Page 33 of Their Alpha

“No one has any clue I’m anything other than a good little beta,” Malachi said, sounding resentful. “I’ll keep you updated as much as I can. I’ve got to go now.”

“We’ve got to go, too,” I said, staring straight at Gideon.

Gid recovered enough to say his goodbyes to his brother and end the call. As soon as that was done, I shut off the TV and stood, taking Gideonwith me.

“We have to get out of here,” I said. “Now.”

I grabbed his hand and headed straight for the stairs. This possibility had loomed over our heads for years, so I was always ready. Our suitcases were in the guest room closet. One of them was packed with survival supplies. There was no telling where or how we would have to survive if Goode came after us, but I had a few contingencies in place.

“I love this place,” Gideon said, crying, as I pulled him up the stairs. “This is the first place that has ever felt like home to me. I don’t want to leave it.”

“I know, baby,” I said, heart breaking for him. As if it wasn’t already broken enough. “But if Goode knows where we are, we have to leave.”

“What if we barricaded the doors?” Gideon asked, weeping as I left him in the hall to get the suitcases, then carried them into our disheveled bedroom. “What if we hid in the basement until he goes away?”

I glanced at him as I tossed the suitcases on the bed and opened them so we could load them with clothes.

“You know he would find us and…and end things,” I said.

In fact, I was a hundred percent sure he would kill me and take Gideon back to his cult.

“What if?—”

Gid was cut short as his phone rang again. He was already holding it, but this time, when he looked at it, he screamed and threw it across the bed.

“It’s him!” he shouted. “He has my cell phone number!”

I nearly stumbled in my haste to throw open our drawers and pack as many warm clothes as I could.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. Five minutes and we’ll be out of here.”

Gideon’s phone stopped ringing. That was good.

Ten seconds later, mine started. That was so, so bad.

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket, praying somehow it was Artemis, that he’d had second thoughts about whatever interview he was going to, and that he was coming back for us. The wild thought struck me that Artemis could protect us. At least, he could help me protect Gideon.

But no, the number was Goode’s. Malachi had secretly figured out the man’s cell number and texted it to Gideon years ago. We’d both entered it in our phones for situations exactly like this.

“Come on, baby,” I said once I had the suitcases packed. I tossed my phone on the bed. “Leave your phone here. If he knows our numbers, he’ll know how to trace us through them.”

Gideon moaned and left his phone where it’d landed on the floor. He followed me as I darted out of the room and downstairs.

It took another five minutes to load as much food as we could into the basket I’d used to bring food upstairs during our heats and into a large cooler I grabbed from the pantry. It wasn’t much, but it would get us through a few days.

We headed out to the garage and I tossed the suitcases and food into the back seat. As Gideon climbed in, weeping silently, I hurried to a box I kept on the garage’s workbench for exactly this sort of emergency. It contained half a dozen different license plates, some car detailing paint, and the keys to a certain property I’d purchased a few years ago under a different name. I popped that into the back seat along with everything else, then slipped into the driver’s seat, hit the button to open the garage door, then turned on the car.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ve prepared for this. We’ve done this before and we got away from him. We can do it this time, too,” I said, backing the car out of the garage.

I was confident we’d be able to evade Justice Goode, at least at first.

But as I pulled out of our drive, past the fancy sports car Gideon had bought but never drove, and onto the road that would take us to the highway, my only thoughts were of Artemis. What would he think when he showed up later and we were gone? How was I going to be able to live without my bonded mate?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Artemis

The strangest mix of feelings pulsed through me as I drove back to Barrington. I felt light and happy, like I was having the best day of my life and everything was going my way. I also felt a twinge of anxiety as my bond with Fletcher pulled tighter and tighter as I put distance between us. I didn’t think it was possible for those two feelings to exist side by side in one person, but as I pulled into the parking garage of my building, I definitely felt both things.

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