Chapter 17 #3
“You guys really need to hire a detective.” I massaged my temple. “Who’s going to run the company now? Harper? She’s the only one left who knows how that job works.”
“No,” Rhone said, at the same time Harper said, “Not a fucking chance.”
Well, then.
“Rhone ran it when we first started. He’ll take over when we get through this. Right now, we need that list,” Maverick said.
“On it,” Rhone agreed. “Try to sell your relationship to cut the challenges short, Mav.”
“That’s the plan. Thanks.”
Rhone hung up.
“I don’t think him and Harper get along very well,” I said.
“Rhone gets along with everyone.” Maverick took his phone from my outstretched hand. “Until they open their mouths.”
“Which is to say he doesn’t like anyone.”
“Yup.” He lifted his phone to his ear. “Hey, Cassidy. I need you to let the challengers in your pack know that they have an hour to get ready, or they can drive out to my estate to challenge me next week. Something came up, and I need to get back to my pack immediately.”
She said something I could barely hear.
“Thanks.” He hung up and dropped his phone back on the bed, dragging a hand through his hair. “I’m going to have to call a friend. I have no idea what to do about this anymore.”
“What kind of friend?”
“The kind who’s better with murder than I am.”
“Do I want to know what that means?” I checked.
“Probably not.” Maverick grabbed the oversized sweater I’d been wearing earlier in the day out of my bag.
I held a hand out, assuming he was going to throw it my way, but he pulled the fuzzy, light pink fabric over his own head instead.
“During the war, some of us led armies and ended lives head-on. Others were more careful about it,” he said.
“You’re talking about the assassins who poisoned vampires with aconite.”
We’d all heard stories about them and been warned that the poison werewolf assassins preferred to use wasn’t something to worry about.
There was no way for us to smell, locate, or identify it, so stressing was pointless. If we drank it, we were basically dead.
Staying hidden was the best way for us to survive not only the humans, but the werewolves as well.
“Yeah.”
“And your friend was one of the best, I assume.”
“The best.”
“And you didn’t call him earlier because you didn’t think I’d be comfortable with it?”
“I didn’t call her earlier because we have history. Bringing in my ex didn’t seem like a great idea when I was trying to seduce my vampire soulmate.”
My eyebrows shot upward. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s fine. Finding the killer is more important than my comfort. It would be better for both of us if things go back to normal after this, anyway. You can run around solving the murder with your ex, and I can finish getting the company compliant again.” I gestured between us.
Maverick buttoned his jeans while I spoke. He grabbed his t-shirt off the floor, tossing it over his shoulder as he unzipped the backpack he’d brought and pulled out a hoodie.
“Hello? You didn’t respond to me.” I waved at him.
“I was trying to come up with a polite way to tell you that I will chain you to my side before I let you break up with me, but there isn’t one. We’re soulmates, Bloom. Not coworkers. This doesn’t go away if my ex shows up.” He gestured between us too, far more violently than I had.
“You have to be dating to break up.”
He stormed over to me and tugged his t-shirt over my head, pulling my arms through the sleeves. “We’re dating.”
“You don’t just get to decide that for both of us. What are you doing?”
“Putting you in my clothes to sell our relationship,” he growled. “And if you say we don’t have a relationship, I swear, I will bite you and lock you in my apartment until the fucking cows come home.” He pulled the hoodie over my head next. “I was supposed to wear this on the drive here.”
“So it would smell more like you?” I asked, slightly cautious.
I didn’t think he’d ever been so pissed with me before.
“Yes.”
“You could lick it a couple times, I guess.”
He snorted. The tension in his shoulders eased slightly. “The rest of you smells enough like me that it should be fine.”
“Maverick?” I put my hands on his chest, smoothing them over the soft fabric.
“Yeah?”
“I’d prefer we have a conversation rather than you deciding what labels apply to our relationship. This thing between us is weird, but it’s real to me too. My opinions should matter.”
He relaxed further. “Alright. We can talk about it on the way home.”
I nodded. “Are you really going to wear my pink sweater into a challenge?”
“Yes. It’ll tell them that I’m serious about you. And by the time I take it off, it’ll be stretched out enough that I might even get to see a strip of your shoulder when you wear it again.”
“Too bad I only wear your clothes in the office these days. You won’t get to see it, since we don’t live together.”
“I’ll convince you to live with me.” Maverick straightened, rubbing my head to make my hair even more of a mess before he grabbed both of our bags.
He had the audacity to steal my shoes off the floor and wink at me, too.
I padded to the bathroom to clean up and finish getting dressed before meeting him at the door, just as barefoot as he was for once.