He looked her in the eye. “No, I can see it’s not. So where is she?”
She shrugged. “It’s a great big world out there, Knox. All kinds of places she could be.”
Okay, she wasn’t going to answer him. At least, not yet.
He turned and stalked out of the house, praying that none of the neighbors were looking out the window right now – it was two in the afternoon, after all – and grabbed a spare uniform, his belt, and his cell phone. He walked into the foyer and shut the door behind him. Then he quickly called his pack and told them to come get Norbert’s body.
“What the hell?” Clarence demanded. “This is going to cause all kinds of trouble for us. Kevin’s not going to take this well.”
“I gave Norbert very specific orders not to harm Heather, and he went straight for her throat. I am an Alpha. Disobey an Alpha, get your throat ripped out,” he growled. “If Kevin has a problem with it, I’m more than happy to challenge him. I could rip his pussy ass in two, and he knows it.”
“Yeah, but not his dad,” Clarence said grimly. “And that’s who Kevin’s going to run yipping and howling to.” It was true. Kevin wasn’t even a true Alpha; the only reason he was leading a pack at all was because of who his father was. It had been a mistake for Eugene to indulge Kevin for as long as he had; a weak wolf had no right to be a leader, and would cause nothing but trouble.
“Just send the clean-up crew,” Knox said with annoyance, and hung up.
He went back into the kitchen, to find Heather in there making coffee, ignoring the enormous dead wolves on the floor.
“I was afraid you’d run off,” he said as he stepped into his pants. She blushed and looked away.
“Run off where? You could outrun me,” she said, which unsettled him. Was she afraid of him?
“You know I’d never hurt you,” he said.
“There’s a lot I don’t know about you, Knox,” she said, setting a cup of coffee down in front of him. “For instance, how do you take your coffee? You know how I take mine, but I don’t know how you like yours.”
“That’s because I pay attention when I care about something, or someone,” he said, grabbing the cup. “I like mine black.”
Then he glanced at the dead wolf. “You’re handling this very well.”
“Two years as an E.M.T., almost a year in the E.R.,” she said. “If I fell apart whenever there was an emergency, I wouldn’t be in this field.”
He nodded, taking a sip of coffee, and despite himself, his wolf was taking notice of how well she was doing with this disaster dropped at her feet. She was strong. She was compassionate. She’d be a perfect Alpha’s mate…
“Let’s go sit in the living room,” she said. “I don’t actually want to drink my coffee next to their dead bodies.”
They walked into the small living room, furnished in a needlepoint-and-country-cottage style that somehow didn’t seem like her. The furniture must have come with the house, he thought.
There was a faintly familiar scent in the air, but he was too distracted to try to figure out who it might be just now.
“How much did Margaret tell you about me and my kind?” he asked her.
She settled down onto the overstuffed sofa. “Not that much.”
He sat down on the couch with her. “We’ve always been around, which is where the werewolf legends come from, but we’ve always managed to keep our existence hidden. There’s no telling how most people might react if they knew about us.”
He took a long sip of coffee, and then set the cup down on the coffee table. He turned to look at her, his heart pounding in his chest. How would she react to what he was about to say?
He’d prayed for so long to get a chance to tell her, and now that he finally could, he felt ice-cold fear washing over him. He cleared his throat and forced himself to speak, his lips feeling oddly numb. “When I first saw you, I knew that you were meant for me. We have the concept of a fated mate – and you are mine.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. But she didn’t protest. That was a good thing, wasn’t it?
“But when I scented that you were human,” he continued, “I was devastated. Pack law strictly forbade me revealing who I am, and how could I ask you out with a secret like that hanging over me?”
“I saw you sniffing me and you looked…disappointed. I thought I must smell bad or something,” Heather said, looking hurt.
“Are you kidding? You smelled like heaven. I wanted you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life – but I knew that I couldn’t have you. That’s why I ran off. That’s why I avoided you even after you moved here.” Then he gave her a puzzled look. “Why did you move here?”