by Liv Rider
He settled for glaring at Aidan instead, trying to convey exactly how unimpressed he was. Aidan looked completely unrepentant.
The pups burst into motion. Some were more coordinated than others, and one or two tripped briefly in their enthusiasm. Dev sighed and followed the pups out to the forest, where a bunch of puppies already had their noses to the ground. Almost immediately, Lilah dug at a pile of leaves between a tangle of roots.
How the hell had Aidan conned him into this? Because no way was Dev going to wander around sniffing the ground.
There was. The sock was wedged in between two branches, out of reach of a wolf pup but not a man’s arm.
“Thanks, kid. Lilah, right?”
She nodded, turned, and trotted away with her own sock. Dev looked at the sock for a moment, cursed and then shoved it in his pocket. At least he didn’t have to run back and forth like the puppies did. They carted socks back and forth to their buckets like furry bullets. The forest was full of snapping twigs, rustling leaves, and excited barks as the wolf pups ran between trunks, finding sock after sock.
Dev stumbled around until he found another sock wedged into a tree. At least Aidan seemed to have given him a handicap, but he still felt ridiculous.
He found himself looking down into a familiar pair of brown puppy eyes again.
“I don’t want you to lose because of me, kid. You should go find your own socks.”
she said smugly.
Well, hell. Dev was a sucker for big sad eyes, as today had already proved once. Feeling ridiculous, he lifted it to his nose. To his surprise, the aniseed was pretty easy to pick out. He hastily stuffed it in his other pocket.
Dev took sock number three from the tree and obediently jogged back to the line of buckets.
Feeling like he ought to get a damn medal for this, Dev emptied his pockets
Aidan was a good teacher, Dev thought, watching him go through each pup’s ‘loot.’ Dev was pretty sure Aidan was weighting his questions according to ability; the youngest wolves got quite a lot of prompting. Everyone agreed that telling the difference between the peppermint and Aidan scent was the hardest. To no one’s surprise, Lilah got so many points she was the clear winner even before everyone else’s scores had been counted.
When Aidan got to him, Dev folded his arms and tried to convey that Aidan would be paying for this whole gang-up-on-Dev business later.
Lilah stood behind Aidan, tail wagging in an encouraging sort of way. Ah, hell. “That one’s aniseed,” he said after a long beat, pointing at the one Lilah had identified for him. Feeling ridiculous, he pulled the other two out. They both smelled like peppermint, but only one of them sparked recognition in his soul.
“This one’s yours. That’s peppermint.” He knew his mate’s scent. It didn’t mean anything more than that, he told himself. Did it? The beast stretched, curling possessively around the scent. “I’m sorry. I have to…I need to get back to work. Congrats on your win, Lilah.”
He walked back into the house, his heart racing.
Chapter 22
Aidan came to find Dev after the last of the Wolf Club had left, feeling cautiously hopeful. Oh, Dev was probably going to kill him for making him take part, but it had worked, dammit! Dev had relaxed. Aidan had known Dev wouldn’t be able to hold his walls against a dozen cute puppies.
I’m a freaking genius, he congratulated himself. His inner wolf agreed, but wanted to know if they could go lick Dev some more now? Planning to do just that, he came to a halt when he caught sight of Dev standing next to a framed photograph in the living room. Something about the stiff way Dev stood sent off warning signals.
To the casual observer the photograph could be passed off as a fantasy photoshopping job but what it actually was a shot of Mahon in his wolf form. Oscar stood beaming next to him, a hand buried in Mahon’s ruff.
“I can’t be like those pups, Aidan,” he said quietly.
Dev turned away from the photograph. “I meant…they’re innocent. Innocents. I’m not.”
Aidan frowned, touching a paw to Dev’s arm. The change rolled over him, fur evaporating, tail disappearing.
“What do you mean?” he asked when he was human again, pulling on the set of clothes he’d strategically left nearby. He still hadn’t mastered shifting with clothes intact.
Dev didn’t say anything while Aidan changed, but just as Aidan was about to attack the subject from a different direction, he spoke. “You know how I told you about my biological father?” He didn’t look at Aidan, his gaze still fixed on the wolf in the photo, his muscles taught as wires.
“Yeah. And I told you that being a wolf doesn’t mean you have to be like him.”
Dev ignored him. “He nearly killed her, that last night,” he said softly. His expression held nightmares. “I don’t even know what triggered him that time, but he’d been drinking. He was always drinking. Maybe he would’ve killed her, if I hadn’t found his gun.”
Aidan’s insides went cold.
The story unfolded in clipped, detached tones that made the hair on the back of Aidan’s neck stand up. It was like Dev was reciting a script, narrating the story of some other boy. The boy who knew that this time was different, somehow. He remembered his father coming back with a package the week before, snarling that it was none of his business even though he hadn’t asked what it was. The sting of claws. Later, he’d stared at the cold metal, hidden in his father’s shed, and pretended he hadn’t found it. But then his father had come home, mean drunk, two days before full moon, and the hand he’d hit him with had had claws. So, when he’d heard his mother’s screams, he’d gone to the shed while the blood soaked into his shirt, and found the gun. He brought it back into the house as his father loomed over his sobbing mother.
And he’d shot his father.
As Dev spoke, his hand went unconsciously to his shoulder, to rest against the scars beneath his clothing. “Neighbor heard the shots, thank god. Shifter authorities got involved. He’s been rotting in prison ever since.” He shrugged. “You know the rest. Mom and I moved states, next to the apple orchard.”
“Bloody hell, man. I thought my parents were bad.”
Dev looked down at his hand, flexing his fingers. He was looking somewhere beyond Aidan, somewhere dark.
Aidan knew he needed to say something, the right thing. He took a step closer, put his hand on Dev’s shoulder. “That doesn’t make you a monster. You were just trying to defend yourself and your mom. You stopped him.”
Dev jerked his head in a sharp negative, still not looking at him. “One shot, maybe. But I kept shooting, after he’d collapsed, as he bled out on the kitchen fl
oor, until the damn clip clicked empty. And then I grabbed the kitchen knife. I was going to stab his heart out, but my fingers were too damn slippery from the blood. I kept dropping it, and then the authorities arrived. Only reason Carl Jackson is still alive is that he was a werewolf and I couldn’t aim worth a damn. Half the shots went wide. You know what he said to me, before he lost consciousness? ‘Knew you were just like me, boy.’”
Aidan wrapped his arms around Dev. “You’re nothing like your father.”
“And that’s how it’s going to stay.”
Before Aidan could protest that that wasn’t what he’d meant, Dev kissed him, with a fierce desperation that left Aidan gasping.
“I need you,” Dev growled against his neck. His hands dropped to Aidan’s waist, hauled him up against him.
Aidan folded willingly against him, but inside he felt like he was unraveling, lust only a temporary cover for a deep, widening pit of despair. He just needs more time, he thought desperately, as their bodies entwined, trying to reassure his mate without words.
Chapter 23
The next morning, Dev tried to get some work done while Aidan slept. Working remotely from Aidan’s kitchen bench didn’t have all the conveniences of his office, but at least it had ready access to coffee—and, more importantly, proximity to Aidan.
It was a two-hour drive to the apple orchard, but Dev’s mother’s birthday party wasn’t till this evening. Guilt and nerves chased each other round and round his stomach. He’d told his mom he was bringing a friend, but he hadn’t said anything about Aidan being a werewolf, and that felt wrong, even though he could still justify it to himself. His mom would love Aidan, once she’d met him, he was sure. He needed her to love him.
He shook his head, trying to focus. Work. Right. His EA, Penny, had flagged that Barnaby White, the CEO of one of the construction companies vying for the Leafling Heights development contract, had tried to contact him again and wanted him to return the call. Apparently, it was urgent. Dev frowned at the email; in his experience, it was always urgent. But given how distracted he’d been this week, maybe this was a good place to start getting back into the swing of things.
Dev went and shut the kitchen door to hopefully reduce the chance of waking Aidan and dialed. A posh English voice answered on the first ring, giving Dev a momentary pause.
“Dev Morimoto, Morimoto Enterprises, returning your call. Is this Barnaby White?”
The voice audibly brightened. “Ah, yes. Thank you, Mr. Morimoto. I appreciate you’re a busy man.”
“If this is about the deadline, I can’t help you. You and everyone else will find out my decision on Tuesday.” Dev was used to guys who didn’t think the rules applied to them. It came with the territory when you were talking big business deals.
There was a dry chuckle. “No, I promise to make no attempt to wheedle advance information from you, though you must surely understand the temptation with millions of dollars on the line.”
Dev relaxed fractionally. “What can I do for you, then?”
He hadn’t met Mr. White in person before. He’d seen a black-and-white photograph of him at some point, attached to the tender documentation, but it was hard to know a man based on a square inch of perfectly manicured pixels. He’d looked young for a CEO, glossy haired and wearing the same fake smile of a thousand other company portraits. But he didn’t sound young. He sounded like he’d stepped straight out of the 1800s.
“I am sure you will understand that the Leafling Heights deal represents a significant investment for my company. Obviously, we have put forward what we believe to be a superior proposal.”
Dev made a noncommittal sound. He knew better than to say anything that could be construed as a promise at this stage, even though Mr. White was right; it was a solid proposal. It had made his shortlist of three, which he planned to go through with a fine-toothed comb before the end of the weekend.
“However, we—the board and I—are concerned about bias, given recent developments. Our proposal is made in good faith, and we hope it will be considered on its merits, without regard for…other matters.”.
“Bias?” Dev repeated blankly.
“The BlackEdge Pack.”
Dev’s brain, which had been jogging along its usual business-talk path, came to an abrupt, crunching halt.
“Oh, come now, Mr. Morimoto. No need to be coy. The news is all over town about BlackEdge’s newest…acquisition.” Mr. White said the last word with distaste.
Dev stared at the phone in his hand. Nope, it still displayed Mr. White’s number. “I thought Whitestone was a human organization,” he said. It wasn’t the best response, but it was better than the WTF? he wanted to yell into the microphone.
“Ah, that explains your surprise. We do largely employ humans, but the majority shareholder is daoine sidhe.” Another dry chuckle. “Myself, in other words.”
That explained why his photograph looked younger than he sounded. He could be three hundred years old for all Dev knew.
“You think Morimoto won’t work with a fae company?” Dev hazarded, trying not to sound as shell-shocked as he felt. His business life wasn’t supposed to cross over with the supernatural. “I haven’t made any decisions yet, but I can tell you upfront that Whitestone being fae-owned won’t be a factor in the decision making.”
“The board is actually more concerned at the apparent conflict of interest with Fenrir Construction.”
Dev’s hand spasmed on the phone. Fenrir Construction was one of the other companies on his shortlist, but he had no plan to tell a competitor that at this stage.
“All right, I’ll bite. What conflict of interest?”
Mr. White sounded faintly surprised. “Oh, I assumed you knew. They’re owned by BlackEdge.”
Dev froze, but years of practice at controlling his emotions enabled him to say neutrally: “I can assure you that Morimoto is considering all proposals according to the criteria we set in the original documents and that hasn’t changed.”
Mr. White’s voice warmed. “I’m glad to hear it.
Dev hung up the call without obviously losing his cool as his mind clicked through gears.
He went straight to his laptop, which the damn cat was sleeping on. She grumbled as he extracted it and opened e-copies of the tender documents for his latest development proposal. Sure enough, one of the three shortlisted was Fenrir Construction. Tracing it back through the company register took him straight to the BlackEdge Consortium. Their logo was a stylized wolf head.
Aidan walked into the kitchen to find his mate humming with anger.
“Um…are you okay?” he asked. “Zeke rang, said he’d maybe found some info on your attacker.”
“Yeah, and is his name Sabas?”
Aidan frowned. “No?” He scanned the kitchen, trying and failing to find what had prompted Dev’s fury. There were only piles of documents—which Marshmallow was sleeping on—and Dev’s laptop. “Why would you say that?”
“Fenrir Construction. Multi-million-dollar development project.” Dev explained in clipped tones, and Aidan’s frown deepened. “They’re owned by BlackEdge.”
“Yeah, but that’s not a secret,” he objected.
“You knew?”
Aidan didn’t appreciate the accusation in his tone. “No! I knew Fenrir Construction was BlackEdge. Lots of the pack works in construction. I didn’t know they were one of the companies trying to win work from you,” he added hurriedly. “You didn’t tell me their names! Wait, you think Sabas would turn you into a werewolf just for some business contract?”
Aidan was trying very hard not to be annoyed. Sometimes it felt like Dev was actively looking for reasons to dislike the pack. As soon as he thought it, he felt guilty. He knew it wasn’t Dev’s fault that his father had left him with a deep suspicion of all things werewolf. And after seeing him interact with the pups, Aidan felt sure that suspicion would fade, eventually. Aidan just had to be a supportive mate until it did. He ignored his nagging doubt and
took a deep breath. He could be the voice of reason here.
“Even if Sabas wanted to turn you, why would he inject you, which we’re not even sure works as a way to trigger latents, rather than just bite you with his own damn teeth?”
Dev’s anger simmered down a fraction. “Maybe he was trying to cover his tracks.”
“It doesn’t make sense! I mean, it’s not like Sabas has been making any effort to butter you up, right? You haven’t even seen him since that first morning you woke up, and he hasn’t even mentioned the contract. I bet he figured you already knew about the connection but didn’t want to mix personal with professional.” Aidan could see Dev was only half-convinced. “Look, before we went off on this exciting tangent, Zeke called. He found a lead from the security footage we sent him.”
That at least made Dev pause.
Aidan told him what Zeke had found. “The footage from the camera that covers the stairwell exit by the parking lot has been tampered with. There’s a repeating loop of footage from earlier in the day, covering a twenty-minute period the night you were attacked. But just before the loop starts, there’s a glimpse of a van pulling up to the lot, the door opening as if it’s dropping someone off.”
“The attacker,” Dev muttered. “Do you see their face?”
“No, the loop starts before you can see them, presumably covering their exit too. Zeke says the van is registered to a John Doe—fake name, obviously—but there’s an owner’s address.” He waved the piece of paper he’d written it on at Dev, wincing a tad at the sight of his own loopy, childish handwriting.
