She snarled, then sprang away, running for the woods. The moon’s glow made her look ethereal, and he found himself looking forward to the next time he would see her.
He picked up her discarded clothes from the ground, gently brushed off the gravel, then returned to the Tesla.
9
Nora drove to Nashville Monday morning. When she returned home, the lights in her house were on. She’d turned every one of them off before she left, but it wasn’t unusual for pack mates to stop by. This was a secluded area, surrounded by trees, the perfect place to stop after letting their wolves run wild. She had a trunk full of extra clothes waiting by the door for them to change into if needed.
But it wasn’t just a normal pack mate inside. She felt her father’s dominating presence before she reached her porch. She entered the living room, crossed it, then found him in her study, sitting in her chair.
He placed stapled papers on a stack of manila folders. “How was your trip?”
If he was simply her alpha, she wouldn’t have cared that he’d gone through her things without permission. She was a werewolf, and instinct drove her to serve and support the head of the pack.
“Short,” she snapped.
He stared, and the air in the room became heavy.
Nora clenched her jaw. Lowered her gaze. Dealing with her father was always complicated.
She reached into her shoulder bag, took out a fat envelope, and dropped it on the table. “Twenty thousand. I told Tim you’ll send Blake if it happens again.”
He didn’t touch the money. “You can’t handle it?”
“If you want him dead, yes.” Acid leaked into her voice, but her father had taken a swipe at her pride. Tim wouldn’t test Blake like he did her. Because she was a naturally born werewolf, some idiots outside her pack wanted to see if she was as lethal as they were. They learned the hard way that she was.
“It’s unusual for him to be late,” Lehr said. “Did you sense anything?”
“Irritation. He doesn’t want to pay the tithe.”
“It’s his choice.”
Right. Tim could choose not to pay, and her father would choose not to let him or his wolves into his territory. They wouldn’t get access to The Rain, so if one of Tim’s wolves became moonsick, he would be shit out of luck.
Lehr picked up the envelope and slid out the stack of money. “Deposit this into the Brandt account. Then I want you to contact Defense Security and make an offer.”
She raised an eyebrow. “DefenSec is for sale?”
“They finally cracked.”
“Do the vampires know?” she asked. Arcuro had been positioning to take over DefenSec for almost a year. The company’s cameras monitored a good portion of downtown Knoxville, including the Market Square and convention center. With tourists and businessmen and women passing through the area, it was a prime location for vampires to feed without having to worry about reencountering their victims. But the cameras were an annoyance all paranorms had to work around. If Arcuro bought DefenSec, that problem would go away.
If the pack bought it? Well, Arcuro would have to ask Lehr to erase any evidence of violence.
Her father continued to study her, and then he sniffed. It wasn’t unusual, a werewolf scenting for something, but had it been triggered by her question? Surely not. It had been almost a week since she’d been with Jared on the roadside. Her father wouldn’t smell the vampire. If she wasn’t careful though, if she let down her walls, he might glimpse Jared’s image in her mind.
She held his gaze and kept her mental walls up.
“You’ve been unhappy,” he finally said.
She wanted to bite out an of course. Instead, she said nothing. He knew exactly what was bothering her.
“Spend more time with the pack.”
“That’s not a solution.”
“You’re separating yourself from us. Blocking us.”
He said it like she was at fault, like she was the one creating her own unhappiness. “You’ve separated me from the pack.”
