“It’s okay,” Cash said gently, offering a little smile. “I’d like to talk to him.” He turned back to Aleks. “Come on.”
This was fucking crazy. I was just letting Cash, a werewolf who hadalmost diedafter getting rejected by his pack, walk deeper into my home with one of the people responsible.
Maybe Aleks wasn’t directly to blame for what had happened to him, but he hadn’t stopped it. He hadn’t been there to put Cash back together.
“I don’t fucking like this,” I growled under my breath.
Beside me, Dakota only hummed, and I looked down to find him scowling, as if he’d found something to dislike about all this too.
30
Dakota
Poor Jax was so unsettled by everything that he was being clumsy and unobservant, which was out of character for him. He was seeing the world in terms of enemies and dependents, and wasn’t able to see the myriad shades of gray in us all. The fact that Jillian was checking out Aleks like he was a cool drink of water, the fact that Cash clearly wanted the man to jump on him... and the fact that Kent had stood up and turned around so that Aleks couldn’t see him as he walked into the house.
I couldn’t blame Jillian, even if I only had eyes for her brother. The arrogant wolf was really impressive. Something about that devil-may-care smile was eye-catching, and that and the tousled blond curls managed to make him endearing instead of just arrogant and douchey. Well, that and the fact that he’d gone out of his way to help us, more than once.
Cash wasn’t my business, or, I suspected, my concern. I didn’t think he had any more intention of staying with us than he was forced to. If Grant remained alpha, then yeah, he was screwed. Otherwise? I suspected Cash would be making a beeline right back to Idaho.
Kent, though . . . Kent was something else.
Kent was what had me heading downstairs to the security office first thing the next morning when I got to the Crescent Building.
It was funny, when I met him, I had thought Seth terrifying.
He was tall, and heavily muscled, and quiet, and those things all made me nervous. Sure, Jax was two out of three of those things too, but he’d managed to put my nerves to bed by talking to me right away. And also treating me like I was sexy, and precious, and more interesting than anyone else he’d ever met.
Then there’d been all the amazing sex.
So it had taken me a bit longer to warm to Seth, but in the end, warm I did. Because Seth was one of the only people I knew other than myself who was entirely dedicated to pack security.
I didn’t know why he was so interested in taking care of the pack, but for me, it had been inevitable. My parents had been murdered when I was a baby. I had nearly been killed by my cousin. My supposed best friend had been betraying me for most of our acquaintance. I saw threats around every corner, and I wanted to make sure they didn’t hurt my pack.
The problem was that this time, I was pretty sure the threat wasn’t from outside.
Grant had said he wasn’t responsible for poisoning Jax, and he’d been telling the truth... to some degree. His hands hadn’t been the ones to put the poison into Jax’s cup. But it had gotten into our building somehow, and there had to be a way for us to find out how.
That was what brought me to Seth.
We were back at the office that day, Jax unwilling to completely “throw off the whole pack’s schedule over such a small thing as me taking a too-long nap.”
Too-long nap my ass.
Seth looked up at me as I entered the security office, and he was already in front of a panel of televisions. I knew what he waslooking at, because it was exactly what I’d come to ask about. So instead of telling him what I wanted, I asked, “Comings and goings from Jax’s office?”
He glanced up at me, then back to the screens, nodding. “There’s got to be something,” he said, scowling hard at the feed in front of him. “Some hint.”
“I have a hint,” I told him, closing the office door behind me and heading over to sit on the chair next to his.
He picked up a remote and started pressing buttons, pausing each of the three feeds he’d been watching, all different angles of the entrance to Jax’s office. When he was done, he turned to give me his full attention.
Again, something that would have terrified me once, but now? I just knew that Seth’s unwavering attention meant that he thought whatever I had to say would be worth listening to.
Behind me, Kosuke made himself known for the first time in a while. “He reminds me of my second. A strong, solid sort of mage. Never let me down.”
It was the first time he had ever immediately offered something kind about a wolf, and frankly, I wanted to reward that kind of behavior, so I turned to look at him. “I agree. That’s exactly the kind of man Seth is.”
When I turned back to him, Seth was raising an eyebrow, but he didn’t ask.
