Page 22 of Into the Fire: After
Vibrating.
Phone!
I dug for my phone, pulling it out and looking at the screen. An unknown number flashed up at me.
My heart pounded. Vikki? Or an enemy? I hesitated, but no one on the other end could do much worse to me than what had already happened. I hit the green button and raised the phone. “Who is this?”
“Brooks!” Brea’s voice greeted me over the speaker. “Oh, my god, it’s so good to hear your voice.”
Elation. Panic. They felt so similar. A light feeling in the head, like a balloon expanding and lifting me off the ground.
“Fuck, Brea, what happened to you? Where are you?”
“Where areyou?” she countered. “I came to the cave and I have yours and Taryn’s scents here, but you’re both gone, and I am—”
“Deep breaths, Brea,” I said, my stomach dropping out my ass. “I’m up at the cabin.”
“And Taryn? She’s with you?”
I swallowed. This was not news to give over the phone. “I managed to get some food in her. She was more worried about you than anything.”
Brea loosed a loud breath. “Thank the fucking universe." Her voice was choked. “Okay, I’ll meet you both up there. Hopefully backtracking will be easier in the daylight.”
She hung up before I could say anything else.
I swallowed and sank onto the edge of the bed, phone gripped in hand.
There was nothing to do but wait.
Brooks Alphonse Arceneaux, dead man sitting.
Brea
Bythetimethecabin finally greeted me through the trees, I was daydreaming about staying off my feet for a week. Two, maybe. Even the too-small boots Nova gifted me didn’t save me. It was a pick-your-poison situation, though: keep going barefoot, or put up with blisters.
My god, it felt good to let my mind wander to something other than impending peril. It had been so many days since I’d felt free enough to bemoan my own aching feet or fantasize about a nice warm bath. But Taryn and Brooks were safe. Maybe Caine and Lin were, too. Maybe we’d somehow come through this unscathed.
Nova had driven me within a hundred yards of where the cave was, unwilling to risk gaining a tail as she retreated to her shack. When I’d made my way back to the cave and found it empty, my alpha very nearly went feral, ready to hunt down whoever’d taken Taryn and rip them to shreds.
Then I’d smelled it—that wisp of palo santo in the air.Brooks, my beta Brooks.
On a prayer, I’d dialed his number on the satellite phone Nova had left with me; she had no one to call, she’d said, and hadn’t touched it in two years. He’d answered, and every muscle in my body went lax with relief.
My beta, my omega—they were okay.
Caine and Lin, I had renewed hope were waiting for me at the cabin too.
So intoxicating was this hope that I’d sprinted the entire way back to the cabin. Hence my aching body and blistered feet as I climbed the porch steps.
First thing: kiss my omega. Second thing: kiss my packmates. Third thing: hot bath, with however many will fit in the tub.
“Taryn!” I called as I fell through the front door, legs finally giving out the moment I crossed the threshold. I hardly registered the shock of my knees on the wooden floorboards as I cried out, “Brooks!”
I couldn’t bring myself to call the other two names. Not until I knew for sure. If they weren’t here…if they were hurt…
Footsteps thundered down the stairs, and the beautiful face of my favorite beta—pale, tight with stress, but still so fucking gorgeous—broke into a huge grin as he saw me.
He tackled me in a hug, turning us into a heap of limbs on the ground. “You scared the shit out of your omega, you know,” he muttered against my hair. I clung to him, grateful for the solidity of his skin that assured me this was real.
