Page 46

“I don’t know, Nolan’s really upset about something.” I reached out through the bond, and his anxiety hit me like a ton of bricks.

“Is it serious?” she asked.

The last thing I wanted to do was pour cold water on the heat we’d been generating, but this didn’t feel okay. Nolan was great in a crisis—it was one of the things that made him such a good mayor. So if he was this upset, it meant some bad shit was going down.

I looked around the room. Normally I’d ask Isaac to take over for me so I could leave, but…

Patricia was running the raffle now, happily chatting with one of our beta engineers.

I handed Julian my keys. “Get our stuff and pull up to the door. I’ll meet you out there in a couple of minutes.”

He nodded and grabbed Marlowe’s hand, dragging her back to the table as her eyes widened, worry furrowing her brow.

Fuck.

“Hey Trish!” I yelled, running up to her.

“Camden!” she exclaimed, her cheeks pink from drinking. Her ugly solstice sweater was adorned in flashing lights, and she opened her arms to give me a big hug. “I saw you with Marlowe, you two look so cute. I bet your fathers never would have imagined that their kids…”

“Trish,” I interrupted. “There’s nothing I like to hear about more than how perfect my omega and I are together, but there’s been an emergency and we need to leave. Can you make sure the rest of the night goes okay?”

Her smile faltered, and she looked at the other female nervously. “Is it vampyrs again?” she asked, swallowing nervously.

I shook my head. I wished Nolan had given us a few more details, because rushing into this blind was pissing me off. “I don’t think so, but I really need to go. I’m trusting you.”

She nodded hesitantly and I patted her on the shoulder. “Consider your solstice bonus doubled!”

I dashed out the front door right as Julian pulled up. The cold air, combined with Marlowe’s skimpy dress and the urgency of the situation, had her shivering, and I turned the heat up as high as it would go. I kept my mind from running through the worst possible scenarios by concentrating on Marlowe instead, pulling her into my side and wrapping my coat over her bare legs.

“Damn, every time I looked at your thighs tonight I imagined them wrapped around my face, and now I gotta cover them up,” I joked, trying to ease the tension.

Unfortunately, my lame attempts at humor couldn’t combat the dread that fell over us as we noticed the unusually high amount of police cars parked outside City Hall. Right by the front were five large, black-tinted town cars, and my anxiety skyrocketed. What the hell was going on?

Elias was pacing by the entrance, and rushed over as soon as we pulled up. “It’s a huge fucking mess, I don’t even know where to begin…”

“Is Nolan okay?” Marlowe asked. “I can barely breathe, his stress is overwhelming.”

When he grabbed and hugged her I nearly growled. Hadn’t that fucker had enough of her the past week?

“The Shifter Conclave is here,” he explained, now looking at me. “Nolan contacted them last week to intervene with the vamps for us, but once they heard there was an omega involved… ”

Rage.

I felt my wolf snapping its jaws inside me, demanding to be released and rip out their throats. “They have no right to her!” I bellowed. “She’s bonded tous!She choseus!”

Elias guided Marlowe back to me, and I held onto her possessively. “I don’t know much else,” he further explained. “Only they refuse to start any kind of proceedings until Marlowe arrives. They want to meet her before they reveal why they’re here.”

Marlowe’s face paled, and her body shook in my arms as a small whine made its way up her throat. “Elias… what if what you and Archer said is right? About my scent?”

Julian and I whipped our heads towards Elias. “Got something to share with the class?” I snarled. This was exactly why I hated splitting up the pack. Vital shit would miss someone, and then we wouldn’t all be on the same page. Archer had promised to share any new developments as soon as he came across any, but it was obvious they’d been discussing something important behind my back.

Elias growled his reply. “I wasn’t keeping anything a secret, I was waiting until tomorrow to talk about it. You know damn well you wouldn’t have wanted to go over jack squat before you had your knot in Marlowe tonight.”

“Discuss what? What’s wrong with Marlowe’s scent?” Julian asked.

Our phones all beeped with another message from Nolan telling us to hurry up. Elias cursed and ran his hand through his hair as we headed inside. “She’s irresistible to shifters, vamps, and even humans. We think she might be more special than we realize.”

Like I didn’t already know all that. The more time I’d spent with her, and the more I’d watched other shifters react to her, the more I’d begun to realize she might be more than your typical omega of yesteryear.