Rowan was passing notes.
She couldn’t help remembering a simpler time when that method was a staple of finding out your romantic prospects.
She was still only twenty-four. That life wasn’t so long ago.
But it was.
And the stakes had been pretty low then, looking back. Of course, they felt high at the time.
If anyone knew what Rowan was up to now, it’d be her head for sure.
But she trusted Annie. And if Annie was using handwritten notes on physical paper, then that was what her associates would do.
With the uptick in guards, it was too dangerous for Derek to keep relaying messages, so Rowan used a stolen guard uniform, typically around dusk, to disguise herself long enough to walk by and pick up the paper message.
It was always hidden in between the slats of the stairs of Annie’s production trailer.
They never met face-to-face.
And the communication was one-sided. Rowan couldn’t really talk back.
She could only relay Annie’s messages to Blythe and Shannon and hope whatever they did demonstrated to Annie that her instructions were being heeded.
She had seen many people, including back when she’d been just another viewer of the show. But never Annie.
She wondered what Annie looked like.
As if all that weren’t enough, she had to work odd hours. It was solitary work, being a messenger, and she was alone in it.
She had to be alone, or they’d all die.
It was about eight o’clock in the morning when she knocked on Blythe’s door. People were already up and about inside, she could hear.
And angry.
“—told me there’d be one hundred— must be at least two—”
“— didn’t know— just as much a surprise to me—”
Rowan knocked again, a bit louder this time.
The voices died.
When the door opened, Blythe stood with a falsely serene posture and a suspiciously smiley face. Killian sat on the bed, pretending to page through a book.
“I’m sorry if it’s a bad time…”
“No, no,” Blythe said too quickly, and shot a look at Killian. “Not a bad time. We were fine. Everything’s fine.”
Rowan arched an eyebrow.
“Come on, guys. We’ve been through too much. Don’t keep up appearances with me. I heard you through the door.”
Blythe and Killian shared a sheepish expression.
“Anyway,” continued Rowan, “I’ve got something for Blythe.”
She went into the inner room. She hoped Blythe would take the hint.
Now was as good a time as any to exercise the benefit of being newly marked by a shifter.
Rowan hoped Blythe would believe that. Annie hadn’t said anything at all about how she planned to find Seth.
But Rowan had faith in her, despite never having seen her.
She wondered if Blythe had seen her—or Killian. She honestly had no idea what the hell anyone knew or didn’t know anymore.
Most certainly everyone knew more than Rowan.
She was always last.
Suddenly she remembered she had an infirmary shift in an hour.
The worst thing about Seth being gone—all right, not the worst, but not great for Rowan—was that his infirmary duties now fell on her.
She’d been seeing patients in the infirmary, diagnosing minor ailments and prescribing very few medications—mostly herbal or homeopathic remedies, whenever she could—but she felt like an impostor.
She couldn’t go straight there, though. She’d slept badly, and her head would explode if she didn’t take a minute to regroup.
Maybe also seeing Tristan would give her the energy boost she needed.
Rowan said goodbye to Blythe and Killian and headed back toward her own room.
Tristan had marked her not that long ago. As weird as it was to think about, they were mates now.
She remembered a time when they weren’t sure at all how they felt about each other.
They still did their share of bickering—nothing had changed in that department.
But the place it came from was different. Instead of hostility—instead of the unhealthy, interrogative thing they’d established when they had first met—this was affection.
Rowan hadn’t known genuine affection—well, from anyone except Derek—in the longest time.
It took all her effort to heave the door open. Damn it, she was getting more tired by the minute.
Until she laid her eyes on him, sitting up in bed, shirtless.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” Even just seeing him, hearing his voice, knowing he’d slept beside her, rejuvenated her. She came and sat cross-legged on the bed next to him.
“Slept well there?”
“Like an angel.” He winked.
One thing about their new-and-improved relationship was that he was starting to toss her sarcasm back at her instead of just firing off something mean.
Well, good. Maybe that meant Rowan was getting a taste of her own medicine, but Tristan was learning.
Meanwhile, his eyes hadn’t left her face.
“I take it you didn’t do much better?”
“Well, it’s been so hot lately that I had trouble falling asleep as it is.” Rowan stretched her legs in front of her. “And then I had to be up early to do… business. If you know what I mean.”
Tristan nodded.
“And now I’ve got to get to the infirmary in… half an hour.”
“Does anyone realize you’re not at all qualified for this? No offense,” he tried to backtrack as she shot him a pointed look.
“I mean,” she sighed, “you’re not wrong. I can get by with the little things—Seth trained me really well in the time we had—but what if something serious were to happen to someone?”
She dropped her head into her hands.
“There’s a third pregnancy… I’m seeing her today. I only assisted Seth with one birth before. What if one of these women really needed help? I can’t do that.”
Tristan moved up to a kneeling position behind her.
“And when you add it to everything else on my plate,” she concluded, “it’s freaking exhausting.”
She felt his warm, sure hands on her shoulders.
“Maybe this will help.”
His hands started to massage her shoulders.
It was a little rough, but then anything Tristan did was a little rough, and Rowan hadn’t had a proper massage in so long she doubted she would have been able to tell the difference.
And he was doing it out of love.
“Mmmm, that’s good.” The murmur escaped her voluntarily. Her eyelids drooped shut.
His hands moved up to her neck. Now she was feeling almost irresistibly drowsy.
“The upside of this massage,” came his deep, rich voice, “is that it comes with extras.”
Then she felt his lips on the back of her neck. Her eyes flew open, and so did her mouth.
It was a shockingly intimate gesture, one he never would have made a few months ago.
He moved to the spot between her neck and shoulder. His hands held her shoulders on either side, strong but tender.
“Wait.”
She twisted around and kissed him, let her mouth find his.
“You shouldn’t have to do all the work,” she murmured against his stubbly skin.
“I think you do enough.”
She pulled herself around the rest of the way to face him, and they kissed each other’s faces, necks, shoulders, hands. He moved to open her blouse, but she stopped him.
“Can’t go there. I’m gonna have to leave soon.”
There was an actual pout in his eyes.
“Fine. If that’s how you really feel.”
“It’s not how I feel, Tristan, it’s my job.”
“So you’re gonna leave me hanging like this?” He folded his arms.
“Just think of—the sweetness of my kiss, or something.” She gave him another long kiss for good measure. “Maybe when I get back.”
“Better be when you get back,” he muttered.
“Oh, come on, don’t get grumpy with me.
“All I want to do is have sex with my mate,” he complained, gesturing with his hands. “Is that so complicated?”
Rowan didn’t want to leave things unresolved with Tristan, but she had responsibilities to attend to.
The most responsibility she’d ever held in her life, in fact.
“Don’t kill anyone,” Tristan said as she collected her things, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Ha ha.”
Shannon had noticed that there were no longer any lapses between guard postings.
But she could swear some of them never moved from their posts from the time she saw them at night to the time she passed them in the morning on the way to breakfast.
She was out for her morning walk around the building.
Earlier than most, but she and Leo had just given baby Milo a feeding, and she couldn’t just go back to sleep.
Motherhood had thrown off her entire schedule—sleeping, eating, the works—so she was awake at odd hours.
Not that she went roaming the halls, especially with the new curfew enforced.
How many more fast ones could the Producers pull?
Shannon supposed they had endless tricks up their sleeves. She didn’t want to know.
She’d just rounded the corner when she nearly collided with none other than Louis.
“Oh, Shannon, thank goodness!” Louis said.
“Louis! How’s Isabella?” Shannon searched his face: pale, panicked. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve been up all night covering the building, trying not to get caught by the guards.” Louis’s voice was hushed, but his movements were wild.
“But it’s no use. I haven’t seen her since early this morning, and she’s not answering my mind-links. She’s never gone this long without answering me before.”
A lump formed in Shannon’s throat. “You’re saying that…”
Louis nodded. “Isabella’s gone missing.”
