Page 68 of Awakening

“What’s he doing here?” Nick asks.

I gesture to one of the chairs in front of my desk. “Have a seat, Austin.”

“I’d like to know that too. What the fuck am I doing here?” His voice is as cocky as ever, but he looks scared. Good.

Leaning back against the front of my desk, I ask him, “Would you like to tell me why Luna Newman had such an adverse reaction to you yesterday?”

He scowls with a shrug. “How the hell should I know?”

“What happened?” Nick asks. “How did she react?”

“Scared. Terrified, actually. She grabbed my arm and practically dug her fingernails into my skin.” Nick takes a wide stance above him, crossing his arms as I continue. “You said or did something. I suggest you tell me what it was before I have to fucking beat it out of you.”

“What are you going to do? Beat the shit out of me right here in your pretty office?”

“No, of course not. I don’t want to have to clean your blood off the leather. You know I have places for things like that.” I stand from my leaning stance and move closer to him. “Now, tell me what the fuck you said to her.”

“I’m telling the truth. I didn’t say a fucking word to her, other than what you were there to hear. I can’t help it if she’s fucking jumpy.”

“Did you ask Olivia?” Nick asks me.

“Yeah. She denied that anything else happened.”

“That’s because it didn’t,” Austin insists.

“Alpha, may I speak to you for a minute?” Lance asks. I nod and meet him across the room. “I know you don’t like him, and I agree that he probably said or did something shady, but if he and Olivia both say nothing happened, you can’t just go after him for the hell of it. Questioning is fine, but beyond that…well, you know the rules, and you know that they apply even more so to you as Alpha.”

I take a deep breath and sigh. “I know. Fuck. What’s his role within the security team now?”

“He’s on daytime border patrol. Do you want me to reassign him?”

“I don’t want him on anything that allows him to grant access in or out of the territory. Put him on night watch at the pack house.”

“Will do, Alpha. Should we release him now?”

“Yeah, let him go.”

“Time to go, Austin. Oh, and you’ve been demoted,” Lance says, walking over to escort him out. “You’ll be on night watch at the pack house until further notice.”

“What? Fucking pack house night watch? You can’t just demote me for no reason.”

“I’m the Alpha,” I say, getting chest to chest with him. “I can do whatever the fuck I want if I feel like it’s for the wellbeing of my pack.”

“Fuck you,” Austin says, curling up his lip, and turning to walk away from me.

I pull him back by his shoulder, and draw my arm back, feeling the bone of his jaw as it collides with my fist. He groans and drops to his knee momentarily. “Oh, look. I guess I will need to clean up a little of your blood,” I say, taking a tissue and wiping up a couple of blood spots that landed on the leather chair from his bleeding lip. “Get him out of here.” Lance pulls him up to his feet and releases him to Ben who will send him on his way out of my house.

“Well, that was interesting,” Nick says. “Do you think he’s telling the truth?”

“Fuck, no, but until I have further proof, that’s all I can do to him.”

“Okay,” Nick says. “What else is on the agenda this afternoon?”

“Well, I was able to collect surveillance camera footage from nearby businesses around the location of Olivia’s accident,” Lance says. “We know who was driving the car that hit her.”

“Good work, man,” Nick says. “Who was it?”

“It was Ian Sullivan,” Lance says.

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