Chapter 5 #2
“Fantastic.” I stood up. My bun flopped to the side with the motion. My hair was still in a wild knot on top of my head from a few days earlier. It had absolutely seen better days.
My stomach rumbled.
Maverick’s eyes narrowed. “There’s supposed to be food in here.”
“There is. I’m not sure why my stomach rumbles when I need blood, but it does.” I started detangling myself from the blankets around my legs. It took so much effort that I was dizzy and breathing heavy when I made it out.
I’d never been so hungry that I couldn’t get out of a blanket before.
10/10 do not recommend.
I finally stumbled away from the couch a solid three minutes later. My gaze went back to Maverick’s. Strangely, his hand was gripping the doorway like he was trying to stop himself from coming inside.
I followed his eyes to my mostly-bare legs. The t-shirt and cotton shorts I had on didn’t hide much.
It almost looked like he was checking me out. I wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about that.
He was one of the most attractive men I’d ever seen.
But he had accused me of murder.
And thrown me in a cage.
And bitten me.
Twice.
Was he allowed to check me out after all of that?
Debatable.
“Am I allowed to go home now?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He looked up from my legs as I approached him, and he grabbed my bloodstained clothes off the place I’d left them on the floor, tucking the bundle under his arm. I could’ve washed them in the apartment, but hadn’t managed to convince myself to.
I didn’t want to admit it, but I had kind of been using them as an air freshener. I was ashamed of that. Not ashamed enough to stop, though.
“With conditions,” the Alpha clarified.
“Well, that’s ominous.”
“Do you want to get dressed?”
“This is fine. Unless you want the clothes back.”
He didn’t answer right away.
“Seriously? You hold me prisoner for six days after proving me innocent, and expect me to change back into the clothes you made me bleed all over?”
Fuck it. I wasn’t returning them.
“Asshole,” I muttered, pushing past him and out into the hallway.
His ridiculous scent and the brush of his crazy-warm skin sent goosebumps over my arms as I went by.
I focused on how good the sun was going to feel on my skin after so much time locked up.
I couldn’t wait to get away from the werewolves for good. I had no idea what I was going to do as far as housing, a job, or anything else, but I had enough savings to get me through about a year. Having a large amount of emergency funds was on the (extremely long) list of Guild rules.
My nostrils flared when I caught a tiny whiff of blood coming off Maverick.
Maybe he bit someone else he shouldn’t have. Or got in a fist fight with his friends again.
I wasn’t going to ask.
I made it five steps down the hallway with the Alpha behind me before he cleared his throat. “Another one of your coworkers was killed.”
I stopped. “What? Who? When?”
Please, don’t let it be Harper.
“This morning.”
“Who was it?” I demanded.
“Arthur,” Maverick said.
“What?” I spun around to face him. Arthur was my actual boss. The asshole whose job I handled for a fraction of the salary. “He’s only in the office once a month. He shouldn’t have even been there.”
“He had to come in after you left.”
“I didn’t leave. You attacked me and carried me away after exposing what I am to all of my coworkers and accusing me of murder.”
Maverick ignored my correction. “I didn’t attack you, I bit you. And with Arthur’s death, the murderer has made it clear that they’re targeting our finances.”
“Or that they’re cleaning out the office’s biggest assholes. Everyone hates Arthur too.”
“We looked into the possibility of the murders being because of office drama, but there’s no evidence of that.”
“Is there any evidence that someone’s targeting you?”
“Not yet.”
I huffed. “Have you guys called an actual detective about this?”
“No. We’re handling it.”
“Clearly.”
It wasn’t going to be my problem much longer. I needed to focus on figuring out my next move.
Maverick shoved a hand through his already-messy copper hair. There was scruff on his face that hadn’t been there before, and lines under his eyes, too.
There was no way the Alpha of the Alpha Pack was so concerned about someone going after some of his money that he wasn’t sleeping.
Something else was going on.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.
Maybe that wasn’t the smoothest way to bring it up, but I was running on six days of imprisonment, extreme hunger, and two aching neck wounds that had stopped healing a few days earlier.
Maverick’s forehead furrowed. “What?”
I turned away and started walking in the direction of the elevator again. Regardless of the second murder, I needed to get the hell out of there. “You didn’t look this bad before you locked me up.”
“Is that a compliment, Bloom?” He fell into step beside me. His ridiculously long legs were a definite speed advantage. If I wasn’t so hungry, I could’ve stayed ahead of him, but I was. Moving quickly wasn’t possible at the moment.
“Of course not.”
“If you think I look bad now, you must’ve thought I looked good before.”
“Worse. You look worse now.”
He snorted. “My pack is being threatened.”
“Possibly being threatened.”
“Probably being threatened.”
“Doesn’t that happen frequently? You technically rule over every other werewolf there is, right? I’m sure plenty of them want you dead.”
“Not like this. If someone wants to take my pack, they show up to challenge me directly, and I fight them. If I need to, I kill them.”
Yet he’d accused me of murder.
Asshole.
“Then you should think about calling the actual police. I’m not knocking you and your buddies, but I don’t think running a pack is the best qualification for solving a murder.”
“Letting the police investigate would require opening our investment company up to the government. I’m sure you can imagine why that would be a bad idea, Assistant to the Director of Compliance. We’ve been looking into the laws Steven broke, and they’re expansive.”
That was a good point. “You probably owe a disturbing amount of money. I could have nightmares about the sheer number of citations. I’m glad it’s your problem, not mine.”
“Are you sure? I hear from your coworkers that you love paperwork.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Should I be concerned that people had been talking to him about me, though?
“My ex-coworkers. Everyone would shit themselves if I showed up now that they know what I am,” I said.
“We told them you’re innocent.”
“Human society as a whole doesn’t believe in innocent vampires.”
“What they believe doesn’t matter.”
We reached the elevator, and Maverick hit the button to call it.
“Maybe not to you, Alpha.”
He let out a long breath, and we waited together. In silence.