Page 77

He took a step forward, then stopped cold as though he’d run into an invisible wall.My pheromones, I thought distantly. He’d always been rattled by them, and I could onlyimagine what I smelled like right now. But he gave himself a nearly imperceptible shake, clasped a supporting hand over my shoulder, and gently closed the door behind himself, locking it again.
“Think you’d better sit down, Mia,” he said.
I could only nod in shaky agreement and let him lead me back to the couch. I pulled him down with me, lost to my own neediness—but he came easily.
“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked, once we were settled.
I burrowed into his side shamelessly and shook my head. “Wait for Zalen,” I rasped, not sure I could get the story out twice.
He hesitated, but then I felt the set of his spine loosen. “Okay,” he said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. A moment later, a rough, unpracticed purr rumbled up from his chest.
I set my ear against him, letting the noise roll through me—soothing places inside that had barely seen the light of day until I’d met this pack of misfits and had my world turned upside down.
My breathing had steadied, and my heartbeat was no longer pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs, when another knock came at the door.
“That’ll be Zalen,” Emiel said, giving my shoulders a final squeeze before extricating himself to open it.
I chewed on my lower lip, looking down at my fingers tangled together in my lap, as Zalen hurried in.
“What happened?” he asked, crouching in front of me with a hand resting on my left knee.
“She hasn’t said yet.” Emiel returned to the couch and sat down next to me again, giving me a bit more space than before.
I swallowed a couple of times and looked up. “Sorry. It feels kind of stupid now. But... I snooped in Nat’s phone. Just to see if there were any clues about what might have happened, you know?”
“Were there?” Zalen asked.
I tried to center myself with a deep breath, but it caught somewhere high in my chest. “Byron slept with Nat. Three times, I think. They’ve both been hiding it from me. And now they’re gone, and so is Luca, and I’m worried that—”
I broke off, not sure how that sentence should end.
Zalen’s dark eyes widened, and next to me, Emiel drew in a sharp breath.
“You’re worried it might have something to do with them going missing?” Zalen asked carefully.
“I don’t know!” I practically wailed, clenching my fingers together until the knuckles hurt.
Zalen covered them with his other hand. “Did this happen recently? Since you’ve been with us, I mean.”
I tried once again to get my brain cells functioning, with about as much luck as before. “The last text was from when I was in heat,” I managed. “Byron didn’t answer. The others were earlier.”
“Can I see?” Zalen asked.
I unlocked Nat’s phone and handed it over. Zalen took it, frowning at the expanding bloom of damaged pixels in the corner. He scrolled up, his eyes scanning the messages.
“The other texts are from before the night we met you at the bar,” he said with certainty. “Which doesn’t make their secrecy any more palatable. But it would be hard to argue that Byron cheated on you with your husband.”
“Might argue that Nat cheated on you with Byron, though,” Emiel muttered, frowning.
I shook my head miserably. “He said he wanted an open marriage. I was mad, but I never told him, ‘No, you can’t do that.’”
“All right.” Zalen locked the phone and handed it back to me. “I can maybe see Byron using the excuse of being at the restaurant to try to talk to Nat privately. He was, um... a bit upset after finding out that you and I slept together, Mia.”
“Can see Luca noticing what was going on and following after Byron to snoop, too,” Emiel said.
“Yes,” Zalen said. “That’s also a possibility. But an uncomfortable conversation turning into three people going missing feels like a serious stretch. I don’t think that’s what happened.”
“What if they were just standing together when someone showed up hoping to snatch one of them?” Emiel suggested. “So, they took ’em all to avoid leaving witnesses.”