4. Chapter 4 #2
It shouldn’t have hurt. He’d demanded exactly this three seconds ago.
But hearing Roman actually agree to let him go landed harder than the hands had, harder than the growl, and knocked the air clean out of him.
He’d asked, and for once he’d gotten exactly what he asked for.
He made himself nod. Made himself turn to go back in for his things. He was already grieving it.
“But not alone.” Roman was moving before Lance finished turning. “Get your stuff. We leave in ten.”
Lance stood in the wet grass a moment and breathed and didn’t follow, not yet, because he needed a second before Roman turned around and saw what three words had done to him.
***
The late-morning sun hit Roman hard as he stepped outside, and he squinted against it. He heaved a bulging duffel at Lance, who fumbled to catch it. Lance didn’t say a word, but the furrowed brow and the downturned mouth said plenty.
“Don’t give me that look,” Roman said, all prince to subject. “I’m not letting you walk into hell with nothing but the shirt on your back. There are daggers tucked in the clothes. Mind the sheathed one. It’s silver.”
“There’s more than clothes and daggers in here,” Lance said. “I don’t want char—” The dark look Roman shot him killed the rest of it. He huffed a laugh. “Still looking out for me.”
“Some things don’t change,” Roman said gruffly.
“Yeah. Supposedly there’s a gatekeeper at the portal who hands out supplies.”
“Silver blades, holy water, healing tonics? I don’t think so.”
Lance put a hand on his arm. “It’s going to be fine.
You’re a lifesaver. You are. No more hitchhiking, no more running myself into the ground on an empty stomach trying to dodge wolves and Venators.
” He made a face. “Do you need to tell anyone you’ll be gone a while?
I can hide, or meet you off the estate if you have to stop at the mansion. ”
“I don’t answer to anyone.” Roman pulled the cottage door shut behind him.
As if to prove the point, Evan came up the driveway. “Fuck me.” Roman thumbed the remote to open the garage.
“Roman?”
“Evan.” He stepped in front of Lance and locked eyes with the other alpha.
“I didn’t know you had company.” Evan sniffed the air. “Wrong kind of company.”
“You’re right. I didn’t invite you. Get off my property.”
“Your prop—”
“You heard me.”
“Is that the stable rat?” Evan’s eyes went comically wide.
“I told you to beat it.”
“Your brother, the pack—”
Roman’s nostrils flared, his eyes narrowing. He could practically taste the betrayal. “I know what you did. What all of you did,” he growled, low and dangerous.
“You’re not thinking. This, it,” Evan motioned at Lance, “always clouded your judgment. You—”
Roman’s hands fisted at his sides, his arms tight as he took a step in. “I’m one breath from going wolf-rage on you,” he warned. “Don’t push me.”
“Roman, think before you act,” Evan started.
“Three, two...” Roman watched until Evan was gone from view, his whole body shaking with the effort of holding the wolf down.
Lance set a calming hand on his shoulder. “You should’ve told them you’re just driving me up the road and dropping me off. Save yourself the questions when you get back. What they did to me was a long time ago. Not worth more blood.”
Roman put his hand over Lance’s and breathed his scent in. “Right now it feels like yesterday. Let’s get out of here.”
His red sports car would draw eyes, so they took the jeep and drove for a while in silence on the back roads.
A good distance from the estate, Roman caught Lance checking the rearview mirror, the way he’d been doing for miles. “Relax,” he said, then laughed. “I know, we’re like effing Romeo and Juliet here, but we’re clear.”
“That’s it. No more Romy. You’re Romeo for the next three days.”
“Oh God, what have I done.” He groaned. “I’ve missed you, Rat. Didn’t even know how much.”
***
The jeep’s tires hummed against the asphalt, the only sound in the easy silence between them.
Roman drove with one hand draped over the wheel, eyes on the road as the mile markers ticked by and the scenery blurred into greens and browns.
He wanted to ask, one more time, whether Lance was sure about Bedlam.
For all the talk of half-bloods coming back once they passed twenty-five and the madness was no longer a risk, he’d never heard of many who did, and the ones who managed it were alphas. Not omegas.
He glanced over. Lance had reclined the seat, eyes closed, face gone soft, his chest rising and falling slow, like there was nothing hard waiting up the road.
There’d been plenty hard behind him, too, Roman thought.
Just because he hadn’t known about it didn’t mean Lance’s life had been anything but a fight.
That one glance pulled the dream back up. God, the hottest one he’d had in years. If Lance hadn’t been his guest, if he weren’t half-blood, if he weren’t leaving, maybe he’d have...
His phone buzzed across the dash and cut the thought off. Roman’s jaw tightened as he caught the screen. Merritt. He hit speaker. “Roman Leitner.”
“Where are you?” Merritt’s voice came through infused with the authority that always set Roman’s teeth on edge.
“Out.”
“Your absence is noted. It’s causing ripples.”
“Since when am I confined to the estate?”
“It’s the circumstances you left under, and you know it. You cannot be with a half-blood, Roman. If he goes mad—”
“He? He who, Merritt?” The leash on his temper was down to threads.
“Lance.” Merritt’s voice stayed calm.
“Yeah. Lance. Your big damned lie. What else have all of you lied to me about?”
“Come home. Come back right now and we’ll talk. But you cannot be anywhere near Lan—”
Roman tapped the phone and cut him off. “Sonova,” he muttered, then caught Lance watching him. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
Lance sat up straighter. “You should go back,” he said quietly. “I can make the gate on my own. I don’t want you in trouble with the pack over me.”
Roman’s hands tightened on the wheel. “My only job is doing what’s right. I’m not breaking another promise to you.”