Page 238 of Secret Shifters Next Door

I stood, my back and knees aching from sitting for so long. “I’m going to go to my office for a bit. You good?”

Blayne put his glasses back on. “Burning the old midnight oil. Christ, this is boring. There’s a reason I didn’t become an accountant. All I’ve done for days is stare at leases, rental contracts and spreadsheets. No rest for the wicked, I guess.”

I left him and walked down the hall to my office, clenching and unclenching my hands subconsciously. There was a nagging pain going up both my femurs, making my thighs sting. I was on edge, more easily irritated and angered than ever in my life. It was weird, but I knew it was because the curse was starting to bear down on me.

I had a standing desk and raised the platform when I got to my desk. The thought of sitting again made me want to rip the whole building apart. I wanted to check in on Felicity’s movements while I had a few minutes. Blayne and Steff had gotten me a shortcut program with backdoor access to her social media. Blayne had also written a program that let me check the nearest street camera to the house she was renting. Both of thosethings would have gotten us about twenty years in federal prison if anyone found out. I trusted Blayne to keep our moves hidden, though. So far, we’d been lucky. Before I had either program pulled up, Tate walked in.

“How you doing?” he asked.

“Fine. Why? Aren’t you supposed to be doing something?” I snapped.

Tate grinned and leaned against the wall. The look on his face made me want to throw a paperweight at him. “What the fuck is so funny?” I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks. Why was I so angry?

“So, things are getting tough, huh?”

I gritted my teeth. “I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. What the hell are you talking about?”

He pointed at me. “That.” He pushed away from the wall and walked over to my desk. “That pissy little attitude. Have you been having trouble sleeping? Any weird aches and pains?”

I frowned. I kept forgetting that he’d already gone through what I was going through. He and Steff both. I sighed and slumped into my chair. “Tate, I’m sorry. There’s no reason for me to talk to you like that.”

He held his hands up. “No need to apologize. I’ve been there. Have you talked to Celina about the claiming? I think I remember us talking about it a few weeks ago, right?”

I grimaced. “I know. It’s just…well, we got all caught up in searching for Antonio’s base of operations. That took a lot of time. Now, Celina isn’t really dealing with things very well. I don’t want to put something else on her plate.”

“Right. It’s tough, but don’t you think she’ll be a little pissed when she finds out you’ve been hiding all the pain and general irritation? It’s only going to get worse. I’ve met Celina, and you’ve talked a lot about her. I kinda get the feeling that she’s the kind of person who might feel responsible for your agony.”

That was a low blow. An accurate statement, but a low blow nonetheless. He was right—she would blame herself. I wanted to retort and tell him to mind his own business, but before I let the curse cause me to say some asshole statement to my best friend, my phone rang. I snatched it up and felt myself go cold.

I looked at Tate. “It’s my old alpha.”

Tate’s eyes went wide. “Answer it!”

I did. “This is Miles.”

“Miles, Donovan again. How are things?”

“Fine. I get the feeling this isn’t a casual call.”

“Right to the point. I like it. Anyway, remember that young hunter girl I told you about?”

I sighed. “Yeah. What’s happened?”

“Well, I told you our plan was to frame her for one of the murders, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, drawing the word out, confused about where this was going.

“We had a change of heart. Decided she was more valuable in our care than the local cops. We’ve kept her prisoner and tried to get more info out of her.”

“Holy shit. You kept a fucking prisoner of war, for Christ’s sake?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, call it what you will. We aren’t waterboarding her or anything. The opposite actually. The saying ‘you catch more flies with honey than vinegar’ seems to be true. Today, she remembered something else about her training facility.”

My heart rate spiked. A tremor of excitement surged through me. I waved frantically at Tate to close the office door. He did and leaned in to hear what Donovan was saying.

“All right. What made her so compliant all of a sudden? You can be nice to a prisoner, but she’s still a prisoner.”

“That’s the thing.” Donovan chuckled. “It was your mom.”

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