“You’ll have to tell me about it. You need to tell me about everything that’s been going on since you moved here. I can’t believe you’ve been an Omega this whole time. How are you alive?”
“Good fucking question.”
She looked me up and down, cocking an eyebrow. “You look like shit, though. This explains why you kept losing weight. Mom kept making your portions bigger every time you came to the diner, but you didn’t gain any back.”
Glancing down at my rumpled work clothes and sweat-dampened skin, I didn’t look shittier than normal. Then again, Oswald had mentioned plenty of times that my new ‘normal’ didn’t have much of a glow to it. “Gee, thanks,” I said dryly. “I’ll be sure to wash up in my non-existent shower before the next time we meet.”
“If you’re a good girl, we can take you to shower in a different area of the building,” Nolan piped up. “If not, I’d be happy to hose you down.”
Mabel snickered while I glared at him. “Being hosed down like a dog sounds wonderful.”
“I’ll bring some soap with me when I come back. But first, I do believe I have another surprise for you, love. A couple of surprises, in fact. You’ll love them almost as much as you loved seeing your cousin safe and sound. Amabella, please take Mabel back to her suite.”
My cousin… blushed. Her cheeks went bright red as she smiled and said goodbye, avoiding any sort of eye contact with the female Alpha. If she’d looked scared, I would have said something. As it was, I promised I’d see her soon and sent her on her way. When Amabella’s hand trailed down Mabel’s shoulders to the small of her back, I realized why she’d been so embarrassed.
Well, as long as she was willing, there was no harm in her sleeping with the enemy.
I turned back to Nolan with a raised eyebrow. He’d been watching the couple leave too, grinning from ear to ear. “Clement, can you grab my darling’s other presents?”
The shifter nodded and vanished around the corner.
“Am I going to be furious about part two of your gift?” I asked, leaning my back against the half wall sectioning off the bathroom.
He took a second to think about it, using the moment as an excuse to check me out. “Probably,” he said. “Furious and thrilled. I might not be the only one you’re furious at, though.”
Before I processed what he meant by that, Clement turned the corner back into the room. There were five men behind him, four of them holding a struggling fifth in between them. It was the captive that drew my attention, with his familiar long hair in a bedraggled bun.
“Shan?” I asked.
Nolan had been right about me being furious. I turned to him without waiting for Shan to look up and see me. “What the actual fuck? You think kidnapping an agent of the Next Life Company is a suitable present? Or even a good fucking idea? And why the hell is he covered in blood? He looks half fucking dead.”
“You may not believe me, but the blood was all his fault. Kidnapping aside, I also saved his life. And your cousin’s.”
“No shit I don’t believe you.”
“He can tell you all about it, then. Why don’t you go greet your pet angel?”
I spun on my heel and found him staring at me, jaw slack as he watched the exchange between Nolan and I. “Sigrid…” he mumbled under his breath, before shaking his head rapidly.
My eyebrows pulled together. Who or what was Sigrid? Shan was out of it, not to mention injured. There were slices through his clothes, the skin beneath not yet healed. His expression hardened before I could ask about Sigrid or what had happened, and he glared at me. “You’re a goddamn idiot,” he said firmly, shaking off Nolan’s security. They let him stride up to the bars of the cage and grab them. “What were you hoping to accomplish by sacrificing yourself to Kylan?”
“Clearly, I’m not with Kylan.”
“I’ve been told that’s through no fault of your own. You thought you were going to him.”
I narrowed my eyes, but he had a point. Stepping up to the bars in front of him, we were nose to nose, piping mad. We’d been in this position plenty of times before, but usually the anger was more surface level. This time, I could tell he was furious. And fuck, I was too. He had to have done something dumb to get himself caught by Nolan’s team.
“Why are you here, Shan?”
“Trying to save your ass.”
“Not doing a good job, from where I’m standing.”
His hand pulled back off the bars and he slammed his fist against them. They clanged and reverberated from the energy of the assault, but didn’t budge. “That was very effective,” I said.
“You should have told us about what was happening. We could have gotten your cousin back for you.”
“Yes, because you were so helpful and open with me over the course of our relationship.”
