burned through his veins, not easy to hide. But he managed with a lazy grin and a slow drawl. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. A lot of men will lie when it suits them.”
“Oh, God.” She suddenly started to laugh so hard it made him scowl. Wiping the tears from her glittering eyes, she finally managed to splutter, “D-don’t I know it.”
Hell, he’d walked right into that one.
A fraction of his control began to slip, his hands flexing as he fought the urge to reach out and grab her, yanking her into his lap. “You’re pushing it, Reyes.”
Her laughter faded, and she kept her gaze on the Scotch as she swirled it in her glass. “If you’re uncomfortable with my attitude or reactions,” she murmured, “then I gotta tell you that I don’t really care. I’m not here to make you feel better, or to talk about the past.” She stopped swirling her drink, her dark gaze lifting, locking with his. “I’m here because your family needs you. You do recall that you have a brother and sister, right? And I can only imagine they have a hell of a lot to say to you right now, considering you haven’t been returning their calls.” She pushed back from the table and gave him a look that would probably scare a lot of men into doing whatever the hell she wanted them to. “Now get off your ass and let’s get out of here.”
“No,” he rasped. “Not until you answer a few of my questions.”
“Like we have the time,” she started to argue, but he cut her off.
“We have as much time as we need, because I’m not going anywhere until you fucking spill.” He took a deep swallow of his whiskey, and waited for her to bring her chair back to the table, before asking, “You came here alone?”
“Of course.” At the look on his face, she said, “What? You thought someone needed to come with me and hold my hand?”
His jaw got tighter. “Why now?”
She glared back at him as if she couldn’t understand what his problem was. “War isn’t enough of a reason?”
“From what I’ve understood from Eric’s messages, the Silvercrest have been in trouble for a while now.”
“With no help from you, huh?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Like I said, I was planning to head back.”
“Right. How kind of you.”
“Why now, Reyes? Why you? You didn’t rush out and try to track me down months ago, when this all started. So tell me the truth. Why— Now?”
She held his stare, and he could tell she was planning on just waiting him out, until she let herself really look him in the eye. Whatever she saw there, whether it was anger or his sheer determination—it made her frown deepen. Forcing the words out between her quickening breaths, she told him, “It was the right time. I felt...raw. And I suddenly knew I could find you. When I was in danger, the bond started to pull at me—”
“So you feel it, too?” he cut in sharply, interrupting her explanation. His heart started trying to pound its way through his chest with hard, violent beats, and it was all he could do to stay in his damn chair in his relaxed pose, instead of surging to his feet and grabbing her shoulders, demanding she tell him everything.
Still scowling, she cast a wary look toward the hand still holding his glass, as if surprised it hadn’t shattered in his brutal grip. Her chin lifted in assent.
“I’ve wondered about that.” He tossed back his drink, slamming the empty glass onto the table, while his thoughts churned. He felt pain, frustration, loss. But mostly rage. A deep, seething rage for everything that had happened, and why.
He cleared his throat, his hooded gaze locked in hard and tight on her face, trying to read her expression. The bond should have enabled him to feel her emotions as easily as his own, but it didn’t, because it was only half-formed. He’d realized that right from the start, though it’d taken time to sort out exactly how the partially formed bond would affect him. And it’d kept him up at nights, wondering if Carla was being affected in the same way.
When he couldn’t get a damn thing from the look on her face, Eli lowered his gaze to the table and heard himself saying, “For what it’s worth, I didn’t even realize the bond had taken hold until almost a week after I left. By that time, I was already in South America.”
When he looked up to see her reaction to his confession, she turned her head to the side and laughed again. The sound was hollow and heavy, sounding as exhausted as she looked. “Well,” she murmured. “I guess it’s good to know I’m not the only one stuck in this hell.”
His jaw tightened, but he forced out a slow breath, not wanting to rise to her bait. And she was definitely baiting him, spoiling for a fight. Damn it, he was handling this all wrong, but it was like a train wreck he couldn’t stop from happening right in front of him. He was pissed at how badly he wanted her. At how fucking sexy she looked. How angry she was at him.
Knowing he needed to change the subject, he asked, “What were you in danger from?”
Her mouth flattened with irritation, as if she hadn’t meant to let that bit slip out either, her reluctance making him even more suspicious. He could feel it in his gut, the fact that there was something she didn’t want to tell him. “I’ll sit here all damn night and wait you out if I have to,” he threatened in a low voice. “But you’re going to answer that question.”
She took a deep breath, her nostrils flaring a little, and he felt the pull down in his lower body get even tighter as he wondered if she could scent him the way he could scent her. Not just on a Lycan level, but one that went even deeper. And if she could, was it affecting her, making her hungry for something only he could give her?
Her head dropped back on her shoulders, then dropped forward, and he could have sworn he heard her give a soft growl. Then she lifted her head, looking right at him, and nervously licked her lips. “I know Eric’s been leaving you messages at a number he had for you, asking you to come home. Didn’t he tell you about Elise?”
Because he was so often in places where cell phone coverage was nonexistent, and hadn’t had a permanent base since leaving the pack, Eli had used a couple of different messaging services for both work and his family. It was one of those numbers that Eric had been calling.
Answering her question, he said, “I haven’t heard from Eric the last couple of weeks. He sounded pretty pissed off in his last message, because I hadn’t returned any of his calls. But I wasn’t in a situation where I could talk to him,” he explained, which was only partially true. “What is it you think he should have told me about Elise? Is she all right?”
“Two weeks ago, Elise was kidnapped by Sebastian Claymore.”
He shot forward to the edge of his seat. “Was she hurt? What the hell happened?”
From what he’d been able to piece together from Eric’s messages, Eli knew that a Lycan named Roy Claymore had assumed control of the Whiteclaw pack, and Sebastian and Harris Claymore were his nephews. Eric’s last message had mentioned something about Harris being under suspicion for hassling their sister, Elise, and that had been enough for Eli to know he needed to get his affairs in order so that he could head back, even though he’d known it would mean facing Carla. Elise had already been through too much not to have her brothers there looking out
