Page 64 of Hide or Die

“It’s a complicated situation,” Jax put in. “Especially after the raid last night. But we won’t abuse your patience any more than necessary.”

Kam sighed. “No. I get it. I’m taking a lot on faith here—but I’m also painfully aware of what the alternative would have been.” His deep brown gaze fell on me, and it was haunted.

“Food,” Flynn declared, before the creeping sense of disquiet rising inside of me could gain a solid foothold. “No fish meatballs, I promise.”

Jax gave him an odd look. “Fish...meatballs?”

“Don’t ask,” Kam told him, giving a delicate shudder of distaste.

In fact, lunch consisted of chicken soup and buttered hunks of French bread, with a glass of sweet tea on the side. I curled up in the corner of the couch with the bowl on my lap and ate it. When I was done, I set the bowl back on the tray. It was sitting next to a discarded book on the little table—The Unbearable Lightness of Beingby Milan Kundera. The blue cover had a drawing of a man’s bowler hat above a woman’s bikini, the wearer of the clothing invisible so it appeared to hover in midair.

I’d been meaning to read that one.

“Want seconds?” The question drew my attention back to Flynn.

I shook my head. “No, thank you. That was delicious, though.”

It had been, too. Rich and perfectly seasoned. Filling, without being heavy. Comforting, with all the nostalgia of childhood and loving, familial care.

Flynn smiled, the dazzling openness of it lightening the invisible weight on my shoulders. Jax stretched, twisting his left arm and wrist back and forth as though to ease the muscles.

“Right,” he said. “Make this place up however you’ll be most comfortable and get some rest. Flynn and I will keep watch—not that there’s anyone out here to bother us, but still. You don’t need to worry about anything. Sleep as long as you like.”

“God, that sounds good,” Kam said, sounding exhausted. “Thank you both.”

The pile of thick fur rugs that covered the floor of the sunken den called to me, even as distracting thoughts pulled at my awareness. Kam, whose mind often ran on parallel tracks to mine, helped me toss pillows into the cozy space. There was a stack of fuzzy blankets lying folded next to the far end of the sectional. He grabbed a couple off the top, and we curled up together in a soft cocoon, with Kam spooning me from behind.

Jax moved around the room, turning off all but a couple of the lamps. He and Flynn settled in comfortably on the couch, where they spoke in soft murmurs about plans for bringing in fresh supplies and acquiring clothing for Kam and me. Before long, it faded into a comforting background noise, weaving seamlessly with the reassuring scent of alphas on guard.

Despite his clear exhaustion, Kam’s breathing didn’t deepen into the slow rhythm of sleep. I dozed, but something was nagging at my mind in a way that wouldn’t allow it to quiet completely.

It was the book.The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The title had stared me in the face, clear as day. But... in dreams, I could never read written text. It wiggled around, refusing to settle long enough for my eyes to make sense of it. Newspapers were pure gibberish. Books might as well be written in Sanskrit.

And then there was the chicken soup. Food in my dreams was always tasteless. The soup should have been a chicken-and-noodle shaped void against my taste buds. Instead it had been rich and delicious, subtly different from the way my mother had always made it.

A soul-deep chill crept through me again, spreading from the inside out. The hazy pall of unreality draped across the events of the last twelve hours began to thin. A faint tremor took up residence in my muscles as the slight remove that had separated me from the rest of the world settled back into place.

“Leo?” Kam’s arms tightened around me as my breathing grew ragged.

“Oh, god,” I whispered. “It’s real. It...” My voice caught, and I swallowed. “It all... really happened?”

Kam pressed his lips against the top of my shoulder, his embrace never wavering. “It really happened. I’m so sorry,odama.”

I shuddered, curling forward around the pain of understanding. Our old life was gone. Every possession I had ever owned—gone. My bank accounts would already be locked. I didn’t have a single penny to my name. I would never speak to my friends or colleagues again without risking arrest—both mine, and theirs. Any small chance Kam and I might have had at making things better for alphas and omegas through our positions in government—gone.

I—who had never known suffering or deprivation for a single day before that fateful morning when we were kidnapped in Romania—did not possess so much as a single item of clothing. And I’d brought Kam down with me, through my own stubbornness and self-absorption.

My entire body shook with the effort to keep from shattering into a million razor-edged shards. I couldn’t breathe.

“Alphas?” Kam’s voice was soft. “Leo needs you now, but she won’t ask. Not for herself.”

Fabric rustled, and Flynn lowered himself to sit in front of me. I could hear Jax settling in behind Kam. The scent of woods and spice surrounded us in a comforting cloud.

“Is that right, Leona?” Flynn asked. His big hand eased the blanket back so he could see my face. “Do want us to look after you both for a while?”

This was happening. The alphas were here, and it wasn’t a dream. Any decisions I made would have real, actual consequences for our future. And yet... it still didn’t matter—because right now, for me, there was no future. Yesterday’s world no longer existed; tomorrow was a blank and impenetrable vista.

I couldn’t protect Kam.

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