But he didn’t say a word. Instead, he gave her a nod and headed for the door, his face an expressionless mask. That was ten times worse than anything he could have said to her.
“See you tomorrow morning?” she asked as he turned the knob.
He hesitated for a moment but didn’t look back at her. “Yeah, I’ll be here.”
Then he was out the door and gone, leaving Alina feeling like ten pounds of crap as she wandered over and collapsed on the couch beside Molly. Her fur baby put her head on Alina’s lap with a sigh, as if she completely understood what Alina was going through.
“What the hell am I going to do, girl?” she whispered. “I was hired to figure out if Trevor was a bad guy, but right now, I’m the only one betraying anybody.”
Molly lifted one brow, then the other, apparently as torn as her human happened to be. Clearly, there wouldn’t be any advice coming from her canine companion.
Alina sat there caressing Molly’s fur and trying to figure out what the heck she was going to do. She’d spent the past three years hating Wade for betraying her team, and yet here she was, doing the same thing. No, she hadn’t gotten anybody killed, but she still felt like crap on a stick.
She was still staring restlessly at the wall when she heard her phone ringing from nearby. It took her a moment to remember she’d tossed her little purse on the couch when she and Trevor had come in. She looked around and realized that Molly was lying on it.
After yanking the purse from under her, Alina dug out her phone, hoping it was Trevor. But it wasn’t her partner. It was Dick.
Alina groaned. She’d completely forgotten Dick said he wanted updates from her every night. Her thumb hovered over the green button, but she just couldn’t tap it. Between kissing Trevor, confirming Thorn’s involvement in the bombing, seeing their witness to that fact die right in front of them, then discovering Dick had sent men to harass Seth, there was no way in hell she was going to tell her new boss anything.
She let the call go to voice mail, then stood. She was exhausted and needed to get cleaned up before going to bed. She doubted she’d get much sleep, but she might as well try.
“Come on, Molly. Let’s get ready for bed. If nothing else, at least I can watch you sleep.”
* * *
Tanner wasn’t sure if the preseason football game he was watching on the TV in his DCO dorm room was happening in real time or whether it was a replay. Considering it was nearly one in the morning, it had to be the latter. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like he was paying attention to the game anyway. As usual, he was thinking about Zarina.
He ran his hand through his mane of dark-blond hair and took another long drink from his fourth bottle of Mountain Dew for the night. While there were no bars on the windows or padlocks on the door of his small efficiency apartment, he was as much a prisoner here as Sage was in her cell. The only difference was that his imprisonment was self-imposed. He could walk away at any time, but for reasons he was only now starting to explore, he stayed here surrounded by people who considered him to be little more than a monster.
At first, he’d told himself it was so he could get a handle on the hybrid rages that happened whenever he got angry. To be truthful, he’d succeeded in that. Until this most recent slipup with Sage, he hadn’t lost it in months. But instead of leaving, he’d convinced himself if he stayed a little longer, Zarina might actually find a way to rid him of his animal side. It was a long shot, but it allowed him to justify staying.
Staring at the TV now, his mind a thousand miles away from the football game, he finally admitted it wasn’t his control issues or the cure for them that kept him here. It was Zarina. And the fact that he loved her so much it hurt.
Tanner took another swig of soda and glanced at the big throw pillow Zarina liked to hug when she curled up on the couch and watched TV with him. While their nightly get-togethers were frequent, no one would call them dates. But he enjoyed the time they spent together, even if all they did was talk about football and why anyone would play a game where the men in the prison-stripe uniforms were throwing their hankies on the ground all the time—Zarina’s words, not his. It was fun and casual and made him feel like he was a normal guy.
He was anything but normal, though. It was about time for him to accept that and move on with his so-called life, so Zarina could move on with hers. And he needed to do it sooner rather than later.
He was still considering that when he heard footsteps outside his door. For a crazy half second, he thought it was Zarina. His heart beat faster at the possibility, but then his hybrid instincts took over, calculating the weight of the person from the heavy thud of their footfalls and their height by the interval in between strides. It was a tall man, wearing dress shoes. A moment later, he picked up Trevor’s scent.
Tanner was off the couch and across the room before Trevor could even knock. As he opened the door, he was about to point out it wasn’t a good idea for people to see them together, but one glance at the coyote shifter’s face, and he changed his mind. The guy looked like shit.
He took in the suit Trevor wore, his nose wrinkling at the whiff of fresh blood coupled with the subtle flowery scent of a woman’s perfume.
“Nice fashion statement, dude,” Tanner remarked as Trevor walked in. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone wear a suit without a shirt. I’m pretty sure it’s not going to catch on.”
Trevor didn’t answer but simply flopped down on the couch.
“I’d offer you something alcoholic, because you sure as hell look like you could use it,” Tanner said, closing the door. “But Zarina thinks it’s a bad idea to mix hybrid and booze. So the best I can do is a Mountain Dew.”
“That’s fine,” Trevor said.
Tanner grabbed two bottles of soda from the fridge, then handed one to Trevor before taking a seat on the other couch. When he’d first come to the DCO, he and Trevor rarely crossed paths, mostly because Trevor and his counterespionage team had always been on missions. Since John’s death, they’d both committed themselves to helping their friends who’d been implicated in his murder as well as finding the real killer, so they’d become friends in addition to allies.
“Shitty night?” Tanner asked.
He knew Trevor had gone to Baltimore to look for a person who might have info on the bomb that killed John but not much more than that.
“You could say that.” Trevor opened the bottle of soda and downed half of it in a few big gulps. “I had the guy who made the bomb right in my hands. He came out and admitted Thorn paid him to make the device and deliver it to the visitor’s center at the main gate of the DCO on the morning of the explosion.”
