Page 31

He flashes the phone at Jamie when he comes in fresh from his shower, towing Leo by the hand, who is then towing Luca by the hand.

It looks like a line of toddlers at a daycare who are trying not to be separated.

“Who’s laughing now, Rowan? Huh?”

“Worth it,” Rowan mutters and holds up two fingers to show he came twice in the shower with Grayson.

Nix is envious; maybe Gideon will take him upstairs to shower after breakfast.

He gets to Grayson’s part of the bio-tech, and there is that 103°F, except now it’s rising steadily.

He flips over to the tracking part and stops still.

The bond is flaring, slowly but surely, and he feels a tug under his sternum.

“Oof!” he says and tugs right back.

There’s a tug-of-war for a second until Grayson pulls extra hard, followed by a surge of rainbow light and then…nothing.

“Nix!”

When he opens his eyes, Finn is leaning over him, a cloth pressed to his chin .

He accepts the ice pack Luca brings him.

“Baby, you passed out and hit your face on the way down.”

“Gray,” he says, and holds out the phone.

He can’t see the screen, but he can feel something is wrong with the bond.

“Hurry.”

Jamie hesitates to leave him, but Gideon just bolts out the door.

“Come on, let’s get you to the couch. What the fuck happened? Was it the babies? You haven’t done this since we’ve been here.”

Rowan brings him a glass of orange juice, and Luca hands the phone to Leo.

“Gideon needs help.”

He’s out the door, but they’re back, with Grayson held up between them shortly after.

Grayson is pale and not standing on his own.

“Angel.”

He holds out a hand, and Gideon almost drops him when they reach the couch, but as soon as they’re touching, that feeling of dread and pulling lets up considerably.

“Sorry.”

Sorry? Nix hasn’t any idea what he’d be sorry for, but at least the color is returning to Grayson’s cheeks.

Sinking to his knees beside him, Gideon puts a hand on Grayson’s forehead. “What happened?”

“Fucked if I know, but holy shit,” Grayson mutters, his voice hoarse.

“Someone needs to start talking because my wolf is buzzin’,” Rowan growls, his big palm lying protectively over Nix’s naked belly.

“I was out like I always am, you know? Checking the perimeter, putting my feet on the ground. Wolf likes that,” he whispers like it’s an afterthought.

He leans back on the couch but keeps a tight hold on Nix’s hand. “It felt off. Like…something on the edge of his nose. And then I saw Carnell.”

Jamie is on his feet immediately. “Here?!”

“No…there. He’s furious. Guess he found out we’re not in Jacksonville.”

His voice is far away, and the pressure in Nix’s chest picks up a bit, but not like before.

The pack is silent; no one wants to break the trance Grayson is in, and he continues, “He’s livid, but he’s got a human there, and the guy…told him we’re here. And then he saw me. I saw him and he saw me,” he says again.

“Grayson, what are you saying?”

“He saw me and then he tried to grab me. I panicked, tried to pull back, and now here I am.”

The tugging in Nix’s chest and along the bond finally peters out, and Nix takes a deep breath.

Gideon is pacing the room like a caged tiger. Perhaps at the mention of his father, but it feels like more.

Jamie frowns at the convoluted explanation. “Gid?”

Gideon scoffs, running a frustrated hand through his hair.

“You were about thirty feet from the bottom of the stairs, and you were…” Gideon stops and shakes his head. “It was like you were…floating off the ground, hair swirling around your head, and your chest was bright pink.”

“Seriously? No way. How could you see his chest? He’s got a T-shirt on.”

“Through his T-shirt. It was a light through his fucking shirt.”

It’s obvious to everyone that Gideon is 100% telling the truth.

“What the fuck is going on?” Grayson whispers.

“Do you think that Carnell has a strong enough magic user to reach us here? Control Gray from two hours away?” Luca asks. “He could have hurt him!”

Magic.

It was another one of those mythical things Weres knew about but didn’t know about.

The pendant had been magic, and they all knew how real that had been.

But this? This was scary. Big.

Nix’s wolf thinks they should track Carnell down, and maybe that human, and deal with this threat right the fuck now.

Calm down. We will get our chance.

Nix can’t blame him, though; feeling hunted isn’t their normal preference.

Not when they should be the hunter .

There’s a sense of rightness when he thinks that, but they should be the protector, too.

“We need to leave,” Nix states. “We can talk more about it once we aren’t where Carnell thinks we are.”

Jamie nods. “Agreed. We can’t stay here. Pack up. We’re leaving in thirty. Luc, can you pack Gray’s stuff? I’ll get Nix’s. You two just sit. And for fuck’s sake, call me if that guy tries it again.”

“I’ll call Lauren,” Gideon says, and takes his burner outside onto the deck. “See if she’s got somewhere we can go.”

“I could have called my mom, you know,” Leo says under his breath, pulling Luca after him to start their packing.

“Why don’t I get to pack for Nixie? He’s been naked for a week! There’s nothing out of his bag. Poof, easy peasy.”

Grayson’s eyes are still closed, but when Nix turns to him, they slide open, exhausted and with fresh bags underneath.

He reaches into the couch cushion and plucks one of Rowan’s hidden granola bars out from between the cushions. “Here, you need the energy.”

“I didn’t do anything. Why am I so tired? Fuck. I slept like a baby, except for the usual dreams. Do you think he was zapping my energy? Like feeding his own?”

“I don’t know, but I could feel it through the bond. You were pulling on where we’re joined.”

“Like our soul? I don’t like the sound of that.”

Nix doesn’t either; he peels the wrapper off the bar and takes a bite, then offers the other half to Grayson. “Eat.”

“What happened to your face?” Grayson asks after he swallows the food in a single bite.

Nix almost lies about it. It’s an old habit and a bad one, and he’s trying to be honest about shit. He has no reason to feel guilty.

“I slipped off the barstool when I felt the tugging. Cut my chin. It’ll be gone in a flash once I get some food in me.”

“He did that?” Grayson growls. “The magic-guy? Or Carnell. Fuck…I did it, even though it was through me. I am so sorry.”

He runs a soft fingertip over the wound, and it tingles.

“It’s not your fault. Let’s hug it out,” Nix giggles and leans into his soulmate’s embrace, letting the chaos of the house that has been their home for the past week flow over him.

“You smell so good. Wanna rub it all over me.”

Patchouli and basil.

“What cologne is it? You never said.”

“I’m not wearing any.”

He sniffs his T-shirt, pulling it up toward his nose, and a stronger waft fills the space between them.

When Nix meets his eyes, he’s clearly panicked.

“Gideon!”

Seconds later, Gideon bursts into the living room from the deck, claws out.

“What?”

“Smell.” Nix points to Grayson’s T-shirt.

As an alpha, his sense of smell won’t be that of Nix or even the enigmas, but it’s so strong now even Luca and Leo can smell it.

He expects Gideon to balk, but he just dives in nose first, no questions asked.

Sniff, sniff, sniff.

“Patchouli? You can’t have called me in a panic about his new perfume.”

“He’s not wearing any.”

Nix lets that sink in, and he watches Gideon’s eyebrows disappear into his hairline.

Gideon yanks Grayson’s T-shirt off over his head and throws it to the floor.

He presses his nose to Grayson’s chest but jumps back with a hand to his nose.

“Hot. Fuck, that’s hot. Dr. Merritt! Get your very fine ass down here with your kit.”

Finn arrives at a more sedate pace, med-kit in hand.

“Is this about your temp, Gray? ”

“Just check it, will you? No…with the infrared one.”

Finn drops the ear thermometer back into the bag and pulls out the non-contact thermometer.

“Check the app, will you? The chip seems pretty accurate.”

Finn hands Gideon his burner phone and then angles the thermometer toward Grayson’s forehead.

“No, here.”

Gideon points Finn’s hand toward the center of Grayson’s chest, and then mischievously flicks his nipple ring just to hear Grayson catch his breath.

The thermometer beeps an urgent signal, and Finn resets it again and again.

It happens three more times before Gideon waves the app in front of his face.

“Holy shit.” He shows Grayson and then Nix.

“106°F. Every time. This is brain-meltingly dangerous. You sure you feel alright, Gray?”

Grayson shrugs. “I’m tired and hungry as fuck, but better since I’ve been here and touching Nix. It doesn’t feel hot to me. Or rather, no worse than a sunburn.”

It’s true. Nix can feel the bond is even better now that they’ve had physical contact.

When the bonds are calm, Nix’s wolf is calm, and it goes a long way to settling Nix’s anxiety about this.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t feel dangerous.

Not to the wolf, anyway.

“The bond looks good from the inside. I think you need more food, though, Gray. You must be burning through calories like crazy.”

It makes sense to Nix, because Finn had said he and the babies were doing the same.

“Where is Rowan?”

Since Nix won’t let the wolf run all the way back to Clearwater and track Carnell down, he’s moved on to his second favorite urge after sex: food.

What he wouldn’t do for another pocket-snack right about now .

The others arrive dressed to leave, and Leo heads into the kitchen, likely to empty the cupboards and fridge of anything they could transport and eat as they go.

“What happened? He didn’t try it again?” Jamie asks as he goes to his knees to help Nix’s feet into a pair of small red shorts, then pulls on his hands to help him up.

The shorts make the wolf grouchy, but they don’t cover the baby belly, so he’s not putting up a fight.

The white T-shirt sitting on the couch, though—that’s going to really piss him off.

The wolf doesn’t like anyone to forget they made babies.

If he could, he’d announce it to every single humanoid-shaped person, with a pointed finger and a detailed explanation of how they got in there.

He grabs the shirt from Jamie under the guise that he can dress himself and flings it across the room, much to his alpha’s dismay.

“Nix.”

“Gray’s temp is hot enough to bake cookies,” Gideon volunteers, but Nix’s wolf only hears cookies .

Like he’d known Nix was starving to the point of feeding himself— the horror —Rowan arrives and hands Nix a package of double chocolate Oreos, and Nix rewards him with a kiss that tickles his tonsils; it makes him wiggle his butt like a puppy.

“I’m really good now. Honestly. Better than ever,” Grayson adds.

“Maybe we should look inside, though. You know, with a scan thing? Just to be safe. Cookie?” Nix offers one to Rowan and then one to Grayson.

“Nix, this is serious. It could be melting his brain.”

Rowan scoffs, teeth covered in black-chocolate-Oreo-goo. “What brai—?”

“No, Rowan, not right now,” Jamie says, cutting off any forthcoming commentary on Grayson’s brain capacity—or lack thereof.

“Nix is right. Tell me if you feel worse again, Gray, and we’ll try to get you another MRI when we get to the city. I don’t have contacts, but maybe Lauren could help,” Finn says, and packs up his bag.

Gideon puts his phone to his ear again. “Did you hear all that, Codex? Ooh, I’m scared. Bring it. Yeah, yeah, just call me back. Bye.”

He rolls his eyes, and Nix is so grateful his mother-in-law didn’t see that. From what Nix has heard, she could really kick his ass.

“You had Lauren on the phone this whole time?!” Jamie groans.

“Well, I couldn’t just hang up on her when Kitten bellowed, now could I? I would just hate to be rude .”