Page 54 of Forget

“Fuck,” Caelin grunts. “Something isn’t adding up. There’s a note in Aisling’s file and her profile that she’s looking for a pack to spend her heats with. She says she doesn’t need a forever pack, just someone for the duration of the four days she has it.”

“But she doesn’t want a forever pack?” I ask, confused. “Why would she want a hookup only for that, unless she can’t handle them alone. That would explain why she’s going on so many dates so quickly…”

My anxiety is ramping up and my trigger finger is twitching. Why would an omega be looking for something so transitional when biology typically makes omegas want a home, alphas to protect and adore them? What’s going on with Aisling?

“When she was in my truck, she acted as if she was being forced to date,” Domh says. “I thought Cian may have been pushing the issue, but she’s only nineteen, isn’t she? Aisling told me her father was wonderful to her. So what the fuck gives?”

“Yeah, she has a November birthday,” I murmur. I’ll never forget the date, either. It’ll always be ingrained in my mind. “Something is wrong, I just feel it. I’m going up to the house. I have a key. I have to see.”

Breathing is getting more difficult as I struggle to hide the urgency I feel. I have to stay calm. For them.

“Don’t get caught,” Domh says, looking a bit worried. As Cian’s lawyer, he has a healthy fear of him. He sees the worst of him more than we do, I think.

That's saying something, since the boss beat the fuck out of me. I deserved every blow, though. I wonder if he knows what I did.

“I won’t,” I murmur, hoping it’s not a lie as I pull on my coat. Fuck, that cold is going to be brutal after the warmth of our fires. “Keep your phones on you, and don’t leave the house, yeah?”

“Aye,” they grunt back, and Domh begins to pace.

Leaving them to it, I walk calmly to the garage door, grabbing my keys on the way out. Slamming the door behind me, I race to my truck, knowing the winter tires will get me through the snow.

Not all areas will have had the snow plow come through, especially where Cian lives, because the house is on a private road.

Usually, it doesn’t matter because he can call people to plow him out, but since he’s planning to stay home, the road could be close to impassable without good tires.

Getting into the truck, I hit the garage door opener, gritting my teeth as I push the start button and wait. I would love to say that I’m not freaking out, but I am. The door to the house bangs open, and Caelin runs out to bang on my window.

Rolling it down, I shake my head at him in askance. “I gotta go, what’s wrong?”

“If she’s in heat and in pain, you do whatever you need to fix her,” he growls.

Caelin and I don’t fuck people outside of our pack. It’s something we agreed to, and Evan and Domh have to use a condom whenever they’re out fucking betas. Though, in the last two weeks, I’ve noticed that all of that nonsense is over.

Aisling is ours, no other woman will be enough for us.

We’re done pretending there’s anyone else.

“I will,” I promise. It’s a big deal for Caelin to say this, but he’s been obsessed with Aisling since the moment he saw her. It would be hard not to be. “I gotta go.”

Nodding, he watches as I back up the truck, his fingers running through the waves of his hair as his face displays the agony he feels at being left behind. The compass on his arm stands out in stark relief, a tattoo he had done five years ago when he was twenty-four.

Caelin told me it was because we were his true north. No matter what, he’d find his way back from whatever hole he burrowed into while hacking or working. Caelin also had really bad depression that hit when he was nineteen, during which he reached for us.

We helped him pull himself out of the bleakness and the voices that told him he wasn’t good enough. That’s about the time that Cian hired him to exclusively run his computer and tech work.

Before that, he ran errands for him, until I explained to Cian that he was wasting Caelin’s talents.

We all work for Cian because he’s fair, and we stay for the same reasons.

It’s a struggle to keep myself from driving too quickly. Once I’m on the roads, my hands squeeze and release the steering wheel until I can hear the leather creek and complain.

I can’t stop, my body focusing on how quiet everything is, the way the material feels under my hands, and how heavy my foot is on the gas pedal. I’m forcing myself to stay grounded, since it’s very easy for me to lose myself to the anxiety I know the guys are feeling.

I need to stay present. No accidents, no detours, no exceptions. Finally, I manage to get up the driveway to Cian’s house, grateful someone actually plowed the driveway, even if they did nothing else.

Me:

I’m here. If you don’t hear from me, it’s because I’m inside and can’t respond.

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