Page 41 of Forever Mine

“Yes.”

“Okay, I need you to pack your things. Whatever you can fit into a bag as quickly as possible. I will get Oscar. I don’t have time to answer a lot of questions. We’ll talk in the car, but it’s not safe here and we have to leave now.”

To my shock and relief, she did exactly what I told her to do. I gently picked the boy up and he never even woke. We stopped off in my room and Maddie quickly threw my things into my bag and within minutes we were heading for the elevator.

“Wait, there’ll be too many in the lobby, it could draw suspicion. There’s a staircase at the other end of the hall. It goes straight to the parking deck, we need to take that.”

We walked to the far end of hotel and decided to chance the elevator there instead. The ball was on the other side of the complex and I prayed we’d put enough space between us and them to get away safely.

Uneventfully making it to my car should have been enough to calm me down, but it wasn’t. I gently laid Oscar across the back seat. Maddie looked at me and then back at him. “He needs his car seat, it’s in Annie’s car.”

“He’ll be fine.”

“Liam, it’s illegal and it’s not safe.”

“We’re not safe. I promise you, I will stop and buy him the best car seat on the market the second we are away from here.”

I felt close to having my own anxiety attack. Why wasn’t she freaking out? As my anxiety grew, I felt a calm come over her. It was the strangest thing. Maddie got anxious over every little thing, so why not now?

She gently wrapped her arms around me and hugged me close My body shuddered at her touch and I started to relax. She stared into my eyes and nodded. In that moment I knew she trusted me one hundred percent. She was doing exactly what I’d asked of her without question. I could suddenly breathe again knowing that.

We got in the car and I quickly sped away. The entire time we were in the city and even many miles later with nothing but darkness surrounding us, I obsessively watched my rearview mirror, just waiting for the boogieman to jump out or something. That guy had scared the shit out of me.

Maddie

Chapter 14

I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t even know why. Liam had come to my door and looked so terrified, I couldn’t tell him no. I just couldn’t. I hoped Annie and Jacob would understand. I would call them later and make arrangements to meet up with them. Right then all I knew was that Liam needed me. He needed me to be strong as he struggled not to fall apart. He had been there for me through several panic attacks already. It was the least I could do for him, especially once I saw the desperation in his eyes.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I finally asked, breaking the silence that loomed between us.

“Did you know about the Order of the Verndari? Did you know they knew all along? What you are? Who you are? Annie and Jacob, they’ve been lying to you, Mad.”

His words didn’t make any sense. There was no way they knew who I was. I was just their Janie. “That’s not possible,” I whispered.

“Sweetheart, please don’t argue with me about this. I’m telling you the truth. You know I could never lie to you. The Order of the Verndari, it’s some sort of shifter watcher group of humans. I went out to the balcony to get some fresh air, ?cause you know, the smells were driving me crazy and starting to hurt my head. You know how humans like to douse themselves in stench. Anyway, some creepy guy came out to join me. Said Jacob sent him and told me who they were and that some of them were done with watching and wanted to do research on us. He said we weren’t safe. I don’t know for sure if they know about you and Oscar, but Mad, we can’t take that chance. They were all there. So many of them in one place.”

He sounded absurd. I didn’t want to laugh, though. I could tell he was really freaked out. I asked him how he knew they were all part of this secret society group and he told me about the ring. He described it, and I knew exactly which one he was talking about. Jacob wore it frequently. He had even promised it to Oscar one day. If he knew about shifters, did he truly not know about me? Or was it all a front so he could observe and study us up close?

I thought back to everything that had been said and done over the last eight years. Anything at all that stood out. Did I say or do anything to alert them to what I was? No. I couldn’t have, because I wasn’t really a shifter. I couldn’t shift. I never had, so aside from a few lingering quirks like my intense sense of smell and really good hearing, there wasn’t anything for them to see.

“I know the ring you’re talking about,” I finally confessed

“They all had them, Mad. Nearly every single person in the room had them, and the look on Annie’s face when I approached them—I’m telling you, she was terrified I was going to say something to alert the others. The guy told me point blank that they all knew what and who I was. And they just stared and whispered in my direction. I didn’t focus in to what they were saying, but on my exit I did key in to several things that verified what he told me. Like, ‘I can’t believe Liam Westin is actually here.’ Or, ‘Have you ever been this close to one?’ There is no doubt in my mind that that guy on the balcony was telling the truth.”

I watched him shiver and I knew he was telling the truth. He was right, he couldn’t lie to me. I had felt our bond growing over the past few days. I wasn’t sure how it was happening but it definitely was. Aside from the obvious tells of someone lying like a spike in heart rate and nervous twitches that shifters are more in tune to notice, I would feel the lie on him. He had never lied to me, but I knew I would. I could feel all his emotions at this point. It was the reason I didn’t completely freak out when he banged on my door and demanded I pack up and follow him.

He was still obsessively looking in the rearview mirror, though we had gone several miles without seeing a single car. We’d been driving for hours already and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do yet. I couldn’t let him take me and Oscar back to Westin Pack. Oscar didn’t even know about our kind.

“There’s a town just up ahead. Can we stop and see if there’s a place to buy a car seat?”

“Are you sure? He’s sound asleep and we could have been followed. I’m not sure it’s safe. I don’t think I’ll breathe again normally till we’re in pack territory.”

And that’s what I was most worried about. I did manage to convince him it was for the best. We found a twenty-four hour megastore and I asked him to stay with Oscar while I ran in to buy it. Despite having my own money, he handed me a wad of cash and insisted I take it to pay for the seat.

The moment I was through the doors and safely out of earshot, I grabbed my phone and called Annie.

“Thank God, you’re safe. Where are you? We came back to the hotel and all your stuff is gone. Is Oscar okay?” She sounded so upset, it broke my heart.

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