“I know. He’s been all over my clothes and he showered with my shampoo.” I gestured one-handed toward the wet footprints leading from the bathroom. “Can you get him to stand up?”
“No.” Gravity echoed in her voice as Robyn’s gaze narrowed on me. “He doesn’t smell like your clothes or your shampoo. He smells like you. That ribbon of his infector’s scent braided through his isyou, Titus.”
ELEVEN
Robyn
“What?”Titus crossed the floor toward us as if shock had obliterated any trace of the Alpha’s typical caution.
Corey Morris scooted away from him frantically, but Titus dropped into a squat at his side. He inhaled deeply, and his bearing changed in an instant. Tension tightened his entire body until I worried that his muscles would snap, like cords under too much pressure. “That’s not possible.”
“So you didn’t infect him? Then why does he smell like you?” I inhaled again, to verify what my nose was already sure of. “Why is he tearing up your clothes and showering to try to scrub your scent off himself?”
Titus moved slowly away from Corey, and I could see no sign that he’d even heard me. His eyes were wide and uncomprehending, his forehead furrowed, as if his features couldn’t decide whether to look shocked or confused.
“Titus?” I reached for him, but he stepped back. “What’s going on? Did you do this to him?”
His phone buzzed from his pocket and he blinked as he pulled it out, as if he’d just woken up from a long nap. “Drew and Knox are heading home. I need you to take Morris to the basement while I clean this up.” His gaze followed the trail of footprints.
“Titus, what’s happening?” I whispered, while Corey watched us warily from several feet away.
“Get him to the basement,” he repeated, and his expression was suddenly as featureless as a concrete wall. He’d thrown a shield over his thoughts and shut me out. “Now.” Then he disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door.
“Okay.” My heart pounded, not from exertion, but in sympathy and synchronicity with the stress Titus was emitting like radiation from a cracked reactor.
As if he were my Alpha.
Despite the evidence, Titus seemed to have no idea why Corey Morris carried an unmistakable, if faint trace of his scent.
“Come on, Corey, let’s get you to bed.” I gave him my hand and was relieved when he let me help him up.
“What’s going on, Robyn?” he asked as I looped my arm through his and guided him toward the hall.
“I’m not sure. But Iamsure that this isn’t what it looks like.” It couldn’t be. Titus wascompletelyshocked by Corey’s post-shift scent.
I escorted Corey down the stairs, through the kitchen and into the guesthouse, inhaling deeply through my nose, hoping with each breath to discover that I’d been mistaken. That he wasn’t really carrying Titus’s scent.
But he was. He couldn’t escape it, and neither could I.
I got Corey to rest on the bed in his cell, and while I was pouring him a glass of water from the pitcher in the fridge, the front door squealed open upstairs. Boots clomped on the steps, and I was surprised to realize I could already recognize the cadence of Titus’s footsteps.
“I need you to go get Drew from the main house,” Titus whispered. “Just Drew. Do you understand?”
I nodded, though I understood little of what was happening.
I found Drew in the kitchen with Knox, Spencer, and Brandt, brewing a pot of coffee. I tossed my head toward the door I’d just come through without breaking eye contact, and Drew followed me out onto the patio.
“Titus needs to see you. But only you,” I whispered, when Brandt’s focus followed us through the kitchen window.
Drew took off down the tiled walkway leading around the pool, leaving me to follow.
In the basement of the guest house, Drew followed his Alpha’s focus to Corey Morris, who sat on his bed, his wary gaze trained on Titus. “What—”
“It’s his scent.” Titus no longer looked confused. His voice was low and steady. He sounded…resigned to some inevitability I couldn’t yet understand.
Drew stepped into the cage and approached the new stray carefully. He inhaled deeply through his nose, then he coughed, practically choking on the scent in shock. “Titus…” he turned to face his Alpha, eyes wide. “What the hell happened? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s not what it looks like. Er…what it smells like,” I said, and Drew turned to me with one brow raised. “Titus didn’t do this.”
