Page 69 of Corbin
He’d jumped up thinking a threat was nearby until she leaned over and sucked him into her mouth.
He got hard again just thinking about it and muttered, “Down, boy. I can’t walk like this.” Dropping onto a low back sofa too stylish to be comfortable, he put on the boots he’d left in his saddle bag last night when he opted for running shoes. Glad to have a clean gray T-shirt, he had to figure out what to do today.
Propping his boots on a low glass coffee table supported by four large rocks, he picked up the mobile phone he’d left stashed in his tank bag when he followed Eirene to the warehouse last night.
Six in the morning should be a good time to call Adrian.
He punched the button.
Adrian answered, “Where have you been?”
Corbin pulled the phone away. He hadn’t had a mobile phone before now and realized he’d missed calls from Adrian. “Sorry. Last night was enlightening and almost deadly. I didn’t have my phone with me until this morning.”
“Hmm. Sounds like you need to fill me in.”
Corbin went over everything and cringed but admitted, “We came to a place Eirene said the theater let her use sometimes that fans didn’t know about. She hadn’t even told her trustee about this place. She wanted somewhere she could have some privacy.”
Adrian didn’t say anything, which had Corbin ready to squirm. How was he going to explain what a good job he’d done watching over Eirene? All night.
“Any idea who sent the jackal shifters?” Adrian asked.
“No. My guess would be SCIS, but those two had unnatural muscles and smelled like shifters my wolf and I have fought in the past that had been doing Jugo Loco. I had no choice but to shift and release Ares. He killed them but not without paying a price.”
“What about Eirene? Did her wolf help Ares?”
“No. Her wolf is not dominant. Eirene said her wolf can’t kill anyone, and neither can she.”
Ares hadn’t spoken all night, but piped up,Her wolf needs protecting.
Corbin couldn’t decide if Ares considered Pixie useless or if he meant ... that he would protect her. Interesting.
“You think that’s true, Corbin?”
“I know it is.” The minute those words left his lips, Corbin regretted the way he’d answered.
“Why are you so sure?” Adrian asked.
“She told me so, and I heard truth.”
“You don’t believe she’s involved in killing Beckham’s men?”
Corbin knew when he was being maneuvered into a corner. In too deep at this point, he refused to play games or lie to Adrian. “I knew Eirene when I was in high school. We were the only two shifters hiding among humans. Her father was very wealthy and had two human bodyguards who protected her. I wanted to be her friend. I left a message in her locker to meet me at a place where I’d located her scent. She had planned to meet me that night, but her bodyguards saw me put the note in the locker and captured me. They handed me over to the Romanian.”
Adrian was nothing if not patient and fair, but his words came out loaded with disappointment. “You should have told me before coming on this operation.”
For all the joy Corbin felt at finding Eirene and having last night with her, he hated having broken Adrian’s trust. “I agree. I originally planned to keep my feelings to myself and finish this job. If she ended up guilty, I would have handed you the evidence you needed. If she had been innocent, I wanted to ask her why she’d ruined my life. Neither happened. I’m sorry I broke your trust. I didn’t start out to do that.”
“We’ll have to discuss this back at the compound. I’m neck deep with digging into the security team, and you have to stick with her because it sounds like someone’s trying to kill her.”
“I will not allow anyone to harm her,” Corbin declared. “What’s happening with her team?” Would Adrian let him push them off the topic of Eirene?
“Brody is a roaring pain in the ass.”
“That’s not new information,” Corbin pointed out.
“No. What I did learn was that the other two on his team don’t like him. They didn’t say anything specific. It’s more about what they didn’t say. Brody knows I’m a shifter, but he isn’t intimidated. I’ve let him think I’m Beckham’s yes man.”
Corbin snorted at that. “First rule in any conflict is to never underestimate those around you.”
