Page 119 of Run Wild Omega

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Rourke doesn’t approach. He doesn’t smile. He just watches, his eyes moving from my hand on Tess’s neck to her face to the plate on my truck, cataloging details. Then he turns, gets into his sedan, and pulls out of the lot.

I watch the taillights disappear down the mountain road. My hand is still on Tess’s neck, and I can feel her pulse racing under my fingers.

“He’s tracking me,” she says quietly. “He’s tracking all of us.”

“I’ll let the others know.” I pull out my phone and open the group chat. “We need to talk. All of us. Today.”

I type a message to Miles and Wyatt.

Dylan: Found Rourke watching us at the overlook above the hospital road. He’s gone now, but we need to address this. Pack house. Tonight.

Miles replies within seconds.

Miles: We’re back by four. Pack house at six.

Wyatt: We’ll be there.

Tess reads the messages over my shoulder. “What do we do until then?”

I look at her. Her eyes are still red, her lips still swollen, and she’s wearing a flannel shirt that belongs to one pack mate while she smells like another and she just kissed a third in a truck overlooking the valley.

“We go home,” I say. “We stretch your leg like Dr. Patel said. And then I figure out how the hell I’m supposed to handle the fact that you’ve kissed two different men in this pack in twenty-four hours.”

She groans, dropping her head against the headrest. “That sounds terrible.”

“It’s going to be a conversation.”

“Saturday,” she says suddenly, sitting up. “What if we do it Saturday? Give everyone time to process. Miles and Wyatt just got off the trail, and I need time to figure out what I’m going to say to all of you together. Saturday at the pack house.”

I consider this. Rushing into a room with Miles and Wyatt while my blood is still humming from having her mouth on mine won’t end well. We all need time to sit with where this leaves us.

“Saturday,” I agree. “I’ll tell them to push it.”

She reaches over and takes my hand. Her fingers are cold, but her grip is firm.

“Dylan?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for not freaking out.”

I lift her hand to my lips and press a kiss to her knuckles. “Give it time. I’ll freak out eventually.”

She laughs. It’s watery and fragile, but it’s real, and right now, that’s enough.

I start the truck and pull back onto the road. In the rearview mirror, the overlook sits empty, the valley stretching out beneath it, vast and white and indifferent to the mess of human hearts unfolding on its edge.

Saturday.

I can wait.

I’ve been waiting since the mountain.

Tess

I’m pinned beneath Dylan on the bench seat of his truck.