Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Fletcher

I was just so fricking relieved that Artemis had found us. So much that I’d failed to take my own husband’s feelings into account. That was unforgivable. All of this, everything I’d done for years to plan in case Goode found him again and all of my efforts in executing that plan to get Gideon to safety were for him, for Gid.

I felt like I’d blown that all apart by throwing myself into Artemis’s arms and turning away from Gideon as I did it.

“Gid,” I started, squeezing my arm around him tighter.

“No, no, I get it,” Gideon said, holding up his arms in a way that loosened my hold on him. “I watched the two of you during heat. The connection that you had was obvious. I could never do those things.”

“You’re wonderful, Gideon,” Artemis insisted, leaning towards us from his chair. That just made me catch my breath for a second as my omega hoped he’d pull me into his arms and cuddle me. “This bond with Fletcher likely just happened because we’re sexually compatible and because of heat hormones.”

That was incredibly generous of him, but Gideon saw the flaw in the logic.

“Alphas and omegas only bond if there is some sort of deep, innate compatibility,” he said in a quiet, academic voice, staring down at his hands. “I know because I write about it all the time in my books. I researched it to make sure I get it right in my stories. The two of you wouldn’t have bonded unless you were meant for each other, unless you were—” he sighed and shuddered a little, eyes still downcast, “—unless you were soulmates.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Artemis insisted, scooting forward even more. His chair was positioned close enough to the sofa that he was able to reach over and take Gideon’s hands. I felt Gideon flinch at the action, but I also felt him lean ever so slightly towards Artemis. “I have very strong feelings for you, too,” he said. “I might have bonded with Fletcher, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. And you know what? Forget me. You and Fletcher are soulmates. Anyone with eyes can see that.”

“But the two of you have bonded,” Gideon said, his voice quieter still.

“It was an accident,” I said, leaning my head against Gid’s. “You know I love you with my whole heart.”

Except I wasn’t sure if that was true anymore. Some of my heart was definitely falling in love with Artemis.

I glanced at Artemis, partially because I could feel him looking at me. I could feel more than that. As our eyes met, I sensed his concern for Gideon. That concern was pure and filled with affection. Enough so that I felt strongly that Artemis had fallen for Gideon, despite our bond. Maybe because of it? It was so hard to tell.

“I don’t want to be in the way,” Gideon said, gloomier still. I knew there was no way I could feel his sadness directly, at least logically, but I had been with Gid long enough that it was like I could feel his emotions anyhow.

“You’re not in the way, baby,” I told him, rubbing his arm and kissing his cheek. “You could never be in the way. All of this, everything we’ve got going and everything around us now, is all for you.”

“I don’t feel like you’re in the way at all,” Artemis seconded me. “In fact, if you weren’t here, I would feel like something is missing.”

Gideon peeked up for the first time since the discussion had started. He checked in with Artemis, then twisted to stare at me, like he was trying to figure out if we were just humoring him.

I certainly wasn’t, and I didn’t feel like Artemis was at all.

“I tell you what,” Artemis said, squeezing Gid’s hands, then letting them go so he could stand. “It’s getting late and I don’t really know the lay of the land here. Why don’t you give me a tour of the house and everything in it, and then I think we should all go to bed. We’re probably going to need to be well-rested come tomorrow. And the two of you have only just finished your heats, so you’re probably done in.”

Gideon tensed slightly in my arms. One of his hands drifted back to press against his belly. I wondered if he could still feel Artemis’s seed inside him. I certainly did.

“A tour is a great idea,” I said with more enthusiasm than I felt.

I met Artemis’s eyes again as Gideon and I stood. I could tell his eagerness for a tour was so he could plan how best to defend the house and Gideon if Goode somehow found us immediately instead of taking a few years to track us.

“I’ve only just gotten to know the house myself,” Gideon said, moving subtly away from me to lead Artemis through the living room to the kitchen. “Fletcher bought this house years ago in case we needed to escape. It doesn’t have any electricity and the water isn’t potable, but other than that, I think it has a lot of potential.”

Whether Gideon was forcing himself to put on a brave face or not, he did a good job of giving Artemis the grand tour. It was interesting to see the house through his eyes as he told Artemis about the old-fashioned facilities in the kitchen, showed him the store of water and nonperishable food I’d stocked up on, though it wasn’t much, and then showed him the back porch.

Artemis was impressed with the view from the porch, even though the light from the moon and stars barely lit the area.

“I bet the view is spectacular in the daytime,” he said, resting a hand absently on my shoulder when we found ourselves looking out across the ocean. “Once we get everything settled up here, we should go down and explore the beach.”

“I’d like that,” Gideon said, his smile genuine and more relaxed.

We moved back into the house and explored the bedroom from there. There was only one bedroom, which wasn’t ideal, but it had a queen-sized bed. I’d replaced the mattress when I first bought the house because the one that had come with the scant furnishings that were already there was ancient and gross, so the bed, at least, was basically new .

“I think you did good,” Artemis said once we’d finished the tour. “The house is cute, and if I didn’t have a bond to follow, I wouldn’t have known it was here. The drive is really well-hidden where it meets the road down there. I feel like we’ll be safe here.”

At least for a while . I felt that thought from him as loudly as if he’d spoken it.

It was almost midnight at that point, and my exhaustion was really catching up with me. Having Artemis around removed the sense that I had to be alert at all times to protect Gideon. Gid had been fading fast since halfway through the tour. Just looking at him, I thought there was a good chance he would fall asleep on his feet.

So after fetching a few bottles of water from the kitchen for us to wash up and rinse our mouths with after brushing teeth, I ordered Gideon to get ready for bed. He didn’t protest, even though he sent a few questioning glances to Artemis, and within five minutes of climbing into bed, he was asleep.

“He’ll be okay,” Artemis told me as the two of us took a bit more time to move our bags into the bedroom. I was surprised Artemis still had his overnight bag from the days of our heats. “We can both protect him, and I honestly think Goode won’t be able to find us here.”

“You said you saw someone arriving at the farm as you were leaving,” I said as we moved into the bathroom to wash up. “Did they see you as you left?”

Artemis frowned, and I felt a swoop of dread in him, like he hadn’t considered that.

“They must have,” he said as he got out his toothbrush. “But they were so far away when I pulled out of the drive that they couldn’t have seen my license plate and I drive a really common car. I still think we’re safe. ”

I nodded, but I wasn’t really reassured. I would have felt safer if Artemis hadn’t been seen at all.

We finished washing up and climbed into bed. I moved immediately to spoon Gideon from behind, like we usually slept, then jumped a little when Artemis got in behind me and spooned me as well. It felt so good, so comforting, even though I still had the last vestiges of post-heat aversion to touch.

At the same time, there I was, in the middle. It felt a little too on the nose.

That didn’t stop me from falling into a deep sleep in record time, though. Artemis was right. I had only just finished my heat, and I hadn’t stopped for more than a few seconds to recover that energy. Throw in a mad-dash flight to a remote section of the coast in order to avoid a monster and it was a wonder I hadn’t fallen asleep on my feet while getting ready for bed.

We all slept late the next morning. Too late, all things considered. The more time I spent with my guard down, the more likely it was that Goode would find us and take Gideon.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

“You need to give yourself a break,” Artemis told me softly after breakfast, once the three of us had started the process of cleaning up the house to make it habitable in the long term.

“What?” I asked Artemis over my shoulder as I scrubbed out the kitchen sink while letting the water run. It was still slightly brown, and until it ran clear, I didn’t want any of us to wash dishes, or anything else.

Artemis moved closer. He glanced over his shoulder to the living room, where Gideon had begun the process of taking all the cushions, curtains, and carpets out to the front of the house to beat clean, then slotted himself in behind me.

The feeling of his large, warm, alpha body against my back was like a breath of heaven in the middle of a storm.

“You’ve been fighting so long and so hard,” Artemis said, his voice still practical, even though he slid his arms around me in a hug. “I admire your strength and your determination. It’s incredibly hot.”

I sucked in a breath as I felt a pulse of arousal through our bond. Better still, it wasn’t the sort of dominant, aggressive arousal you might have expected from an alpha. It was more the sort of arousal that came from the idea of me tying him up and making him submit to my will. That threatened to get me all worked up, and there wasn’t time for that.

“But you need to take your foot off the gas for a second,” Artemis went on. “Breathe. I honestly think we’re safe for now. Let yourself rest.”

“I’m trying,” I said. I left the sink running and turned to face him, gripping the sides of his shirt as I did. “I’m not used to trusting anyone else to take care of Gideon. I’m definitely not used to letting anyone else take care of me.”

“Get used to it,” Artemis said.

That was all he needed to say. He rested a hand on the side of my face, then leaned in to kiss me soundly. I closed my eyes and let myself float in the feeling of being bonded, loved, cared for.

At least until a bumping from the other room broke us apart.

“Is there a broom in the closet in there?” Gideon’s cheerful voice gave us enough warning to jump apart before he walked into the kitchen. “I could have sworn I saw a broom in the closet yesterday.”

We weren’t fooling anyone. Gideon knew what we’d been up to, despite the smile he still wore. I cursed myself for falling into Artemis’s arms so easily. My heart wasn’t going to last long at the rate we were going.

“Yeah, there are actually a couple brooms in here,” I said, pushing away from the sink.

Artemis took over cleaning it and monitoring the water as I walked to the broom closet.

“It’s okay,” Gideon whispered to me once we both had our heads in the closet, sorting through various brooms and mops. “The two of you are really hot together. I get it.”

I winced, but when our hands touched on one of the brooms, I had the weirdest feeling that Gideon was telling the God’s-honest truth.

“I love you,” I told him, leaning in and stealing a kiss from his lips before we backed out of the closet.

The efforts to clean the house were exactly what we needed to distract ourselves. On the surface, the house was fine, but the more we scrubbed and swept and dusted, the more we realized it needed serious attention. There was no washing machine, but there was a giant, antique washtub and washboard. Artemis set those up in the backyard so Gideon could scrub the dusty curtains, then the two of them hung them from a clothesline I’d set up between the side of the porch and a small tree halfway between the house and the cliff.

“This view is every bit as spectacular as I’d imagined it would be last night,” Gideon said once we took a break for lunch.

It was a sunny and surprisingly warm day, so instead of eating the bits and pieces we’d been able to put together at the table in the kitchen, we’d found a blanket and taken it out to the overgrown grass on what passed for a lawn near the edge of the cliff.

“I love the sea,” I said, breathing in the salt air. “I imagine that somewhere in my ancestry there were a bunch of sailors.”

“I can see that,” Artemis said, grinning at me.

“I can easily imagine you as a guardian of the sea,” Gideon said, smiling at me with so much affection it made me giddy. “Like Argus, the silver dragon prince.”

“Oh!” Artemis gasped and sat straighter. “That reminds me. I have something for you.”

He jumped up and rushed back into the house. I exchanged a curious look with Gideon as we waited for him to come back.

Artemis returned with a book in his hands, which he handed immediately to Gid. “I saw this for you yesterday, and I had to get it for you.”

Gideon gasped, and I could practically feel his glee as he took the large, gorgeous book of fairy tales. “Oh my gosh,” he said, astounded joy taking over his face. “I’ve seen this edition, but only ever online. I never thought I would own the actual thing.”

My mouth twitched with amusement, but I also kicked myself a bit. We had way more money than either of us remembered most of the time. I could have bought Gideon the book of fairy tales at any time.

Then again, based on the enthusiasm of Gideon’s reaction as he paged through the bright, colorful book, I was glad Artemis had the opportunity to give it to him.

Artemis and I exchanged a smile, complete with all the feels through our bond, as we watched Gideon immediately get lost in the book .

“Good job,” I told Artemis with a wink.

“I wasn’t lying when I said I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, about both of you, since I left you yesterday,” Artemis said. I could sense the seriousness of that statement.

I could also feel the undertones of it. Artemis wanted to be with us. With both of us, me and Gideon. That was reassuring, but I didn’t know how it would work with only one bond.

“You don’t have to go back to your job in Barrington?” I asked as we continued to eat while Gideon fell into reading.

Artemis shook his head and took a long swig from his bottle of water. “I called the office on the way up here, before I lost cell service, to tell them I quit.”

“You what?” I gaped at him.

Even Gideon glanced up in shock.

Artemis shrugged. “I’ve been wanting to quit for a while. That’s why I was interviewing for a new job. I have enough savings that I don’t have to work again for a year, if I don’t want to.”

And really, Gideon and I had more than enough money to sustain all of us for even longer than that. Not that we would really need it, living out in the wilderness the way we were.

“What about your family?” I asked. “Your friends. Won’t people miss you?”

“My family is right here,” he said, glancing between me and Gideon.

It was cute, and my omega purred at the thought, but I also thought the answer was a copout.

“I don’t have a lot of family,” Artemis said, conceding to my doubts. “None that live nearby, at least. And my closest friends, Victor and Simon, will completely understand why I’m here instead of there.”

“Whatever the case, I’m glad you’re here,” I said.

It was the understatement of the year, and I knew Artemis could feel that.

We finished eating, but as we did, I was left unsatisfied. What we’d eaten wasn’t a meal, it was a snack.

“We need better food,” I said as we cleaned up and took things back into the house.

“I noticed a small refrigerator in the pantry,” Artemis said. “Is that what the generator around the side of the house is for?”

I nodded. “Yeah, but the one thing I wasn’t able to stockpile, because I always figured I’d have time to get it before we needed to be here, is fuel for the generator.”

“Could we go into the nearest town to get fuel and food?” Gideon asked.

I hadn’t realized he’d been paying attention to our conversation. I hated worrying him with things like that.

Artemis and I exchanged a look, feeling the same thing. We needed to protect Gideon, which meant laying low and not being seen. But we also needed crucial supplies if we were going to do that effectively.

“I think we have no choice but to go find fuel for the generator, at least,” Artemis said. “And honestly, we need more in the way of supplies than you were able to stock in advance.”

I blew out a breath and rubbed a hand over my face. “Agreed,” I sighed. “But I hate the idea of being out around people.”

I hated the idea of taking Gideon out of hiding in any way that would expose him to Goode. There was no way to tell where Goode was or how hard he was looking for us. He didn’t know where to look, but to assume he wouldn’t find us was foolhardy.

“I’ll think of something,” Artemis said, squeezing my shoulder and sending reassurance through our bond. “We can do this. We can get what we need safely. Trust me.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d trusted anyone other than Gideon, but I trusted Artemis. Part of me felt like I didn’t have a choice.