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She scoffs. “Why am I not surprised? Of course you would defend your own people. You can hide it all you want, Griffin Wild, but once they put out the fire, I saw the containers of gasoline that had been tossed in the garden.” Her lips curl in a sneer. “I’m just a human, so I can’t take my revenge or get justice for my mother. But I owe you and your people nothing.”

She turns around to leave, but I stop her, my hand around her wrist.

A jolt of shock, of attraction.

She pulls her hand away from mine abruptly. “Do not touch me!”

The hatred in her voice rattles me to the core. I stare at her, trying to come to terms with what I’m seeing in her eyes.

“Is that why you left?” I ask quietly. “Because you believed I refused to come back when I heard of your mother’s de—murder?”

She rolls her eyes. “I left because I don’t like being toyed with. And I wasn’t surprised you didn’t come back. After all, I was just some human you were fucking.”

“Maya, I didn’t come because I wasn’t informed.” I search her eyes, willing her to believe me. “And when I did return, I received your note, and an investigation had already been conducted.”

Maya turns her back to me. “I don’t care. Just leave me alone. I have no intention of helping your kind. You can all burn to the ground, too, for all I care.”

“My kind includes Leanna and her son, and her baby daughter whom you have yet to meet,” I remind her softly.

For the first time, Maya flinches.

“Maya, this disease will reach your friend and her children. Will you turn your back on them, too?”

She’s silent, but I can see the way her hand is forming a fist by her side.

“Maya, whatever the Silver Ring Organization is doing, they’re able to spread this disease without capturing our kind. If this continues, shifters will go extinct. I did as you asked and never looked for you when you left, but I need your help now.”

“And I said I’m not interested. As far as I’m concerned, you and I don’t owe each other anything, Griffin. Find another scientist whose life you can ruin.”

Before I can say anything else, the door opens and a purple-haired man enters, carrying a plastic bag, saying in a sing-song voice, “I’ve brought chicken from your favorite place, Maya. I—” His blue eyes blink in surprise. “Oh, did I interrupt something? Should I go wait in your office?”

“No, Mathew.” To my sudden irritation, my mate’s voice is filled with warmth. “Mr. Wild was just leaving.”

“Okay.” Mathew beams at her. “Hey, I was thinking we could go check out this new bar tonight—”

“Mathew.”

The exasperated affection in Maya’s voice aimed toward this man makes my wolf’s hackles rise. There is something between these two. She cares for this person. She cares for a man who is not me.

I discreetly sniff her.

She doesn’t smell like him. She has not been sleeping with him.

That calms my wolf down some, but I feel a surge of unreasonable anger at the way she smiles at him.

“You signed a contract when you asked for your mother’s care, Maya.” The words burst out of me, the words of an angry, irrationally jealous man.

I see her stiffen, and I realize I have made a mistake.

“Mathew, go wait for me in my office.” Maya’s tone is harsh. The man looks between the two of us before nodding.

“Sure. Holler if you need help.”

The door closes behind him, and Maya turns to face me, the rage in her eyes making me take a step back.

“Is that what this is? You’ve come here to collect?” She comes toward me, picking up a paperweight from the table. “Your people killed my mother, and you’re here to collect on a contract based around her?”

She throws the paperweight at me, and I duck. It goes crashing into the glass pane of the shelf behind me.