Page 27

CHAPTER 27

Soren

I blinked and realized I’ve just been staring at her. “Sorry.” I stood up straight and closed her door for her.

What the fuck was I thinking? I didn’t want to leave her? Really? What was wrong with me?

I barely knew this woman and yet here I was, ready to declare my undying loyalty to her.

Was that a legacy alpha thing? She didn’t have the red eyes, but I knew better than anyone that didn’t actually matter. What mattered was how they handled the people around them.

Frankie didn’t need to use her dominance to get people to do things for her.

I ran my hand through my hair and made my way around the car. This was ridiculous.

Opening the door and sliding into the driver’s seat, I tried to calm my mind but I wasn’t sure how to do that when the cause of all these disconcerting thoughts and urges was sitting right next to me.

“Do you know how to drive a stick?” she asked as she fiddled with the shark keychain.

I eyed it, feeling irrationally annoyed by its very existence and I had no idea why. “Yeah, I do.”

Pressing the clutch in, I turned the ignition and put the gear shift in neutral as I tried to sort through my thoughts.

I handed her my phone with the GPS app open. “Put in your address.”

“What about you? Your car is back at the agency.”

I couldn’t look at her or I’d do something stupid. “It’s not a problem. I’ll just call a cab.”

Frankie tapped in her address and handed me my phone. “I appreciate your help.”

All I could do was nod.

I had too many questions and too many feelings.

Frankie James was an alpha who kept to herself. She worked as a private detective and even kept a blog about her cases. That blog had caused this weird underground movement. People started following her and it became this huge thing.

Everyone who liked mysteries and thrillers knew about Frank James and Lou Parker but no one knew what they looked like.

Then James and Parker solved the murder of the century and suddenly everyone knew what they looked like. They’d also found out Frankie James was actually Francesca Lopez and Lou Parker was Lucille Lopez Valentine.

As a detective, Frankie used her charm and charisma to get the answers and confessions she needed for her cases.

That charm came across in her blog as well.

She’d laid it on thick with the hiker earlier and yet it had looked and sounded completely natural.

I’ve seen the way she handled the other alpha detectives and the way she handled me.

Frankie didn’t use her pheromones and yet she had this presence that demanded obedience. Her smile and wit made it feel like a suggestion though – like she’d be so happy if you did as she asked and there was just something about her that made it impossible to resist giving in.

It was an insidious skill and she didn’t exactly use it for good.

Not that I really cared.

What worried me though was this weird need to do more than make her happy. I wanted her to acknowledge me and admit I was a good fit for her – that I excelled at my job and could be a decent partner given time, but that wasn’t all.

I also wanted to taste every inch of her and get her to make a face that no one else got to see.

Even now I was just barely holding back.

The urge to yank her across the center console so I could hold her tight was prickling at my skin and the only reason I was able to sit here and ignore it was because she was injured. She wanted to go home and I’d be damned if I didn’t make that happen.

I could take her to the hospital tomorrow.

“You’re probably wondering about…what happened.”

I glanced over at her, surprised she’d bring it up on her own. “Kind of, but you’re also not obligated to explain.”

Frankie chuckled and I had no idea what she found so funny. She laughed at the weirdest things sometimes.

“You’re right,” she agreed. “You’re not entitled to an explanation, but I do feel bad you had to deal with all that.”

“Don’t feel that way.” I shook my head as I navigated through the quickest route to her apartment. “I’m working as your partner and that’s what partners should do for each other.”

“Is that how it is in the military?”

She was starting to ask me personal questions and I glanced over at her again, wondering what had changed.

Not that I wasn’t fucking ecstatic to finally have her attention, but I found it hard to trust things I didn’t understand.

“The people in your squad are really the only people you can trust,” I admitted. “I didn’t have to know them or like them to understand I’d always have their back and they’d have mine.”

“How does that work exactly?”

She was redirecting the conversation so it focused on me instead of her, like she was hoping the fact that she’d brought this up first meant we wouldn’t have to talk about it in depth. It was an interesting tactic and one I didn’t know how to use myself, but I’ve seen her do this a few times now.

“Training,” I explained. “Then experiencing traumatic events together.”

I knew she was aware of how the military used trauma bonding to their benefit. She had a psychology degree after all. So, why was she asking like she didn’t already know?

“Is that what happened to you?” I headed down her street and turned into the parking garage, not really expecting her to answer.

Frankie pointed out which parking spot was hers and I took note of the motorcycle in the other spot next to it with the same number on it. The helmet locked to it had cat ears on it.

I parked and turned off the engine, ready to get my backpack before taking her up to the apartment, but the way she looked at me made me pause and I waited for whatever it was she might say or do, holding my breath like one wrong move would spook her and I’d lose this chance to learn more about her.

“My training was a little different,” she murmured, dropping her eyes to the shark in her hands. “We learned how to control our instincts in any given situation and we learned how to be strong enough to survive.”

Survive what exactly?

If she was being literal earlier then someone had actually buried her alive. What the fuck was she supposed to learn from that?

“My father made sure we all knew how to be the kind of alpha he expected us to be, but he also trained us to survive any attempts someone might make to remove us from the running.” Frankie glanced over at me without moving her head, looking for some kind of reaction.

But I was just as good as she was at controlling my expression.

“In a legacy pack, the strongest and most powerful rules,” she explained, looking back down at the shark. “Sometimes it’s the direct descendent of the current alpha, but not always. It just happens that way more often than not.”

Unless the current alpha didn’t have an alpha child or that alpha child couldn’t control the members of the pack. I wasn’t a ‘real’ legacy alpha but even I knew that much.

“If we can figure out who’s stronger sooner rather than later, it prevents a lot of unnecessary bloodshed and drama,” she explained. “There aren’t spouses or children involved in our power struggles when we’re just teenagers, but I’m sure you know as well as I do that kids can be horrible, evil creatures.”

All those raging hormones and pheromones? Yeah. I knew. I’ve lived through it unfortunately.

“So, one of my cousins played a joke on me,” Frankie admitted. “Him and a few of my other cousins broke my leg and tossed me in a giant hole. Then they buried me in there. My father doesn’t know exactly what happened, but even if he had, he wouldn’t have done anything about it.”

My grip on the steering wheel tightened as unspeakable rage filled me.

I understood the life of a legacy was different, but this was his child . Would he really stand back and do nothing?

“I had to get out on my own or I could never be the alpha my pack needed.” Frankie smiled down at the shark and took its fins, pulling them apart to stretch the face. “There is no position quite as isolating as the pack alpha. So, if I can’t take care of myself, then I’ll never be able to take my father’s place. They’ll kill me before I’ve spent even a single day as the Lopez alpha. Because I’m weak .”

No matter how logical it was, I couldn’t wrap my head around the concept.

My squad was the closest thing I’ve ever had to a pack and that’s not how it had worked for us at all.

There was no clear leader other than our direct superior. We were assigned positions and sometimes they overlapped, but usually they didn’t.

All of us were trained to manage the basics of each job the others in the squad held, but only in an emergency. I couldn’t perform field surgery, but I could handle anything tech related. These differences forced us to rely on and protect each other. I needed my squad members to survive and they needed me.

I didn’t understand how a legacy pack could be so different when it was essentially the same thing.

“The alpha is only as strong as its weakest member,” I said as softly as I could so she wouldn’t see that statement as some kind of challenge. “If your job is to protect your pack, you have to rely on the others in that pack to help you.”

I studied her out of the corner of my eye, worried that might piss her off, but she was staring down at the shark like she couldn’t hear me.

“You can’t take care of them all by yourself,” I insisted. “To some degree, you have to trust the others to help you.”

“I guess that’s true.” Frankie shrugged one shoulder and she seemed oddly melancholy. “I just don’t trust anyone to do that really. I have to prove myself first.”

“How exactly are you supposed to do that?” I offered her the keys and did my best not to show how annoyed I was about all this.

“That’s the problem. I don’t really know.” Frankie gave me a quirky little half-smile and took her keys from my hand. “Thanks for dropping me off.”

Did she really think I was going to let her go up there by herself?

I grabbed my backpack and got out of the car, making it over to her door before she could get out. “Let me help you inside.”

“I can manage on my own.” She got out and closed the door, but I didn’t move from where I was standing and she bounced off of me.

Frankie looked up in surprise and I grabbed her arms again, but this time I managed not to shake the shit out of her.

“I’m sure you could manage on your own if you had to,” I agreed. “But I’m right here. Let me help you.”

She flinched and my grip on her tightened before I forced myself to release her.

“Please.” I knew this was starting to cross into forbidden territory, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted to help her. I needed to be useful to her.

“Fine.” Frankie waved her hand like I was being annoying. “Do whatever you want.”

Oh, that was definitely a dangerous thing to say.

I yanked my backpack and then scooped her up, heading for the elevator as I carried her in my arms instead of on my back.

“Soren!”

My lips twitched. I couldn’t help it. Her impotent rage and the way she kept saying my name was too fucking adorable and I wanted to grin like an idiot because it felt like I’d won something.

“You said I could do whatever I wanted,” I reminded her as I hit the button for the elevator.

“You’re so literal.” She held onto my neck, practically pouting, and the sudden urge to kiss her hit me like a truck.

Thankfully, I was saved by the elevator doors opening.

I stepped inside and bent down so she could press the right button for her floor. Frankie smashed it and then crossed her arms, looking anywhere but at me.

She was so fucking cute, I wanted to eat her right up.

How many other faces could I get her to make? How much would she let me get away with?

I was dying to find out.