Page 70 of Furever Loyal
“Let me go!” he roared. “I will tear this city apart building by building if I have to. Every piece of Canis will be ground to dust until I find her. The entire House willburn!If you so much as touched a hair on my mate I will lay waste to you, Laurent and anyone involved.”
Kaelyn stepped into his view, but Kincaid was only seeing red. He continued to struggle, and white fur spread along his arms as he worked himself into a fury, the change starting to overtake him.
“Pull yourself together,” she commanded.
When he didn’t, she slapped him across the face. Hard.
Kincaid fell to the ground, chest heaving as he supported himself on all fours.
“Are you quite done?” the Queen of High House Ursa asked, tired.
Kincaid shook his head, not in answer, but to clear his thoughts and allow him to regain control. Slowly, reluctantly, the bone-white fur sank into his skin as he reversed the start of the change and stood upright.
“I have to find her,” he said hoarsely with barely-recovered breath.
“If you go after Laurent Canis, you will start a war between our Houses,” Kaelyn told him. “A war we are currently in no position to win, thanks to people like him.” She stabbed a finger at Krawll.
“He has my mate.”
It was the second time Kincaid had used that word to describe Haley, and the wonder was no less. He’d known there was a connection between them, but not until he’d realized she was in mortal danger and he simply reacted without thinking had the true nature of it been revealed to him.
Now he cursed himself for being blind and not noticing it before, but there was little to be done about that. Now he must go to the safehouse and hope she was still there, that the Canim hadn’t been able to locate her, or perhaps that the defenses would hold out until he arrived.
“You will go and see if that is true,” Kaelyn said. “I will get what we need from this traitor. If we have enough to see Laurent stripped of his power, then he’s all yours. Until then, can I trust you not to act against Canis?”
“Yes,” he said, gritting out his answer, supremely unhappy about it, but realizing that the Queen was trying to help him.
Killing Laurent would bring him momentary satisfaction, but it would mean they would have to go on the run. His mate would always be in mortal danger from his enemies, and that was something Kincaid simply couldn’t live with. His job was to protect her, and if that meant trying to solve this diplomatically first so that both his mate and his House could emerge unscathed, then he would do that.
“Promise me,” Kaelyn demanded.
Kincaid stiffened, staring straight ahead, unseeing. “I promise.”
I promise, if it fails, I will wreak unholy terror upon Laurent, Melanie, and anyone who intervenes. That is my word to you, Haley.
I’m coming for you.
33
She’d talked to Dani for a long time, but eventually, she’d had to let her friend go.
Friend.
It was an odd word to her, something that had gone unused for so long in her life that it had felt strange to apply it in any context related to her own life. She had two friends now, though they were vastly different. Danielle was her friend, a person she could trust and open up to.
Kincaid wasmorethan a friend. Just how much more, she didn’t know, but definitely more. She’d eventually come to the conclusion, with Dani’s advice, that she wouldn’t actually know more until she was able to sit down with him and talk about it.
That would have to wait until after they cleared his name and ensured she didn’t lose her job. In the meantime, Haley had to stay focused on the mission at hand, a mission she currently had no part in. Kincaid was off attempting to save it all, and until she heard from him, she was forced to stay here.
“In the basement. Locked up. By myself.” She was currently stretched out on the sole couch, staring at the ceiling, wishing there was a television. Right then, she would watch just aboutanything.
Being confined was driving her crazy. Being confined and not knowing what the hell was going on out there was making it even worse. For all she knew, the world could be ending, aliens invading, and she wouldn’t know a thing about it until she was forced to emerge for supplies.
She imagined exiting the basement to a war-torn reality. Buildings crumbled to dust from alien weaponry, smoke filling the sky. Overhead jets would flash past until one of them was taken out by some sort of energy beam. Nearby in the shadows, she would see flashes of movement, furtive and swift. Noises would reach her ears. Noises made by no human throat. Then they would come for her and she would be forced to run.
Easy does it with the overactive imagination.
Getting up from the couch, she started to pace, trying to work off some of the nervous energy building up in her limbs. The wait was going on three hours now, and she didn’t know how much longer she could stay cooped up in the dungeon without any sort of contact from the outside world.
