"What does my cousin have to do with any of this?" Bane wonders. The lamp on the coffee table blocks my view of his face, but even his legs are tense and stiff. It can’t feel entirely comfortable to let an unknown wolf into his home.
"Wynn captured the fugitive and even brought him a few meals. It would be helpful to speak to him directly," the detective answers.
"Too bad he's on vacation right now," Josh says, his hands fidgeting against his pants.
Does the detective notice how nervous he is? Hopefully he's too caught up in the little staring contest he's having with Bane.
"Do you, can I get you something?” Josh asks. “Do people do that? It seems right for a visitor, but you're also a detective. What do people get detectives when they drop by?"
"I'm fine." The man refuses to look away from my cousin.
"Oh, okay then..."
The detective's gaze finally shifts to the left, piercing eyes settling on the smaller man. "You seem nervous."
"He's fine," Bane interjects, placing a hand on his mate's knee protectively.
Their eternal staring contest resumes, cranking up the tension another hundred degrees or so. As if this situation isn't dicey enough, now there are two hot-shot Alphas silently challenging each other and vying for dominance. I worry they're about to come to blows in some ridiculous territorial display, shattering the coffee table between them.
That would suck. It took Bane and me forever to put that thing together.
“Questions,” Josh throws out a bit desperately. “Shouldn’t there be questions? Well, that was one, but I think you’re supposed to do the asking, Detective.”
“Right. Ahem.” Harper gets it together first, a muscle in his jaw ticking as he has to quit posturing and do his job. "Do you two have a close relationship with Wynn?"
"Yeah, he's my best friend,” Bane says, sitting up straighter and puffing up his chest proudly since the detective blinked first. “Why do you ask?”
It's almost impressive how he made “why do you ask?” sound like “stop asking.”
But it doesn't deter the good detective. He takes out a small notebook to jot things down. “Where did you say he was?"
Bane relays all the correct fake information about my vacation, including that I'm traveling off the grid and the duration is open-ended. The questions and replies volley back and forth between them like live grenades, each looking to blow the other apart. The detective does the detective thingwhere he asks similar questions in different ways, searching for inconsistencies, but my cousin’s story stays the same.
Neither Alpha gains any ground, and they both seem increasingly pissed off about that. If the stakes were much lower and I wasn't hiding in the kitchen with a wanted man, their animosity would be amusing instead of nerve-wracking. I silently applaud Josh for managing to sit there stewing in all the Alpha hostility.
"Do you have any way to get in touch with him?" the detective questions. "What if there's an emergency?"
"If there's a problem, he'll reach out to me." Bane's reply is curt, his words laced with an underlying warning.
"What if you need to get a hold of him?" the detective presses.
"I'll have to wait. That's the point of getting away from it all, right?"
"Guess so." The detective glares daggers at my cousin, totally at odds with the routine questioning.
"Oh my god." Josh throws his hands up in the air. "I can't do this anymore."
"Tell me the truth, you'll feel so much better," Harper says without missing a beat.
"Sure thing." The smaller man pries his mate's hand off his knee, and I can imagine the reproachful expression on Bane’s face. "The truth is thatyou twoare making me so nervous I can barely even think."
"Josh," Bane mutters to his mate.
"No, remind your wolf that this isn't just another shifter in his den. This is adetectiveheredoing his job.Knock it off with the macho Alpha posturing." Bane's posture hunches, probably looking more like a scolded puppy than a proud wolf now, and when a smug grin starts slipping onto the detective's face, the smaller man turns his irritation on Harper. "And you don't haveto encourage him. Be professional! How do you get anything done around other wolves?"
The detective clears his throat, seeming as chastened as my cousin. "Apologies. There aren’t many wolves in Brighton. I should have anticipated… a reaction like this."
"Oh. What about with your own pack?" Josh asks conversationally.
