Page 7 of Real

I follow him through the spacious dining room and living room to a hallway. He stops suddenly, and I almost run into him. I’m close enough that I breathe in his scent. It’s almost woodsy with a stronger musk. It makes me yearn between my legs like I do every night during my longing.

“Sorry, I forgot to close the garage door. Give me a second.”

H retraces his steps. Not quickly, but slowly. Everything about him seems slow. Not in a stupid way but in a sure way, a steady way. He’s like the rhythm of his music. He isn’t in a rush.

When he returns to the hallway, I pick out his scent as he walks past me. In the past, I’ve always imagined Dorian wanting me during my longing. Or in recent years, a faceless man who looked a lot like the alphas from the TV shows Candlewick liked to watch. Fantasies help me find relief from the horrible ache. I wonder what it would feel like to fantasize about H instead.

I probably shouldn’t wonder about things like that.

3

H

I head toward the den I saw earlier when I was checking the place out. Unlike the other rooms in the house, it only has small windows covered with drapes. It will be a good place to rest until I can get a better handle on how often people walk along the beach and whether Buddy is a flight risk.

When he ran off, I noticed a tracker around his right ankle so at least we’d be able to find him if he tried to escape. But the last thing I want is to call the police and tell them I need their help finding Buddy. They might change their mind about letting the sanctuary care for him. Hell, they might decide to give him back to the man who claims to own him.

The den has a big leather couch situated in front of a flat-screen TV. I sit at the center of the couch and reach for a remote on the ottoman in front of me. Buddy stands in the corner of the room, clasping his hands together.

“Would you like to sit down?” I ask.

He glances at the cushion next to me, then meets my gaze again. I think he wants to sit there, but he’s afraid to. I look away from him and flip on the TV. Buddy fell asleep in the car when I was focused on the road. Maybe he’s not used to people looking at him.

As I flip through the streaming services available, Buddy inches closer to me. I pretend not to notice and select a calming baking show. He slowly lowers himself onto the couch. The movement is a bit strange. If he was a normal human, it would require a lot of strength in his glutes and quads to go that slow. I expect his legs to shake. Instead, he reminds me of a forklift lowering down.

It makes me realize how precarious his situation is. What if he did something like that in front of a lawyer or judge who will decide his fate? Buddy seems extremely human one moment and mechanical the next.

I set the remote on Buddy’s lap.

“You can switch it up whenever you like,” I say.

He grasps the remote with his silicone fingers. They seem so lifelike. Now that Buddy’s hood is off and I’m sitting this close to him, I notice the scuff marks on the bottom of his chin and a small crack in the plastic at the nape of his neck. His body isn’t as new as I initially suspected.

It’s impossible not to notice other things about Buddy too. Like how striking his blue eyes are and the deep pink of his lips. I wouldn’t say he’s pretty exactly, but he’s definitely handsome.

He scoots farther and farther back on the couch. He trembles as he leans against the backrest, his gaze darting in my direction. In his eyes, which have to be human or at least organic, there’s a clear question:Is this okay?He couldn’t communicate it any clearer if he said it out loud.

Sometimes nonverbal communication feels safer to survivors of abuse. They’re so sensitive to the emotions and actions of people around them they assume other people will be too, so I don’t say that sitting next to me is okay. I simply turn my attention to the TV.

It takes a few minutes, but the tension slowly leaves his body. After the host declares a winner of the first challenge, Buddy says, “Candlewick likes this show because everyone’s nice to each other. He hates reality TV that focuses on all the drama.”

“Did you two watch a lot reality shows together?” I ask.

He smiles, not brightly like he did when Steppe mentioned we’d be going to the beach but softly. “Yeah. He watched all sorts of stuff with me.” His smile fades. “Do you think Steppe will be able to get him out of jail?”

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “But the lawyers Steppe works with are good. If there’s a way to get him out, they will.”

Buddy pulls his legs to his chest and rests his head on his knees. “I shouldn’t have gone with him.”

“It isn’t your fault that Candlewick got arrested.”

Buddy stays curled in a ball. It’s obvious he doesn’t believe me. It makes me want to gather him in my arms and hug him tight. He shouldn’t feel guilty that someone tried to save him.

“The lawyers for our sanctuary are very good. They almost always win.”

That’s because they’re usually representing children with curly red hair and big green eyes. Most judges will agree to anything the sanctuary suggests on their behalf because everyone cares about children.

What I don’t tell Buddy is that our lawyers have a tougher time representing the adults at the sanctuary. Red wolf shifter omegas emit a pheromone that makes every unbonded alpha who comes into contact with them believe they’ve found their fated mate. It’s called a red wolf thrall. Human trafficking rings exploit this ability to swindle rich alphas. The official term for that kind of con is a thrall hustle. It involves isolating a rich unbonded alpha and convincing them to pay a large sum of money to save their new “mate” from a violent debt collector or something similar. Depending on the strength of an omega’s thrall and the size of their victim’s bank account, they can rake in millions of dollars per hustle.

---