Page 88 of Never Submit

“He’s afraid I’ll taint his wolves,” Mathis says casually. He sticks his head underneath the faucet again.

“How is the interrogation going?” Torin asks.

“It would be better if I had another alpha there to share the load.”

“Seems to me you’ve managed well enough before now. You shouldn’t need my assistance, outside of the room I’ve lent you.”

Mathis presses his hand to his chest mockingly. “Be still my fucking heart, such generosity.”

He’s exhausted, I can tell. He hides it well, but there’s always been a connection between me and the dark-haired alpha, strange as it is. From the first night he walked into Rudy’s to get me out of trouble, I felt something.

The lines around his eyes are deeper, the brown irises darker, and his face haggard.

“It’s not going well, is it?” I ask softly.

Mathis shakes his head a single time. “Andras has his men trained well. They are like traps with steel teeth waiting to clamp down on me if I make a wrong move.”

Torin leans back against the island countertop, his armscrossed over his chest. “So it’s a good thing you’ve got your puppy on a leash with you.” Heat rolls off of him in waves.

I grab the whisk again. “What’s to stop Andras from coming here to get this dude back?”

“They wouldn’t dare.”

“You’d better watch how you boast,” Mathis warns Torin. “You never know what could happen.”

Torin bristles at being questioned. “Look, a delta isn’t worth much. I’m sorry.” He says that for me although he’s not looking in my direction. “Andras sent out his grunts to track Ren. He’s not going to miss them.”

“You don’t know that because you don’t speak for him. Andras is sneaky,” Mathis argues.

“A man who is bound with silver while your beta systematically tears him apart may not be willing to part with the full truth. He’ll tell you what you want to hear,” Torin offers the comment as he checks his cufflinks. “I see everything that goes on in this place. The delta is managed. End of discussion.”

“Watching us through your security feeds, then?” Mathis mimics Torin’s posture, crossing his arms with a smirk. “Hopefully I’ve put on a good show for you and taught you a little something about how things are done.”

“Enough.” I sigh, bending over the bowl. “Enough, guys. This is ridiculous.”

“Sweetheart, this is foreplay,” Mathis says casually. “Surely you understand that by now.”

Torin waves a hand flippantly at Mathis’s blood-stained shirt. “It’s friendly banter,” he explains with a snide grin.

Mathis chuckles. “Right. It means nothing.”

Something like awareness prickles along my spine and pulls me up short. “Maybe it’s not nothing.”

Is it about the two of them? Is it something going on inthis kitchen that has me setting the bowl aside and sliding onto my feet? Glancing around like the kitchen isn’t safe anymore?

My stomach dips, my head whirring. I glance at Flora but she only shrugs and turns back to her souffle.

“What’s wrong?” Mathis is on instant alert. “Ren?”

I shake my head, a splinter of pain starting at the base of my spine. “I’m not sure. But something is happening.”

Torin is gruff and unyielding as he reaches for something in his back pocket. “Nothing is going on. I’d know.” He whips out his cell, unlocking the screen. “See?”

His security feed is grainy black-and-white and every shade of gray in between, and it shows Noble and Dax with the blond delta.

Torin quickly changes the screen to a different feed, this one the living room, then the empty dining room, our supper forgotten.

“There’s nothing.” He’s insistent.

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