Page 22 of Betrayed Auctioned Mate

“You’re freezing,” Ado mutters under his breath.

“Yeah,” I agree softly, trying to keep my voice steady. But the truth is that it’s not just the cold that’s making me shiver now.

He hesitates for a beat longer—then, almost awkwardly, he lifts his arm and wraps it around me.

I freeze up. It’s been years since we’ve been this close. The familiarity of his touch unsettles me. I had forgotten how big his hands were, the steady weight of his arm, the unerring solidity of his body.

I should pull away. I should say something stern to remind him—and myself—that this is a bad idea. If I asked him to, I know he’d back off and never return. I have an eerily prescient understanding of him for a moment: Ado would do anything I ask him to right now.

But I don’t tell him to stop.

Instead, I lean into Ado’s side, inching closer until I can rest my head against his shoulder. His warmth seeps into me slowly. I worry I might melt as his arm tightens around me. His jacket smells like the woods and smoke, a scent that brings back so many memories I’ve tried to forget. He smells like the pack. I realize how intensely I love that scent, the smell of belonging somewhere.

We’re supposed to be keeping watch, but now, we could be the only two people in the world. Nobody would disturb us. They couldn’t if they tried.

“You’re like a furnace,” I mutter, half in an attempt to ease the tension that’s building between us.

Ado huffs a quiet laugh. “I run hot.”

I close my eyes. In the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath my cheek is a promise, though I don’t know what that promise is exactly. We both sit staring at it all. The years, the mistakes, the things we both wish we could change but can’t.

“I’m not…” I start, my voice barely a whisper, but I can’t seem to find the right words to finish. I’m not what? Strong enough? Brave enough? The woman I used to be?

Ado doesn’t respond. He just holds me a little closer, his thumb running up and down my arm. Maybe he understands.

Chapter 12 - Ado

Staking out the warehouse at Hognose Creek for days, with everyone on the team working in shifts, yields nothing. This could be a good or a bad thing, but I’m no optimist.

“It’s a positive sign,” Aris says, addressing the room during our Monday morning briefing. His voice is confident, calm. He always sounds like that. “Activity on the boat route hasn’t changed, so they don’t know we’re onto them yet.”

He says it like it’s a victory, but it doesn’t feel like one. In five days, he and a few of the others will be out on Attlefolk overnight, gathering intel and setting up cameras for the anticipated visit of some more of our so-called friends. Keira and I have been told to sit it out, which only makes my nerves worse.

I’m not sure anything about this mission could be called a good sign. We still know next to nothing about these people. Once patched up, the two men we took into custody said nothing. It seemed like they knew nothing worth saying, too. They’re with the police now, locked up for smuggling medical contraband across state lines to the Canadian border. Years of operations, right under our noses.

Byron confirms later in the same briefing that the third guy is still missing. No one in town reported any sign of him, so he must have known better than to head south from the creek after being shot. Probably hit the highway by nightfall. Probably two states away by now.

I grind my back teeth together hard. I try not to look at Keira, and she tries not to look at me. The friction between us, already thick from the years we spent apart, has only deepened since that night at the creek.

Something broke between us out there, and I’m not sure how to fix it.

Sunlight cuts through the turned blinds over the floor-to-ceiling windows, slipping in bright, yellowish shafts out over the table. It seems to divide us from one another. We’re all behind the bars of a cage.

Then Byron speaks up again, casually, as if it’s no big deal. “Oh, one more thing. There was an attempt to hack Keira’s phone last night.”

A cold wave of fear washes over me. I feel like I’ve been dunked into freezing water.

Keira raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

Byron shrugs. “You wouldn’t have known. Our firewall blocked it automatically. This kind of thing happens all the time, especially with our work—I block attempts like this on the rest of the team most months. There are always people trying to trace our devices, figure out who’s involved.”

Aris nods, his face calm, unfazed. “Nothing new for us. Just means we’re on someone’s radar, which we always are. It’s why we keep our security tight.”

Keira leans back in her chair, her expression neutral. “So, I’m on that radar now, too.”

Byron gives her a reassuring smile, or his closest attempt at one. It looks a bit like a grimace. “Yeah, but don’t worry. The attempt didn’t get through, and it’s being handled.”

ButI’mnot reassured. My mind races with possibilities—what if they know more than we think? What if this isn’t just an ordinary hack? What if Keira’s in more danger than anyone realizes? She’s only been with us for a short time, and now, because someone has noticed her presence in our network, she’sin the shit right along with us. For the rest of us, this is everyday life. But Keira’s different. Too much time has passed.

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