Page 50 of Sold Bullied Mate

He’s still unwilling to let me leave, to go out into the town.

Crossing my arms, I shift back from him, already feeling defensiveness crawl up my throat.

“What?” I ask. “You’re home already?”

“Kira,” he sighs, letting the door shut behind him. He runs a hand roughly over his face. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but—I just need you to trust me, okay? You’re my mate. We’ve marked one another, and I—right now, I just have to keep you safe.”

“But you won’t tell me what the problem is,” I challenge, stepping forward, feeling the hem of my dress brush against my shins. “Do you understand how that makes me feel?”

To my shock, he nods, looking sorry. “I do. And I—well, I was actually hoping you might be able to help us with that.”

He laughs when I go completely quiet, eyes wide. Of everything I thought he was going to say, I certainly didn’t expect him to ask for my help.

“Okay,” I wind my fingers together slowly, watching as he reaches into a bag at his feet, pulling out an object. Some sort of keypad, wires dangling from the back, looking like it was uninstalled from the wall.

“Something was stolen from us,” he says, voice low. “And we have reason to believe it might be the Grayhides behind it.”

My throat jumps at the mention of my old pack, and Jerrod’s face flashes to mind, but I stuff it down. I need to show Dorian that he can trust me with this information. That I can be involved.

“I know you and Beth haven’t had much time together, but I thought that, maybe if you touched this, felt the energy or something, you might be able to hear something. Give us some insight into what might have happened.”

I want to demand that he tell me everything—what he knows about the Grayhides and what, exactly, was stolen. But this is a start. This is Dorian showing me that he trusts me, that I might get to play the role I want in this pack.

“We have a lot to talk about,” I say, voice thick as I look up at him. “You know that I’m not happy, right?”

He swallows, his eyes locked on me. “I know. I’m sorry, Kira. I’m just—I’m doing my best, here.”

“Okay.” I nod, pushing down the simmering agitation, the need to get everything out in the open, sit him down and talk it through. Clearly there are other things going on right now that are taking his attention. My first taste of what it’s like to be mated to the alpha leader. “I’ll try.”

We move to the dining table, and Dorian sets the keypad in the center, then disappears. A moment later, he comes back with an ice pack and a glass of water, taking a seat across from me.

“Thank you, Kira,” he says, as I touch my fingers to the keypad. The interesting thing about it is that there are no numbers—almost as though they’ve all been rubbed off. Perhaps an attempt to avoid anyone being able to guess which keys are used the most.

“Can you tell me more about this?” I ask, trying to anchor myself to it, straining to listen, to feel the energy Beth talked about. “It might help me.”

“Sure,” Dorian leans back, crosses his arms. “It’s a keypad from a storage room at the pack hall. Very few people in the pack get access to it, and the code is changed daily.”

I nod, still trying to connect with it, find a path in.

“You might have more luck asking Beth about this,” I murmur, already starting to feel the headache pushing at the back of my skull.

“She’s gone, remember?” Dorian says, quietly. “And by the time she comes back, it might be too late.”

I want to ask more about that, but I don’t. For five more minutes, we sit quietly like that, with me straining to hear something and only silence greeting me.

It’s so quiet, and so still in the house, with me barely even able to hear the sound of Dorian’s breathing, that when the four rapid knocks rap against the front door, it feels like gun fire.

I jump, nearly throwing the keypad on the ground, and feeling whatever progress I’d made dissolve, the spirits spooking around me and leaving, too.

“Fuck,” I whisper, hands shaking as Dorian gets up. I notice how he angles his body between me and the door and feel something tug in my gut at the sight of it.

I remember what he said when he first got here. Something is wrong, and he’s trying to protect me.

And now, somebody is at the door.

Chapter 31 - Dorian

Every muscle in my body tenses, readying to defend Kira to the death, if I have to. But a moment later, my mind fires to life, reminding me that I have two of my best shifters guarding this place, and they would have warned me if someone was approaching.

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