Leonard’s POV
I reached out through the mind-link again, my patience wearing thin. "Leo? I’m in Australia. What hotel are you staying at?"
The silence on the other end lasted a heartbeat too long. When he finally responded, his ntal voice was sharp, laced with a strange kind of panic.
"You’re in Australia?"
"Yes," I snapped back, rubbing the bridge of my nose as the bright lights of the terminal gave a headache. "I told you I couldn’t stay in that house, Leo. I had to get away before I shifted and killed soone. I took a public flight. I’m at the airport now—where are you?"
"What are you doing in Australia?" he demanded. He sounded unhappy—no, he sounded furious that I had followed him.
"Leo, I told you I can’t stay at ho!" I growled back, my frustration boiling over. "Stop asking crap. Where the hell are you? Which hotel are you in?"
"I’m... I’m not in Australia right now," he spat. I could feel the hesitation in the link, a panicked edge to his thoughts. "I stopped by New Zealand for a quick business matter. Look, go to the Grand Azure Hotel. Book a suite there. I’ll be with you shortly."
"Leo, what the hell is going on?" I pressed, my wolf narrowing his eyes at the obvious deception. "Why are you acting so—?"
"Nothing is going on!" he cut off, his ntal voice echoing with a harsh authority. "Stop interrogating , Leonard. I’m not your baby. See you at the hotel."
The link snapped shut. I stared at the bustling crowd, a deep frown etched onto my face. Sothing was wrong. Leo was hiding sothing, and the way he had reacted made my skin crawl with suspicion.
I signaled for a taxi and gave the driver the address. By the ti I reached the Grand Azure, the sun had fully set, leaving the city glowing in neon. I checked into a suite on the top floor. All I wanted was a drink and a few hours of sleep to quiet the growling of my wolf.
As I stepped out of the elevator on the twentieth floor, the hallway was long and silent, lined with thick, plush carpet that muffled my footsteps. I rounded the corner, but as I made the curve, I caught a glimpse of soone about twenty yards ahead.
A woman was just entering a room.
She was wearing a simple hoodie, her head down as she stepped through the doorway, but the way she moved—the graceful, light-footed gait—made my heart skip. She turned her head slightly to check the hallway just as the door began to close behind her.
I froze. My breath hitched in my throat, and for a split second, the world stopped spinning.
Scarlett?
The profile, the curve of her jaw, the way her hair fell over her shoulder... it was her. It had to be her. I started to move toward the door she had just disappeared behind, my heart hamring against my ribs.
But then, the scent hit .
I inhaled deeply, expecting the sweet, familiar aroma of nutg that had haunted my dreams for three years. Instead, I slled nothing but chemicals—the sharp, sterile scent of hotel soap and a faint hint of a floral fragrance that was entirely wrong. There wasn’t even a trace of a wolf on her. This woman slled flat. Human.
I stopped in my tracks, leaning my head against the cold wallpaper of the hallway. I let out a pained, self-deprecating breath.
"Get it together, Leonard," I whispered to the empty air.
I was seeing things. I was so haunted by her mory, so broken by the grief of losing her, that my mind was playing cruel tricks on . I had co to Australia to escape the ghosts of our past, but it seed I had brought them with .
I turned away from the door and walked to my own suite, sliding the keycard into the lock. Entering the room, I collapsed onto the king-sized bed, the silence of the suite pressing in on . My mind kept replaying that split second in the hallway—the girl who looked like Scarlett. It was pathetic how my subconscious was trying to resurrect a dead girl just to give so peace.
Suddenly, a sharp, intrusive pressure hit my temples.
"Leonard? Where are you and Leo? Why aren’t you answering my mind-links?"
My mother’s voice was like a needle to my brain. The woman who had lied for five years, who had watched us suffer under a plan she helped orchestrate, was now playing the concerned parent.
"Don’t ever contact again," I projected back, my ntal voice dripping with hate. "Consider us dead to you, just like you were dead to us."
Before she could respond with another lie or a fake apology, I slamd my ntal shields into place, blocking her out entirely. I tossed my phone onto the nightstand. My life was a wreckage. I didn’t know what I was doing in Australia. I didn’t know how to exist in a world where my parents were traitors and my mate was a ghost I had spent years punishing for a cri she didn’t commit.
I eventually fell into a dark, dreamless sleep, fueled by exhaustion and whiskey.
The next morning, a heavy, rhythmic pounding on my door jerked awake. I didn’t even have to look through the peephole to know who it was. The air was thick with a familiar, aggressive Alpha scent.
I pulled the door open, and Leo practically stord in. He looked like he hadn’t slept a wink. His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw was tight, and he looked absolutely furious.
"Now you’re following , Leonard?" he snapped, pacing the length of my room like a caged beast. "I told you to stay put. I told you I had things to handle. What the hell is your problem?"
I didn’t back down. I glared at him, crossing my arms over my chest, my own wolf rising to the surface to et his aggression.
"My problem?" I repeated, my voice dangerously low. "My problem is that my brother is acting like a goddamn fugitive. You’re up to sothing, Leo. You’ve been twitchy and secretive since your trip from Nigeria. You didn’t go to New Zealand—no one flies to New Zealand for a ’business matter’ and ends up back in Australia twelve hours later."
I stepped into his space, forcing him to stop pacing and look in the eye.
"You’re lying to . You’re up to sothing big, and you’re doing it behind my back. You better start talking right now, or I swear to the Goddess, I’ll find out myself—and you won’t like how I get to the bottom of it. Speak."
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