12. Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Ezra

W atching Pete stride out of the room with purpose in his step makes me wonder exactly what I missed while I was on guard duty outside of Jane Doe’s room.

I turn back to Shadow. “Should I be worried about that?”

“No, I think there are other things you should worry about right now,” he tells me, a subtle hint of suggestion in his tone. He smiles tightly. “But you should probably give Owen a call and let him off the hook for losing track of me first.”

He moves back and pulls his shirt on.

“I asked you to call him,” I remind him.

“You did? When?” he asks, playing dumb.

I should have known he wouldn’t do it.

“You know you can’t just sneak out of the house whenever you feel like it …”

“Well, if I hadn’t, Pete and I wouldn’t have found out about Lana, so I’m glad I did it.”

He has a point, and the smile on his lips tells me he knows it.

“You could have asked Owen to bring you, in the car.”

It would have been safer, to say the least.

He snorts. “You think I didn’t? I already begged him to bring us to see you, like a dozen times before I realized Pete would make a much more agreeable travel companion.”

Of course he did. He’s been telling me how much he wanted to come out to see me.

I should have talked to Owen about it, gotten him to agree to bring him out here.

I take out my phone and make the call to Owen.

He already rejected the first request I made for him to join us.

It’s obvious he’ll take any excuse to avoid coming to the city.

It would probably be easier to talk Lana into visiting him.

At least, it would be, if she was even a little less busy.

“What is he screening his calls?” Shadow mutters.

I shrug while I keep waiting for him to answer.

Typically, he picks up in a single ring, thanks to that headset he wears while he’s working.

The fact that he’s ignoring my call tells me he’s still completely preoccupied with locating Shadow. He’ll be sweating by now, worrying over where our Omega could be and what kind of situation he could be getting himself into.

“Just text him,” Shadow suggests.

I shake my head. “I can’t talk him into coming out here by text.”

Shadow smiles. “You think you can do it?”

“He’s picking up,” I murmur, as the call gets answered.

“Lennox Securities,” he answers, voice strained.

“Relax, it’s Ezra. Shadow’s with me.”

“What did you just say?”

I wince at the sudden increase in volume.

Shadow sighs.

He might not be able to feel Owen’s emotions across the distance, but he can sure as hell hear the anger in his voice as it rises.

“I said Shadow’s here, with me, in Cressidan City. Pete too. They came together for a visit.”

“That sneaky little …” he mutters, trailing off instead of cursing like he usually would.

I’m guessing the relief of knowing our Omega is safe is starting to sink in.

“I’m going to be out here for a while, Owen. It would be nice if you could join us for a few days.”

The line goes quiet, and after a few seconds of silence I start to think we’ve gotten disconnected. Then, he clears his throat.

“I’m busy. It might not be life or death like your work, but we’ve got bills to pay, and I’ve got work to do to cover them.”

Money isn’t an issue. It never has been.

Owen only ever brings it up if he wants to remind me that strictly speaking none of us have to work. He’s telling me I don’t need to be out here, choosing to help others instead of spending time with my mates. He knows it’s not as simple as that, but he’ll realize that soon enough.

I let out a sigh. “I get it, I do. I know I’ve been selfish. If I’d come home more often or been away less of the time, Shadow wouldn’t have felt like he had to sneak out to get to see me.”

“I’m glad you realize that. He’s missed you like fucking crazy. We all have.”

“I’ve missed all of you, too. We’re a pack, and we’re apart more often than we’re together. It’s not healthy for any of us.”

“You said it. Does that mean you’ll come home?”

Shadow raises an eyebrow at me.

“I’m temporary here,” I remind him.

It’s only a lie of omission, but I’d be jumping the gun to tell him I want to keep this job when he hasn’t laid eyes on Lana yet.

“Right,” he mutters. “And when does that contract of yours end, exactly?”

“It ends when my patients can be released to their homes.”

“Yeah, that’s not an answer, Ezra. Call me when you know when you can be released to come home.”

“This isn’t a usual situation. You know that.”

“Nothing’s ever usual with you.”

Shadow sighs, his shoulders slumping as he moves away from me.

He heads over to the L-shaped white leather sofa to sit down while I try to think of a reason that’s good enough to get Owen to agree to come out to the city.

It doesn’t feel like there is one.

I don’t think he’ll even care if I tell him we have another mate.

Especially considering where I found her.

He hasn’t met her, so he hasn’t felt that connection.

He needs to be here to do that.

“I’m helping Omegas who were trafficked,” I reveal, hoping the details might help him to understand. “The Alpha Alliance brought them to the Omega Academy because the woman who runs this place now is trying to change the academy for the better. They knew she’d help them, and she has. Owen, this is more than just a job. We’re giving these women their lives back.”

“I never said I don’t get why you take these jobs, Ezra. I know you go where you’re needed the most and all you ever want is to help people. But you need to understand what that means for the rest of us. It means I need to be the one who gives us a stable home life. I’m the one who has to put down roots to make our mates feel secure. The house in Platinum Valley is our home. It always will be.”

“I’m not asking you to uproot our life or to buy a new house someplace else. All I want is a visit. A day, maybe two. Just this one time. For me, and for Shadow and Pete. Things will start to change, Owen. I promise. I just need this one thing for now. I’ll never ask you to do it again.”

The line goes silent when I finish my pleading request.

He really doesn’t want to come out to the city.

I know that. I’m asking a lot, maybe too much.

“Look, I have to get back to work soon, and we still need a security team out here, regardless of what you decide to do. It would mean a lot to me if you could come out here to do that risk assessment. A couple of hours would do it. I won’t force you to stay any longer if it’s not what you want when you get out here.”

I hold my breath.

He lets out a low groan.

Oh my God, I think he’s going to say yes.

“I can’t have my parents ever find out I was inside a fucking Omega academy.”

He’s going to do it. He’s going to come out here.

My lips twitch, but I don’t let the smile out, not yet.

“Sign in with one of Pete’s false identities. No one will ever know you were here.”

“Sign in?” he sounds appalled. “Christ. I forgot about the hoops they make everyone jump through. Can’t you come out and meet me in the city centre, or something?”

“I guess we could,” I start, trying to think of way to put him off that idea. “If you feel like taking cash out the vacation fund for a hotel and talking Shadow into being okay with the change of location.”

“Oh no,” Shadow murmurs from where he’s stretched out on the couch. “No hotels, please God no.”

“You’re killing me here,” Owen mutters. “If I come out for the night, you owe me one big ass favor, and I don’t want to hear a single complaint when I decide to cash it in.”

“So, you’ll come?” I ask, starting to smile.

“Don’t get too excited. I’m not exactly going to be in my best mood.”

Shadow sits up straighter in his seat, shock in his expression.

“Did he say yes?”

“You won’t hear any complaints from me,” I assure Owen.

He sighs. “Then I guess I’ll see you in a few hours.”

He hangs up and I slip the phone back into my pocket.

“He’s coming?” Shadow asks.

“Looks like it,” I confirm.

“That’s so fucking awesome.”

I take off my coat and place it on the table.

Lucky for me my laundry is up to date.

I have fresh scrubs I can slip into after I’ve satisfied my Omega.

“I thought you had to get back to work?” Shadow raises an eyebrow at me, his gaze moving down as I start to strip out of my clothes.

“I’m entitled to my lunch break,” I inform him. “What I use that break for is completely up to you.”

Getting to his feet, he gives me a smile. “That’s what I like to hear, and this is definitely what I like to see.”

It’s been so long. Weeks pass quickly when I’m busy with work, but the lack of intimacy can only truly be felt when I get it back. It’s the realization of what I’ve been missing, feeling that desire race back through my veins, chasing the regret that my own decisions are responsible for not getting to have my mates in my bed every night.

The guilt that washes over me is heavy.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been there whenever you needed me,” I apologise, as he moves in close.

“Well, I’m not,” he murmurs. “Because I get to have you make it up to me. You don’t get to go back to work until I’m so satisfied I pass out cold.”

He kisses the mark he made on my shoulder when we first became mates.

The soft touch of his lips on that sensitive spot makes me weak with need.

I remember the night he made it, the same night we met.

“I promised I’d always keep you safe.”

He sighs softly, resting his head on my shoulder, while his right hand moves over my chest.

“You were everything I was looking for,” he confesses. “All I thought I could ever need.”

“I was also the first Alpha you ran into,” I remind him.

“Fate works in mysterious ways,” he reminds me. “It sent me into the arms of the right man, at the right time, and then you took me home and I found my second true mate waiting there. It was like a fairytale.”

“You shouldn’t have been out alone after midnight.”

“If I hadn’t been we never would have met,” he counters. “It was my destiny, and you know it.”

I really hate it when he has a point behind his dangerous behaviour.

“You could have been hurt. You need to stop sneaking out like this.”

“Never,” he says. “I met Pete the next time I did it, and now Lana. I don’t do it for no reason, Ezra. If it was completely random, I would see your point, but it’s only brought good things into my life.”

It’s not an argument I’m ever going to win, so I quit while I’m behind.

“What do I need to do to keep you in bed?”

He smiles. “I thought you’d never ask.”