My mother was forcing herself to remain calm. Her words were as taut as guitar strings.
“While I appreciate you looking after my son,” she said, “I must respectfully ask you to return him to Larry Bisley at once.”
Elijah’s expression changed. His eyes widened and his mouth fell slightly open as his lips curled in distaste, like he’d smelled something rotten.
I drew closer to him, worried now. I craved the warmth of his contact. It was the only lifeline I had in this situation.
But Elijah seemed too distracted to actively comfort me. His brows knitted in anger and he gripped the phone harder.
“Did you sayBisley?” he growled.
My mother chirped snarkily in reply, like she was proud her accomplishments were finally being recognized. “Yes, that’s right. He’s the rightful mate to my son and I’m sure we can iron out any misunderstandings they--”
“Let me stop you right there,” Elijah snapped. “First of all, Felix isn’t some object I canreturnto anybody. He’s a living and breathing person, for god’s sake, which you apparently have trouble understanding.”
My jaw dropped.
But Elijah wasn’t done. “Second, if I’d known Bisley was the one responsible for dumping Felix on the street, I would have hunted him down and wrung his neck by now. You can sleep well knowing I’ll never let that--excuse my French--fuckingbastardanywhere near Felix ever again.”
My mother gasped. I even heard my father let out a sputtering noise of confusion in the background.
“Now that that’s settled, I hope we can both forget about this, cool off, and meet formally some day. Or not. It depends on Felix, who, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go spend some time with now. Goodbye.”
He hung up.
The laugh that burst out of me was half giddiness and half terrifying fear. Elijah had just sworn like a sailor and hung up on my parents. Not only that, but he’d insulted the alpha they had worked so hard to wrangle a relationship with and basically cut him off from my life for good.
“Sorry,” Elijah said with a huff and slicked back his hair. “Usually I can keep my cool better than that, but man, she made it difficult. No offense.”
“None taken,” I mumbled. “So . . .Are we gonna talk about what just happened?”
Elijah sighed. “Yeah. I guess we should.”
