TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 199

One hundred and ninety nine

Nadia

Alpha Kieran’s call ended without making me feel any better. He kept saying he was handling things, help was coming, and Cameron would be fine.

I wanted to believe him. Instead, I lay awake staring at the ceiling, dreading another nightmare that would drag me out of sleep, sweating and angry. In the dream, Cameron kept trying to speak to me while somebody stood behind him whispering into his ear. Every time I got closer, he forgot my name.

The drawer beside my bed kept pulling my attention. The key to my stash was there. One month sober, and suddenly my brain would not stop reminding me how easy it would be to open the drawer, pour a drink, sniff something stronger, and quiet everything down.

I sat at the edge of the bed, breathing through the craving. Franklin would know, and that alone stopped me from opening the drawer.

I shoved myself off the bed. Staying inside the house felt unbearable. I changed into running clothes, grabbed my headset, and stepped outside. While connecting my headset to my phone, I noticed an unread message from Matthias.

I almost ignored it immediately.

Usually, anything from my irritable cousin involved some insult about Cameron or, more recently, my failed

engagement.

I opened it.

Something is wrong with your brother. We need to talk.

My stomach tightened.

If anybody else had sent it, I would have dismissed it as paranoia. But Matthias never dramatized anything emotionally. If he reached out first, then something had unsettled him badly enough to override his pride.

I pressed the call button. The phone rang twice before he answered.

“Hey, little cousin,” he drawled. “I honestly didn’t think you’d call.”

I leaned against the railing outside the house.

“You sounded serious. That already feels medically concerning, so please get straight to the point.”

He chuckled.

“So you noticed something too.”

Silence stretched across the line. I rolled my eyes and started pacing across the porch.

“Get to the point.”

Another pause followed.

“Do you remember the council meeting after the media scandal?” he asked finally.

“Yes.”

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“Desmond tried to lure me into joining some ‘group.’ Evangeline belongs to it. He says it’s taking over the world.”

Cold spread slowly through me.

“What?”

“I thought he was speaking metaphorically at first,” Matthias continued. “Then he started talking about some weird stuff about completion.”

The same strange language again.

“I noticed Desmond and Evangeline meeting privately more than once.”

I stayed silent.

“Then somebody confirmed they belong to the same spiritual organization.”

“Who?”

“I’m not giving you names over the phone. I don’t know exactly what they’re involved in, but I think they’ve been operating around Cameron for much longer than we realized.”

A sick feeling rolled through me.

How long had Cameron been surrounded by this without us noticing?

How many strange things had we already dismissed?

His silence shifted after that, less mocking.

“I don’t like your brother,” he admitted bluntly. “You already know that. But this doesn’t feel political anymore. It feels like somebody hollowed him out.”

The words hit hard because they sounded too close to my own thoughts.

“What do I do?”

“I don’t know.”

For the first time in my life, Matthias sounded genuinely uncertain.

“But stop assuming everybody around Cameron can be trusted.”

I closed my eyes.

I heard movement on his end afterward. Then his tone shifted again, colder now.

“I shouldn’t have called you.”

“What?”

“If Cameron finds out I warned you, he’ll think I’m trying to undermine him. I hope that whatever this is, your brother doesn’t completely disappear into it.”

The line disconnected before I could answer. That sentence stayed lodged painfully inside my chest.

If Matthias, who hated Cameron, was concerned enough to call me directly, then things were already worse than any of us understood.

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I went back inside immediately, grabbed my shawl and keys, then headed for the garage.

If the oracle knew anything at all, I needed answers tonight. For the first time since all of this started, I truly believed I might be losing my brother in real time.

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