Chapter 13 In which I come close to a panic attack

I am fucking exhausted.

Driving up to Lake Kilrose to put a new security system on my omega’s little cabin shouldn’t have taken as long as it did. My original intention was for Ethan and me to go up, add a few cameras and put in a simple fucking alarm system. One that’s enough to scare assholes away who might get too close.

But once I got started, I couldn’t fucking stop. I ended up basically turning her bathroom—the only room in the house with a door—into a panic room. Ethan wasn’t much help because he got distracted by doing a deep dive into everything Sadie, not the least of which is her health records, which he actually seems to have trouble finding.

So it’s a hell of a lot later than I thought it would be by the time we get to the penthouse. The first thing I notice is the scent of our omega, cherry pie à la mode. It makes my mouth water with the need to taste her again. I love that it’s the first thing I can smell when the elevators open. That she’s permeating our home, making it her own. I imagine her flitting around scent marking everything, claiming the space.

The second thing I notice is that it also smells like someone cooked something meaty and savory. My stomach grumbles with the reminder that I haven’t eaten since we raided Sadie’s kitchen for sandwich fixings at lunch and now it’s well after ten pm.

The third thing I notice is that it’s fucking quiet as hell.

I glance at Ethan, who has a frown on his face. “Where the hell is everyone?” he asks rhetorically. I grunt out a reply, because I sure as fuck don’t know.

We agreed that someone would be in the apartment with Sadie at all times. “Maybe they’re in bed?” I suggest, but that’s doubtful. None of us are ever asleep before eleven. It’s the nature of our business. Logan or Maddox should be here. The TV should be on, or music should be playing. There should be some amount of life in the apartment, but it feels like a tomb.

I wander into the kitchen and open the fridge, pausing when I see all the leftovers neatly stacked and labeled. Mashed potatoes. Gravy. Roasted green beans. “Holy shit! Beef wellington!” I snag the container out and yank the lid off, staring down at the uncut confection. Not a single piece of it has been eaten.

Fuck.

Sitting under a dome of glass on the counter tucked away by the refrigerator, I see an equally untouched chocolate cake, complete with shards of tempered dark and white chocolate.

Double fuck.

My stomach ties itself into knots as I look around again, taking in the table that has six placemats and six napkins set on it. There are candles in the center of the table and a little bouquet of herbs, like Sadie had wanted to put out a floral centerpiece but had worked with what she could find.

Because there is no doubt in my mind that our omega made us dinner and set the table. That she tried to create a scene where we could get to know her and her us, and that somehow, we all fucking left her alone.

“What’s wrong?” Ethan asks, coming over to look at what has me so upset. “Shit.”

I slide the container onto the counter and practically throw myself around the island and toward the tiny room Maddox put Sadie in. I also find my bond with her and prod it, trying to send her reassurance and… not love, it’s too early for that, but affection. Yeah, affection . I feel that for her. So much goddamn affection.

She’s got her side of the bond locked down tight, though, even when I tug more insistently. I don’t blame her. Omegas are notoriously emotional, especially with feeling like their pack has rejected them.

“Sadie?” I call, sliding to a stop in front of her bedroom door, Ethan right on my heels. “Vixen?”

No answer. I lift my hand to knock, but then reach for the handle instead. I won’t be able to just stay on this side of the door, even if she responds. The need to see her is too intense. Besides, she might be sleeping. I’ve heard bonding can really drain an omega of her energy.

Ethan lets out a little laugh at my eagerness as I push the door open, but it chokes off when the light from the hall falls on an empty bed.

His hand grips my shoulder, likely feeling the start of panic through our bond. Gone. My omega is fucking gone. “Calm down, Luca. She could be anywhere in the apartment. It’s an enormous space. Maybe she and Logan hit it off, and they never made it to dinner.”

He means maybe they had sex. Maybe instead of eating the food she prepared for us, he ate her instead. I want to believe it. I do. But I know what our omega smells like when she’s turned on. Her scent gets more buttery, creamy. If anything, the tartness of cherry is at the forefront of the lingering scent. She was upset.

I don’t blame her.

I look around the room.

“Her bag’s gone.” My stomach bottoms out at the realization. “She left.”

She fucking left.

Ethan hurries back down the hall. I hear him pound up the stairs to where the pack bedrooms are. My eye flick over every aspect of the room, the lack of windows, the lack of pillows and soft blankets, the lack of a fucking lamp. The lack of everything.

This room is closer to a jail cell than an actual fucking bedroom. Why the hell did Maddox put her here?

“Fuck!” Ethan shouts from upstairs. I know he’s discovered what I already know in my gut. Sadie left us.

She fucking left us.

I tug on my bond with her at the same time I tug my phone out of my pocket. There’s no answer in the bond—she has that shit shut down tight—but Maddox answers after two rings.

“Where the hell were you?” I growl out, all of my alpha instincts on high alert, possessive anger flowing through me. My hand clenches and unclenches at my side.

“What?” My prime alpha’s voice lowers to a dangerous level. One that tells me he doesn’t like my tone any more than I like his. Under normal circumstances, I might back off, but not when my fucking omega is gone.

“Where. The. Fuck. Were. You?” I bite out again. “We agreed that you or Logan would stay with her. We agreed you would be available if she needed something.”

“Sadie?” he asks, his tone no longer angry but… worried. “Did something happen?”

“I know you’re pissed off at how this happened, Dox. I know that. But she’s new to this shit and you can’t just leave her.”

“What the fuck happened to Sadie? Is she hurt?” he demands. “I swear to fuck if you don’t start talking…” I feel a flicker of satisfaction at the possessive edge to his voice. As much as he pretends he’s not interested in our pretty little omega, I can tell he is.

“I don’t know if she’s hurt, Maddox, because she’s not fucking here.”

“What?”

I turn away from Sadie’s room and head back into the living area where I find Ethan on his laptop, no doubt watching the security footage from earlier today. I slip behind him and watch as Sadie exits her room looking adorably sleep disheveled and then hurt when she realizes she’s alone.

“She fucking left after making us dinner because none of us were here.”

“We didn’t ask her to do that.”

A humorless laugh bursts out of me. “We didn’t, but she’s our omega and she tried to take care of us. She tried to get to know us and this is… Fuck. She must have felt rejected.”

On the screen I watch as Sadie waits for us, waits and waits and waits, until she finally eats some mashed potatoes and green beans alone, her shoulders slumped, face pinched like she’s trying not to cry.

“I got called into The Market,” Maddox is saying. “There was an… issue. Logan came along because one of our guys got hurt. You said you’d be home by six, Luca. I thought she’d be alone for a few hours at most. She was out like a light. We didn’t want to bother her.”

I run a weary hand over my face. “Yeah, well, securing her house took a lot fucking longer than I thought it would.” Especially since I took the time to snoop the shit out of the place, needing to get to know our omega as much as I can. And then there’s the whole turning her bathroom into a panic room thing. It’s still not done.

We used to be better at communicating as a pack. We used to check in with each other all the time, but apparently we’ve fallen out of the habit, because this shit right here shouldn’t have happened.

Ethan and I should have communicated that we were taking longer than expected, and Logan and Maddox should have communicated that there was an emergency. Both to us and to Sadie.

And Swift? Well, Swift is likely so caught up in his bloodlust at the moment that he doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.

We need to do better.

Especially now that we have a bonded omega… my fucking bonded omega.

“Is Ethan finding her?”

I nod, even though he can’t see me. “Yeah, he’s on it. Fuck man, anything could happen to her.”

He blows out a breath. “I know. With that article about her and Logan…” He trails off and I have to swallow down a growl. We have fucking recognizable faces. I hate it, especially since we’re famous for all the wrong reasons. Infamous.

Any of our enemies would have latched onto the article with the picture of Sadie and Logan. They would have seen the bite on her neck and the way he was fucking looking at her like she hung the moon and the stars and the planets and the galaxies. And they would have made her a target immediately.

It’s pretty fucking clear we’d do anything for her.

Any pack would for their scent match.

“When we find her, I am going to spank her ass so fucking hard,” Maddox grunts out, and despite the severity of his tone and the situation, my dick thickens, pressing against my zipper at the image that paints.

Yeah, I think I like that a little too much. Probably. Maybe.

I shove the thought away and look at our beta. “Anything?”

He looks up from his phone. Sometimes it still shocks me the amount of devious things he can do with such a small device. “Working on it.”

I’m opening my mouth to urge him to hurry the fuck up when Maddox cuts me off.

“She’s here,” he grunts out, and a wave of relief hits me so fucking hard I stagger, bracing a hand on the dining room table. “I’m looking right fucking at her on our goddamn dance floor. Meet me in the back alley in fifteen.”

I open my mouth to confirm with him, already moving toward the door, swiping keys up to our SUV, but he’s gone. Hung up.

Ethan follows me to the elevator, blond brows arched. “She’s at The Market,” I answer his silent question.

Half his mouth curls up and I wonder if he’s remembering seeing her there for the first time, if he’s recalling our time in the private room off the back. “Sneaky little omega,” he chuckles, shaking his head. “Let’s go get our girl.”