Page 101 of Talk About… Rivalry

“I guarantee she didn’t run to another pack while in heat, but let’s call her still. Maybe she has an idea.”

I ran into Maverick’s room, not bothering to ask before I searched out his phone. Pulling the charger from it, I pulled up his contact list, finding his sister and making the call. I put it on speaker so Taylor could hear too.

“Maverick, what’s wrong?” There was something in Avery’s voice, a tightness that told me she knew something was going on.

“Avery, this is Bennett.”

“One of the alphas… and if you’re calling me from Maverick’s phone,” she said with a sigh, the rest going unsaid.

“Do you know where she is?”

We were talking in vague half answers but she knew what I was talking about already and that did not settle my nerves at all.

“Don’t give up on her,” she begged. “Sidney’s been through a lot and she’s hurting.”

“What do you know?” Taylor begged. “Please tell me, Avery. I have to find her. She’s in heat. I can scent her, it’s everywhere here. She’s ours.”

Avery gasped on the other end of the line.

“Oh my god, no,” she groaned. “She’s not here and I don’t think she’d go back to the ranch. I’ll send Mason over there to check anyway, we’re closer.”

Avery yelled out to her pack, footsteps thundering in the background before she was barking out orders.

“I’ll call you back as soon as I know anything. I’m going to call Mama and anybody else I can get a hold of. We’ll find her. Just make sure you’re there for her when we do.”

“That’s all we want,” I promised.

“She had a dream last night,” Avery admitted. “She called me a few hours ago. It was one she has from time to time. It’s from the night her mom left. It plays over and over again in vivid detail. The rejection and her leaving. She said this one was different, though.”

I closed my eyes in defeat, knowing exactly what this dream entailed if she ran.

“What was different about this one?” I managed to choke out.

“You guys were there telling her that you didn’t want her. It was pretty much every insecurity she had, thrown right back in her face. I told her that it wasn’t true, that it was bullshit. I thought I’d talked her down. I even made her promise me she wouldn’t fucking run.”

“She ran anyway,” I said, my voice full of defeat. How could we keep her if she wouldn’t stay?

“She’s stubborn,” Avery said, pain in her voice. “I can’t imagine having a parent tell you that they don’t love you enough to stay and then another parent who couldn’t even give you a hug when you needed it. We tried our best to make her understand that not everyone was like that. We gave her what support we could.”

Avery trailed off and I knew where she was coming from. We had given her the same reassurances and it didn’t seem to matter.

“It doesn’t matter now anyway, we have to find her. I’m going to make some calls.”

“So are we. Let us know if you hear anything,” I said before ending the call.

I didn’t bother to drop Maverick’s phone back in his room, taking it with me as I put my hand in Taylor’s and pulled him down the stairs with me.

Maverick was pacing back and forth his hands gripping his hair so hard I was surprised it wasn’t coming out.

Leo looked stunned and hurt. My chest ached for him. All of us, really.

There was nothing like the high of a connection like theirs and then the low of realizing she’d walked away the night after.

“Fuck,” I cursed. “This is a disaster.”

Taylor let them know everything that we talked about with Avery.

Maverick was already moving, shoving his feet in his old work boots that were by the door and snatching his keys.

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