“It’s so funny! We just happened to be on the same flight and I spent the whole time explaining your work to him. I figured since you were giving me a tour of your lab, you wouldn’t mind giving him one as well.”
“Sorry to intrude,” Kaz rumbled, eyes still on the camera, “but I just couldn’t help myself. Your experiments sound very… interesting.”
Norman’s voice took on a strained quality. “I don’t normally let strangers into my lab. You know that, babe.”
Babe?Kaz wondered if he could crack a molar if he clenched his jaw too hard.
“It’s just me, Norm,” Atria soothed. “You know I’d never bring someone untrustworthy around, but if it really bothers you, we can put it off until after the conference. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to visit again, but—”
“Ah, no! It’s fine. Just— give me a second. I’ll be right there.”
He and Atria shared a look as the line went dead.
Kaz sidled closer to her and fought the impulse to sling his arm around Atria’s shoulders. As much as he wanted to stake his claim on her, it was smarter to keep both hands free and to not antagonize the man until Kaz knew exactly what he was capable of.
Babe.The word stuck in his brain like a burr. It was both overly familiar and saccharine. It would have been bad enough on its own, but the more certain he became that Norman was dangerous, the more disgust he felt about the nickname.
To call herbabein one breath and sell her out in the next was not simply gross. It was a wrong he intended to see rectified. Forcefully.
ChapterTwenty-Three
A minute stretched into two.With every second, he became more agitated, his skin prickling with the urge to run.
Speaking quietly, he asked, “How big is the lab?”
Atria seemed to understand what he was asking. “Notthatbig. It’s a converted hardware supply store. He bought it a few months after we broke up and showed me the blueprints. It only has four rooms.”
The feeling of being watched, thatwrongness,had Kaz reaching for his gun just as the door swung open. He froze, fingers curled by his hip, and took in Atria’s ex with cool disdain.
The man in the doorway was tall and leanly muscled, with shortly cropped blond hair, patchy stubble, and rumpled clothing. He was boyish, perhaps passingly handsome, and at least to Kaz’s eyes, entirely unremarkable.
He was also visibly nervous, his cheeks flushed and his forehead glistening with a thin sheen of sweat. “Atria!” he gasped, gripping one side of the door frame with white-knuckled fingers. “It’s so good to see you. I was worried something had— happened.”
Kaz slowly lowered his arm back into a resting position. Just as it settled against his side, he felt Atria’s slim fingers curl around the belt loop over his hip. She gave it one tiny, urgent tug.
Something’s wrong.
At the same time, she said, “Norm! It’s so good to see you. I’m sorry you were so worried, but you know how it gets when travel goes haywire.” Her voice was soothing, like she worried that speaking any faster or with more energy might scare the man off.
Going by his twitchiness, Kaz didn’t think the concern was unfounded.
Norman’s eyes, bloodshot and a little puffy, darted down to where Atria’s fingers curled around his belt loop. A little bit of his nervousness vanished. Tone sharpening, he said, “This must be Karl.”
Kaz held his narrow-eyed gaze. “That’s me.”
Atria shifted close enough for her clothing to touch his side. Laying her hand on Kaz’s arm, she leaned forward and said, “He’s not a scientist, but he loves cars. He’s— he’s really great with them. We got to talking about your droids and he asked if he could take a look. That’s okay, right?”
Norman’s gaze moved back to her. He licked his lips, and Kaz saw a flash of raw longing in his expression before he quickly hid it behind an imperious little sniff. “Of course. Thoughmymachines are nothing like something as simple as a vehicle.”
“That’s what I told him,” she replied, offering a winning smile. “Your machines are a work of art.”
Kaz did not growl at the way the scrawny scientist’s eyes lit up when they fixed on his mate, nor how he puffed up with pride when she complimented his work. There was too much avid interest in his expression to sit well with him inanysituation.
If he felt the claws of instinct raking his psyche when the damn vampire looked at her on the plane, it was a thousand times worse whenthispiece of trash laid his eyes on her.
Kaz didn’t need Atria’s abilities to know that, whatever else was going on, Norman Chambers still wanted his mate. Badly.
Badly enough to have her kidnapped?It sure looked like it to him.
