The click-clack of the music exec’s no doubt designer heels stops, and I hear her shaky exhales before she whispers uncertainly, “Aurelia?”
Feeling my eyes overflow with grateful tears that she not only answered but remembers me, I wipe them away and smile. The dam was broken when I almost lost Seth, and now I can’t seem to stop. “Yeah… It’s me.”
After my phone call with Oni, the sheriff makes good on his promise and keeps me in custody. I also meet his wife, who is possibly the sweetest human I’ve ever met, and I’ve met Seth. She brings me a change of clothes, a hand-knitted blanket, and some of the lasagna she baked. The tiny woman really istoo sweet for the gruff, overbearing sheriff, who I will only grudgingly admit in secret isn’t so bad.
He doesn’t throw me in a cell like I expected. Sheriff Kelly treats me like the victim he believes me to be, escorting me into a small private room with a single twin bed, a small table, and a window shielded behind blinds. The door doesn’t even lock, but thanks to my mountain men, I know better than to think that means I can leave.
It dawns on me then that the sheriff isn’t just being thorough.
He still believes what I confessed in the dell.
I have to put my game face on because I know he’ll do whatever it takes to ease his conscience.
The night bleeds into the morning, but the sheriff doesn’t question me again. Instead, he escorts me into a conference room where a woman wearing a pantsuit and blue-rimmed glasses with her hair styled in a sleek bun waits for me on a chair placed before an empty sofa.
“Hello,” she greets cheerfully the moment we enter. Standing, she steps forward and offers a hand. “I’m Dr. Watts, and you must be Aurora.”
At first, I assume she simply pronounced my name wrong until the sheriff catches my eye and he nods.
Okay, so he gave the doctor my alias the guys thought up for whenever I visit town, but why?
I look the doctor up and down like she’s here to torture me rather than help me. “I’m not injured.”
“Well, that’s good to hear since I’m not that kind of doctor.” Dr. Watts laughs like she told a hilarious joke.
Meanwhile, I feel a deep stab of betrayal and annoyance when I catch on to what kind of doctor she must be. The sheriff clears his throat and has the good sense to look guilty.
“I called her and arranged this appointment after our interview yesterday.”
“You mean the interrogation?”
Ignoring that, he plows on. “Dr. Watts is a trauma counselor. I think she can help us both.”
“Also, I’d like to make it clear that I’m not here to offer an official diagnosis, as I have explained to the sheriff here that I can’t guarantee an accurate one within the strict timeframe I’ve been given.” Her friendly mask drops a little, revealing some of her frustration at the time constraint, but then she recovers just as quickly and is back to beaming.
“Three sessions,Aurora,” the sheriff pleads. “If you want me to send you back up that mountain, you’ll give me three sessions. If you still want to go with them come Monday morning, I promise this will be the end of it.”
“Sounds…fair.”
After all, I don’thaveStockholm syndrome, so what do I really have to fear?
“Please…sit.” Dr. Watts reclaims her seat before waving toward the couch four feet away. Reluctantly, I sink onto the sofa, but the megawatt smile the good doctor flashes only serves to make my stomach roll. “Great!” When she leans in, I feel like I’m already under a microscope. “Let’s get started.”
Nodding, I suck in as much air as I can and slowly release it all in one shuddering breath. It feels like I’m going to war for them—Thorin, Khalil, and…Zeth.
But if war is what it will take, then so be it.
THORIN
Zeke isn’t the only one ready to chew his own arm off to be free by the time Monday morning rolls around. This is the longest I’ve gone without seeing my wolf since the day we found her sleeping in Khalil’s bed and it’s all I can do not to reach between the bars and grab the sheriff by the throat when he finally shows his face some time around noon.
I don’t hold his gaze for long before my attention drops to either side of him before looking behind him, searching for my fix of glowing brown skin, outrageous curves, and golden curls.
But she’s not there.
She’snot fucking there.
Flying off the hard bench that’s been my bed for three nights and startling Khalil awake as I go, I wrap my hands around the bars instead of the sheriff’s neck like I want to. “Where is she?” I demand before the sheriff can speak.
