Shadow of Doubt - Hailey Edwards Page 0,60
eye on her?”
“Yeah.” He took out his phone and sent a text. “Ares will be up in a minute.”
“Are you sure leaving her with a man is wise?”
“Ares is a woman.”
“Well alrighty then.” I led him to the elevator to wait on our relief and pitched my voice low. “How much of what she just said do you believe?”
“I can believe a warg pack thought bringing gwyllgi blood into their line was a good idea, but she didn’t say exactly how or why she ended up with them.” He mashed the button for the lobby again, but the car didn’t rise any faster. “There are packs who still drown babies who are born with deformities or with other imperfections. Psychological issues don’t always present themselves until the child is older. It’s not common anymore, but culling does happen when a pack member shows signs of madness.”
“The world is too small these days, thanks to technology, to risk exposure.”
“The world has always been too small to risk exposure.”
Me and my measly twenty-seven years couldn’t argue with him there.
“You think she was right to cull her children?”
Cull had a nicer ring to it than murder.
“We might look human at times, but we’re animals too. There will always be those among us who are more tame than wild, just as there will always be those who heed the whisper of instinct and do as it demands.”
“That was a long-winded way of saying you see where she’s coming from,” I pointed out.
“I wanted to avoid you looking at me the way you are now. A mentally ill human teen might turn a gun on their classmates at school, a mentally ill paranormal teen can slaughter entire towns before they’re caught. You can’t measure them with the same stick. Not if the true measure is protecting innocents—paranormal and normal.”
The elevator doors slid open, and a muscular woman with choppy brown hair joined us in the hall.
“Ares,” Ford greeted her. “We need you to keep an eye on Bonnie while we’re gone.”
“Sure thing.” She popped a bright pink bubble. “In or out?”
Seeing as it was my home, Ford let me decide, and I chose house arrest. “In.”
Ares blinked as if she hadn’t noticed me standing there until I spoke, and when she did look at me, she dropped her gaze to the carpet. “Apologies.”
“Not this again.” I rubbed my forehead. “You can look me in the eye. I don’t mind.”
“I can’t,” she said, and I could tell it irked her. “I would have to get Midas’s permission.”
“I’m confused.” I pinned Ford with a scowl. “How did she know? You witnessed, so I get that, but she just looked at me.”
“He marked you,” Ares answered. “I can smell it.”
Ford studied the wallpaper like the pattern contained the mysteries of the universe explained.
“He didn’t mark me.” I would remember that. “He looked me in the eye, recited some words, and left.”
Ares was less subtle. “Did he touch you at all?”
The imprint of his fingers was a heated memory on my skin, but I didn’t want to confess that to them.
“I touched him,” I admitted, remembering the futon incident. “With most of my upper body. I heard him moving around in my apartment and tackled him.”
“You tackled Midas? Midas Kinase?”
“Blue eyes, blond hair?” I held a hand high in the air. “About this tall.” I replayed it in my head. “I didn’t touch skin, though. Just his shirt. And his jeans. I was between his legs, so…maybe his boots?”
“Ford,” Ares blurted, shock plain in her tone.
“I know,” he said, hurt plain in his.
“Well, I don’t know.” I cornered Ares. “What are you talking about?”
“Gwyllgi take after wargs in a lot of ways.” Her posture screamed she wanted to run, but she stood her ground. “Wargs believe in soul mates, fated mates, life mates, whatever you want to call them. Not all gwyllgi do because fae are long-lived, and some prefer to find a soul mate per century versus one for eternity.”
“I’m not liking the direction this conversation is going.” I stepped back, bumping into Ford. “She’s not saying what I think she’s saying, is she?”
“Are you sure he didn’t touch you?” She dipped her head, breathing in. “Skin to skin? At all?”
Giving up on privacy, I told them the rest. “He grabbed me when I lost my temper.”
The only bodily fluid we had swapped was sweat, and that was more of a transference from him to me. After working in my apartment for hours, I wasn’t going to call