only in preheat, yet it's already hitting me pretty damn hard.
Before I close the trunk, I also pack a bottle of water, a sandwich, and a few granola bars.
My pale golden hair reaches all the way to my hips, and I hate showing it because it draws attention. So now I pull my beanie lower over my eyes and tuck my thick braid tightly underneath it.
Once I'm ready, I head into the forest, which actually looks pretty welcoming.
Sunlight pours through the trees, and there are so many evergreens that the whole place stays lush and green.
In some areas there are more deciduous trees, where naked branches and piles of fallen leaves greet me, but for the most part the route takes me through beautiful, scenic stretches.
There isn't any real trail, though, so I try to stick to the more open areas.
I guess it's just instinct. I've got a gun in my pocket in case I run into a bear or a hostile alpha.
I could always fire a warning shot into the air or something.
If I'm being honest, I still don't really know what I'm expecting here.
The forest smells incredible. I take a deep breath, savoring its rich, earthy scent, which stirs a strange longing in me.
I've spent my whole life in the heart of the concrete jungle, even though I'd always dreamed of living somewhere far away from the crowd.
But with a modeling career, that just wasn't possible.
Now I let myself enjoy nature without guilt. Occasionally I glance at the map and realize I'm slowly closing in on the central point Storm marked. I'm about a hundred yards away.
A strange excitement starts creeping over me, a tingling sensation spreading up my spine.
At first I'm convinced it's just the preheat.
Then I think maybe I've simply worked myself up over finally reaching the place I'd come all this way to find.
But after a while, it hits me that something else is probably behind it.
The forest feels different, denser, older. I don't even know how to describe it… more primal, maybe? Moss carpets the ground, and ferns spread in every direction. It's breathtakingly beautiful, but also absolutely wild.
My heart starts pounding, and I have no idea why. Unfortunately, there's another problem. As an omega, my hearing is far sharper than a beta's, close to what I'd compare to a hunting dog's.
And I'm pretty sure I'm starting to hear something, like…
soft rustling. At first it sounds like nothing more than the wind moving through distant bushes, but then it develops a pattern.
It shifts, circling around me. It's incredibly hard to pinpoint, faint enough that I could almost dismiss it, yet there's something…
deliberate about it. Whatever's making those sounds doesn't seem interested in hiding.
It just keeps circling closer and closer.
At first I make a real effort to push it out of my mind, coming up with every possible explanation, but eventually I realize I'm only lying to myself. I draw my gun, flip off the safety, and grip it tightly.
If it wants to come after me, it'll have to deal with a steel bullet. I’d hate to use it, but after spending so many years living under constant threat, I finally gave in. I'd been strongly against carrying a gun before, but life turned out to be far less peaceful than the ideals I'd believed in.
The farther I push through the forest and the closer I get to the marked point, the more impenetrable everything seems to become.
Sometimes I have to force my way through walls of tangled undergrowth, desperately searching for any opening that might pass for a decent path.
My heart pounds faster and faster. I start seriously wondering if I should turn back and try again another day, especially since it's already past 2:30 in the afternoon, and I really don't want to get caught out here after dark.