Chapter 39 #2
"None of my connections near Cassville remember the murders," he says finally. "I've made over half a dozen calls and nobody knows anything, or if they do, they're not talking." He exhales through his nose. "I hate to say it, Raff. But we might not be able to help her."
The words land somewhere uncomfortable in my chest and I nod. "I know."
We walk in silence for a few steps.
"I think Anton might have a thing for her," I say.
Cliff stops walking.
I stop too and look at him. The expression on his face is exactly what I expected. Quiet and controlled and absolutely volcanic underneath.
"Yeah," he says. "That's what I thought too." Cliff's eyes flash. "Do you think he ever touched her?"
"I don't know," I say honestly. "But there aren't many alphas out there who ask for permission when it comes to taking what they want."
Something shifts in Cliff's scent immediately. Dark chocolate sharpening into something acrid and aggressive, flooding the shop in a wave that hits me square in the chest. It feeds directly into my own alpha instincts like gasoline on a fire.
My jaw tightens and my hands curl at my sides, and for a second all I can think about is the look in Anton's eyes as he looked at her. I want to beat his fucking face in. I want to feel bone crunch and blood spurt. I want—
"Hey." Perrin's voice cuts through the shop, quiet but firm.
My beta has lifted his head out of the engine bay and is looking at both of us with the expression of a man who has no patience. He points a wrench at us, first at Cliff, then at me.
"Both of you," he says firmly. "Calm down. Right now."
He motions toward the office door with the wrench.
"You have two omegas in there," he says, his voice dropping lower.
"And if you pump out that kind of aggression in here, both of them are going to feel it before you've even figured out what you're angry about.
" He holds our gazes, one then the other, steady and immovable. "So shake it out. Both of you. Now."
Cliff exhales slowly through his nose.
I shake my hands out at my sides, like I'm flicking water off my fingers, and feel some of the tension leave with it.
The office door opens.
Elowen and Adam spill out, mid-conversation, moving toward the mini-fridge near the coffeemaker in the corner. Adam pulls it open and grabs two cans of diet soda, handing one to Elowen without asking what she wants, which means they've been in that office long enough that he already knows.
Elowen cracks hers open, takes a long sip, and then squints past us toward the lot.
"Was that Anton?" she asks.
I turn and look at the road right as the black SUV disappears around the corner. Then I see the rear plate.
A N T 0 N X.
Personalized. Of course it is.
I turn back to Elowen. "How did you know that was him?"
She looks at me like the answer is obvious. "I've worked with the alpha for the last six months," she says simply. "I’ve seen that plate too many times to count.” She takes another sip. "Why was Anton here?"
Elowen sets her drink down on the workbench and looks between us, her dark eyes moving from Cliff to me and back again.
"What's going on?" she asks.
Cliff steps forward. "We've been making some calls.” His voice careful and even, clearly working up to letting her down. "Asking around about what happened to your parents.”
Elowen goes very still.
"We should have told you sooner," Cliff continues. "But we wanted to have something worth telling you before we said anything."
Her eyes move to me. "Did you tell Anton?"
"Yes," I say. No point dressing up the fact that Anton knows.
A flood of emotions fills Elowen’s face.
First surprise. Then something sharp and wounded that tells me she's not entirely okay with the fact that her personal history is now in Anton's hands. Then underneath both of those things, something quieter and more complicated that looks like it might be relief, or gratitude, or maybe both.
I don’t know.
"Okay," she whispers as she takes a deep breath.
Adam moves without a word. He steps up beside her and takes her hand, lacing his fingers through hers and holding on with a quiet, steady grip. Elowen looks down at their joined hands for a moment, and something in her face softens.
Then she lifts her chin.
"Okay," she says more firmly. Then she looks at Cliff. "What have you found?"
Cliff's expression shifts into something careful. He moves slowly, stopping right in front of her, close enough that she has to tilt her chin up to meet his eyes. His hand comes up and cups her face, his thumb moving once across her cheekbone.
"We're still working on a few leads," he says.
"But I want to be honest with you, omega.
" He pauses, choosing his next words carefully.
"My connections near Cassville don't remember their deaths. So far, I can’t find anyone that actually knows anything.
" His thumb moves again. "It's been three years, and I don't want you to get your hopes up. But we’re going to keep looking.”
The shop is completely silent.
Even Perrin has stopped pretending to work.
Elowen absorbs everything quietly, her eyes on Cliff's face.
"Alright," she says finally.
"Yeah?" Adam says, his can halfway to his mouth.
"Yes," she says again, more firmly. She reaches up and wraps her hand around Cliff's wrist, not pulling it away, holding it there against her cheek. "Thank you for looking." She glances at me. "Both of you." Her eyes narrow at my face. "Even if you went behind my back to do it."
"To be fair," I say, "you would have told me not to talk to him."
"Yes," she says. "I would have."
I lean in slightly, my voice dropping to a throaty rumble. "I'm more than happy to take whatever punishment you want to give, sweetheart."
Elowen's composure lasts approximately one second before a giggle escapes her. She presses her lips together and glances away, suddenly looking very shy.
"It's getting late," Perrin says with the casual authority of a man who has decided the conversation is wrapping up whether anyone else is ready or not. "Odette's coming over for dinner."
My head turns to him immediately. "Ma's cooking?"
"Mama O’s cooking," Perrin confirms.
Whatever residual tension is left in the shop eases, and I smile.
I can't help it.
Ma’s cooking does something to me that very little else in the world can match, and judging by the way Cliff's shoulders have dropped two inches, I'm not alone.
"Are we going to her place?" Adam asks as he finishes his drink.
"She's coming to ours," Perrin says, pulling a rag from his back pocket and wiping his hands. "Her dining room table won't fit all of us anymore."
Adam blinks. Then something shifts in his expression, bright and immediate, like a kid who's been told there's a surprise waiting at home. "We're using the dining room?"
"That's the plan."
Adam turns to Elowen. "We have a dining room," he says, like it occurred to him.
"I know," she says. "I've seen it." She smiles as Adam’s excitement grows. “We even had a conversation in it.”
"But we never use it," he says. "It just sits there. Looking beautiful and completely wasted."
“Why is that?” Elowen looks between all of us with genuine confusion. "Why do you all crowd around the kitchen island like you're in a studio apartment?"
Everyone looks at Cliff.
"It felt too big for only four people," he says. "It’s a pain in the ass to carry everything down the hall when we can all eat and clean up in one spot.”
Adam opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again. "There are five of us now," he says, and the smile that spreads across his face is so wide and so genuine that it makes something in my chest pull tight. "We finally have enough people to use the damn dining room."
We all work together to close up the shop.
Perrin wipes down his tools and puts them back in the exact order that makes him happy, but drives everyone else insane. Adam finishes his drink and tosses the can into the recycling before locking up the office. Cliff does a final walk of the lot, checking all the locks.
Elowen holds the shop door while Perrin carries out the last of the supply crates. She hands Cliff his keys when he can't find them, pulling them off the hook by the office door without being asked.
Then she falls into step beside Perrin on the way to the car, their shoulders almost touching, still talking in a low, easy way.
I watch her from the bay door for a second before I kill the lights.
Three weeks ago, she was sleeping on a cot mattress on the floor of a terrible apartment, completely alone.
And now she's laughing at something my mate said, waiting to go home and eat my mother's cooking at a dining room table that finally has enough people around it.
I hit the lights, and Adam calls out.
“Hey!” He’s still inside, gathering up the scattered shop towels from the tool chest and the workbench, and the hood of the Audi, balling each one up and lobbing it toward the laundry bin in the corner with varying degrees of success.
"Come on, Durrant," I call. "Ma doesn't wait for anyone."
"She absolutely waits for me," Adam says as he rushes toward me. "I'm her favorite."
"You are not her favorite," Perrin calls back.
"I'm absolutely her favorite, and everyone knows it."
I catch him as he passes and slap his ass hard enough to make him yelp and break into a jog the rest of the way to the car.