Page 24 of Furever Loyal
Haley was too overwhelmed by everything she was hearing, and what she’d just seen. Her brain was trying to turn itself off, protesting at any new information, even as she made the connection between House Canis and wolves, and House Ursa and bears.
“You’re not the only one who can do…who can do…” She waved her hands around, uncertain of the word.
“Shapeshift? No. We usually just call it shifting. But most members of any of the Houses can do it.”
“Right. Of course.” She rubbed at her face. “This just makes so much sense now. Thank you for completely destroying my world.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
She just waved him off. “Take me back to my office, please. Now. I need to think. A lot.”
Kincaid unlocked the car as they got close. “Are you going to be okay? Do I have to worry about you?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know?”
12
Haley was freaking out.
He watched her from his seat in one of the chairs in her office. So far, he hadn’t said anything except to answer any questions she’d had, but the last one of those had been twenty minutes earlier. Now she was just staring at her computer, but even her fingers had stopped typing.
There were no outward signs, no loud hysterics. It wasn’t that sort of breakdown. What she was doing was all internal, as she struggled to adapt her worldview to accommodate what she’d learned with him. It was a lot to ask of someone who had been told their entire life that these sorts of things were impossible, that nobody couldactuallydo something like that. Then to see it happen in front of you, it could mess a person up.
Kincaid knew he needed to step in, to do something, but he wasn’t sure how to go about it. What would be the best method for snapping her out of it, without screwing things up worse? In the end, he decided to try and focus her emotions the easiest way he knew how.
“You’re welcome, you know,” he said dryly, putting as much sarcasm and arrogance into his voice as he could.
Haley’s eyes snapped into focus, glaring daggers at him. “For what? What the hell did you do that I should be saying thank you?”
“How about saving your life?”
“Saving my life…” She frowned at him. “And just how did you do that again? Was it by breaking into the office after I expressly told you not to? Or was it by starting a fight with the security guard instead of surrendering peacefully? Or the part where you involved me in the middle of a freaking war between shapeshifters?!”
By the end of it, she was yelling at him near at the top of her lungs. The massive door was shut, and he hoped it at least muffled the words enough that the people in the rest of the office wouldn’t understand just what she’d said.
“All of the above.” Now that he had her attention, he dropped the attitude. “I’m sorry, Haley. I didn’t intend for it to go that way. I wouldn’t have broken in if I’d thought it would put you in danger. That’s the honest truth.”
It was. He would have sent her away first, if he’d had any inkling that Canis had assets in the area, guarding a shell company.
“Yeah, I bet you would have.”
Kincaid sat up straight in his chair, dropping both feet to the ground as he uncrossed his legs. “You didn’t get hurt at all, did you? Anything that I didn’t see?”
She inhaled, ready to tear another strip off him, but almost at once she sagged wearily. “No, Kincaid. I didn’t get hurt. Just…shook up. This is a lot to process, to believe. Shapeshifters? I know I saw it. Twice. But still...”
He watched as she slumped forward, resting her elbows on the desk and her head in her hands.
“Then the spy part of this. That’s not me, you know? I like sitting behind my desk. On the computer. Working with numbers. That’s me, that’s what I do. This sneaking around, breaking in, trying to unravel a mystery like a sleuth? Not my deal.”
“Does that mean you believe me now? That I am being framed?”
“No.”
He covered up his frustration at her response.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Something?” he said, pushing just a little bit harder.
