Page 83 of The Runaway
Connor laughed out loud at that, no longer trying to hide his amusement. “Because, you dimwit, the pair of you are hopelessly in love with each other. All you needed was a little reassurance that he respected you as a strong and capable woman, and the rest of it was all just waiting to fall into place.”
“But that means… he loves me!”
Connor raised an eyebrow. “From the way I’ve heard it, he’s been in love with you since he presented as an alpha. If not before. I hardly think this is a huge surprise now.”
“But… But what about… What do we do now?” Adalene asked, sounding so lost and confused that Connor had to take pity on her. He wrapped his arms around her and gave her a tight hug. “I suggest we finish getting washed, put on some clean clothes, and go and tell Niles about this.”
“Tell Niles? Yeah, okay.” She sounded breathless. “Do you think he’s going to be happy about this?”
Connor chuckled. “He’s going to be so excited, he’ll probably faint.”
???
Connor knocked on the door to the sitting room, Adalene fidgeting incessantly behind him.
“Come in,” came Antoine’s smooth reply, so he opened the door, then led Adalene inside by the hand when she failed to move.
“My apologies for interrupting,” Connor said, glancing around the room. “We have some important news to share with you.” The four alphas of the estate, along with Dante, were seated about the room, and even Connor felt a moment of trepidation as all of their stern gazes fell on him and Adalene. If he was apprehensive about this meeting, how must she be feeling? He resolved to walk her through it as best he could.
“Is it urgent?” Antoine asked, looking impatient, but also trying to hide it. “Niles is injured, and I still haven’t heard the full account of Adalene defending him and herself from a soldier. I have absolutely no problem with your actions,” he added, looking Adalene’s way. “I’m very grateful to you for defending my brother. But I do need to hear the full story.”
“Actually, yes, it is fairly urgent,” Connor said. “I think you all need to hear this one.”
Antoine nodded and took a slow breath, mentally putting aside whatever else he’d been focusing on a moment ago. “Come in, then. Take a seat and let’s hear what you have to say.” What a change this was from Connor’s previous homes. In the past, he’d have been hit for daring to even interrupt such a meeting, never mind insisting that his news was more important than whatever the alphas were discussing. And he also realised that his own actions and reactions were markedly different from before. He spoke with confidence, and he knew that even if Antoine refused to hear the news immediately, there would be no punishment for trying to tell him of it. What a blessed relief it was to have found a place to live where such profound and unnatural luxuries were an everyday occurrence.
There was no spare sofa in the room, Antoine and Dante sitting on one, Gabriel and Niles on the other, while Lucas sat in an armchair, so Connor pulled over two stiff-backed chairs from near the window. Then he had to give Adalene a nod and a nudge to get her to sit down.
“Adalene has made an important discovery that she’d like to share with you,” Connor said, by way of an introduction, smiling reassuringly at her.
All eyes in the room turned to Adalene. Her face flushed bright red, but instead of telling the group what she’d discovered, she stuttered and mumbled a few words, before turning to Connor in despair. “Um… I… Uh…”
“Do you want me to tell them?” he asked. It might seem an obvious conclusion, but he’d rather check than steal her thunder.
And sure enough, she shook her head. “No, I’ll do it. I just… Um…”
Connor reached out and took her hand. He glanced around the room again… and as he did so, his gaze met Dante’s. Something in his expression must have tipped Dante off. One of his eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. His expression changed from studious to expectant. And most tellingly, his gaze flickered across to Niles for an instant. Dante had always been quick on the uptake, but it was likely only his own experience in bonding with Antoine that had clued him into this particular news, and Connor suddenly had to wonder how Dante’s own discovery of his bonding had gone down. From the stories he’d heard, Dante had been far less confident and self-assured at the time, and it could well have been a daunting experience. But suddenly, they had an extra ally in the room, to run interference if any of the alphas got impatient.
“It’s all right,” Antoine said, picking up on Adalene’s nerves. “Whatever it is, no one’s going to be angry. You’re perfectly safe here.”
Adalene nodded. She looked at the ground. Then she looked at Connor. Then she wrung her hands in her lap. Then, steeling what little courage she could muster, she looked up at Antoine and blurted out, “Niles and I have bonded.”
As she spoke, her eyes flared to a bright gold colour. As he took in the change, Antoine’s expression changed from patient sympathy, to shock, to an entirely fatherly sort of pride. “My goodness,” he said, a slow smile dawning on his lips. He turned to look at Niles. “Have you, indeed?”
But Niles was sitting there, still as a stone, looking like he’d just been impaled on a sword. “What? No, that’s not…. I can’t… You can’t have bonded with me,” he managed to say eventually, his face pale. “I… I broke it off with you. I told you we weren’t going to bond. I… God, I messed this all up!”
For a brief moment, Adalene looked heartbroken at Niles’s rejection. But then the shock morphed into a fond exasperation. “Well, who on earth else do you think I went and bonded with, if not you?” she asked.
Sitting calmly beside Antoine, Dante chuckled. “I had exactly the same reaction when Antoine told me we’d bonded. Don’t take offence,” he said to Adalene. “It can come as quite a shock.”
“Well, this very much changes the plans for the day,” Antoine said, a broad smile on his face. He turned back to Niles. “Do you want to take a deep breath and think about this for a moment?”
Niles’s face went from pale white to bright red in an instant. “No, I… What? Um… Wow. Really? Wow.” His eyes were fixed on Adalene’s, and all of a sudden, his own eyes flared to a bright gold colour. “That’s amazing.”
“Perhaps we should give Adalene and Niles a chance to talk things out,” Dante suggested, shooting a knowing look Antoine’s way. “I’m sure they have a lot to discuss.”
Even Connor picked up on the nuances of that one – the instant Niles and Adalene were out of the room, they were likely going to dash upstairs and make love until neither of them could walk straight.
“Yes, well, that’s probably all we’re going to achieve for today, then,” Antoine said, his expression indulgent as he looked Niles up and down. “Off you go, then. But I will expect you to come down for dinner.”