Maybe a little too eager, Dominic moved past her to hurry toward the kitchen to make that coffee. She let him go, appreciative of the space. A second too late, she realized that the way her laptop had been left positioned on the card table, there was no way he wouldn’t see the screen. She still had all of the internet tabs open, all the websites about werewolves and shifters.
She gasped and darted after him, but it was too late. Dominic came to a complete halt between the kitchen and breakfast nook, and his gaze fell to the laptop. She ran past him to snap the laptop shut, but his hand fastened around her wrist, his stare fixed on the open webpage. Terror streaked through her.
“I swear, I’m not crazy.” She cringed.
Caught red-handed, she watched Dominic lean closer to take the wireless mouse. One by one, he clicked through the open tabs, taking only a moment to read the contents before he moved on to the next. She refused to look up and see his expression; she stared at his hand fastened over her wrist in a secure but careful grip.
Then he navigated to the picture previewer that she had never closed. She regretted that she had taken the time to finally upload the photos from the festival. His face appeared on thescreen, complete with golden eyes. She cursed herself for being so careless as not to close the laptop before answering the door in the first place.
“I can explain,” she whispered.
That mask, the one that he wore when he met Officer Spradley at the door, the one he had when he ditched her last night after their kiss, the one that was featured so transparently in the picture on her computer, fell back into place, and it frightened her. But there was a slight difference behind those blue eyes that she hadn’t seen before. It was a calculating, thoughtful component that begged her to wait so he could properly process what he had just seen.
The seconds ticked by as she held her shaking breaths until he slowly released her wrist, straightened, and walked toward the kitchen. Dominic didn’t say a word as he fumbled around and found the coffee, filters, and a mug to start a pot for them.
Erica dropped into the chair. “I know I took that picture without your permission, and I shouldn’t have, but when you walked away yesterday at the festival, I… I don’t know. I was being nosy, I guess, and—”
“No one can blame you for being curious.” His tone was disturbingly detached.
Oh God. Was this it? Were they going to finally drag this secret into the light?
“I didn’t know what to make of it, and I wasn’t even going to bring it up, but then Wyatt said something about wolves.”
She was ready to keep blabbering about how paranoid she became after that photo session, but Dominic turned to her, nostrils flared and eyes blazing. “Wyatt was talking about werewolves?”
His sudden aggression startled her, and she scrambled for the words. “He… He talked about your family and howTolstone was founded. He mentioned that your family could be werewolves, so—”
Dominic let out the same sound that she had heard the other night. Over the constant rain hitting the porch roof, she heard him growl. Low and deep. It shut her up real quick.
He slammed the carafe under the dispenser. “That bastard didn’t have the right to tell you anything.” The coffee maker slowly began to percolate, boiling the water in the plastic tank. Under his breath, he muttered curses at Wyatt. Something about carelessness. Going behind his back.
“So… It’s true?” she asked, her voice just barely audible, but Dominic obviously heard every slowly articulated word.
Chapter Thirteen
Dominic braced himselfagainst the counter and stared at the freshly painted green backsplash behind the coffee maker. He knew he should have minded his own business. He shouldn’t have looked at her screen, and he certainly shouldn’t have opened that picture. How could he have been so careless? Even Hank had told him that he was standing too close to the mouth of the alley when they scolded Brady, a member of Wyatt’s pack, for harassing one of the human teachers at the festival.
The damage was done. She took the picture and allowed Wyatt’s recklessness to affect her. Wyatt would have sensed the mating bond in her and was likely probing to see how much more she knew. Well, he had his answer if she didn’t play along with his little scheme. Now she knew about shifters, or at least thought she knew. If he allowed her to go on believing those articles that talked about monsters and bloodthirsty beasts of myth and legend, he would have done his race a disservice. Then again, if he told her everything about Tolstone and his pack, would that be just as dangerous as not telling her?
Dominic took a breath. “It’s true.”
He half expected her to scream, to run out of the house, or faint. Erica did none of those things. Her silence alarmed him enough to finally turn and see the thoughtful, curious expression that gave him hope. Her face didn’t pale, and her heartbeat rose a little in tempo, but that was to be expected.
At first, he thought she was way too calm. If it had been anyone else, his instincts would have screamed at him to throw up his guard and question whether she was associatedwith hunters. Anyone who’d just heard that werewolves and other shapeshifters were real wouldn’t have been so placid. But Dominic knew her. Erica wasn’t the person to fly into hysterics, and whatever emotions she concealed, she kept them to herself.
He did, however, want her to say something. Anything. Even if it was a question or an insult. Anything was better than this deafening silence, while a storm raged outside.
“Is it just you?”
That was logical to ask, and Dominic shook his head.
“How many more? In general, I mean.”
Dominic wished he could have given her a solid number, an exact figure, but that was totally unknown, even to him. He knew there were thousands in the United States alone, but in the world, it was impossible to estimate. “Way too many to ever count.”
He saw her throat work out the new question. “In Tolstone?”
That, he knew. It was his job to know. “Twenty-three. Within a week or so, we’ll have ten more.”
