Hunter's Heart

Chapter 38

The fact that Christian wasn't pacing back and forth in anger or ripping the hotel room apart by the time Quinn stepped out of the bathroom again was a good sign that Caine had told him everyone they cared about was okay. Relief washed through her. Liam, Sophia, Melissa, Grayson, Caine ... they were all okay. And Caine would be sending someone to come and get them and take them back to the safety of the packs.

Running the towel through her hair in an effort to remove as much water from the long dark locks as possible, Quinn silently watched the Alpha in front of her. He was sitting on the bed, just where she had left him, with his back up against the padded headboard. In his lap, he had a notepad and pencil, which he must have found in the bedside cabinet's drawer, the scratching sound of the pencil cutting the quiet of the room as it moved along the surface of the paper.

His brows were furrowed in concentration and even from where she stood just outside the bathroom door, she could tell he was drawing out what looked like a floor plan. Specifically, the floor plan of the facility they had been kept in. Perhaps his phone call with Caine had prompted the action, getting him back into Alpha General mode. Which meant that the food he had been starting to eat when he had called Caine now lay beside him on the mattress, seemingly forgotten as he focused on this random new task.

Shifting her gaze from the notepad back to his face, Quinn took in every tiny detail. In the yellow light of the lamp next to him, the dark shadows under his eyes seemed more prominent and he looked more drawn and haggard than she had ever seen him before. Although she had let him sleep in the car before, it wasn't nearly enough. He really needed to rest, more than she did and she felt like she was dead on her feet, but he was putting it off to get down the details of the facility while it was still fresh in his memory. And he still needed to finish eating.

God, he was stubborn.

With a sigh, Quinn tossed the towel back into the bathroom and then padded over to the bed. It looked like she was going to have to be the responsible one and make sure he ate and then got some sleep. Even if she had to pry the notepad and pencil from his hands and keep it out of his reach.

"I can do that," she said as she purposefully flopped down on the mattress beside him. "I'm more familiar with these places than you are."

"I've got it, little wolf," he replied absently, his pencil still scratching away at the notepad as he added details to his drawing. "You go ahead and finish getting cleaned up."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "I'm already finished."

Christian looked up from the notepad and glanced over at her in surprise, taking in her fresh clothes and damp hair. "That was quick."

"I was in there for almost an hour," she pointed out. "Have you been stuck into this the whole time?"

The Alpha lifted his free hand and ran his fingers through his hair. "I guess so. I figured it was best to give the Alpha Prime everything we know about that place."

For the next few minutes, Quinn watched him carry on with the floor plan. She wanted so badly to take over so that he could actually take care of his own needs, but she held herself in check for now. She'd give him another few minutes and if he wasn't finished, she would make him stop.

When he lifted a hand to rub his tired eyes, she decided enough was enough.

"That's enough," she said as she gently pulled the notepad and pencil from his hands and placed one of the hamburgers he hadn't touched in his hands instead. "You can finish this up once you've eaten and had some real sleep, Alpha."

"I'm fine," Christian insisted, reaching for the notepad. "I need to get this down while it's still fresh in my head. You settle in and get some sleep."