"Did he know anything?" he says.
"He said he didn’t," I say, walking toward him.
Cliff is quiet for a moment as he falls in step beside me as we walk back into the shop. "Did you tell him about Elle?"
"I didn't tell him anything," I say. "But he figured it out.”
Cliff looks toward the office window, where Elowen and Adam are still talking, their voices a low, comfortable murmur through the glass.
"None of my connections near Cassville remember the murders," he says finally. "I've made over half a dozen calls and nobody knows anything, or if they do, they're not talking." He exhales through his nose. "I hate to say it, Raff. But we might not be able to help her."
Thewords land somewhere uncomfortable in my chest and I nod. "I know."
We walk in silence for a few steps.
"I think Anton might have a thing for her," I say.
Cliff stops walking.
I stop too and look at him. The expression on his face is exactly what I expected. Quiet and controlled and absolutely volcanic underneath.
"Yeah," he says. "That's what I thought too." Cliff's eyes flash. "Do you think he ever touched her?"
"I don't know," I say honestly. "But there aren't many alphas out there who ask for permission when it comes to taking what they want."
Something shifts in Cliff's scent immediately. Dark chocolate sharpening into something acrid and aggressive, flooding the shop in a wave that hits me square in the chest. It feeds directly into my own alpha instincts like gasoline on a fire.
My jaw tightens and my hands curl at my sides, and for a second all I can think about is the look in Anton's eyes as he looked at her. I want to beat his fucking face in. I want to feel bone crunch and blood spurt. I want?—
"Hey." Perrin's voice cuts through the shop, quiet but firm.
My beta has lifted his head out of the engine bay and is looking at both of us with the expression of a man who has no patience. He points a wrench at us, first at Cliff, then at me.
"Both of you," he says firmly. "Calm down. Right now."
He motions toward the office door with the wrench.
"You havetwoomegas in there," he says, his voice dropping lower. "And if you pump out that kind of aggression in here, both of them are going to feel it before you've evenfigured out what you're angry about." He holds our gazes, one then the other, steady and immovable. "So shake it out. Both of you. Now."
Cliff exhales slowly through his nose.
I shake my hands out at my sides, like I'm flicking water off my fingers, and feel some of the tension leave with it.
The office door opens.
Elowen and Adam spill out, mid-conversation, moving toward the mini-fridge near the coffeemaker in the corner. Adam pulls it open and grabs two cans of diet soda, handing one to Elowen without asking what she wants, which means they've been in that office long enough that he already knows.
Elowen cracks hers open, takes a long sip, and then squints past us toward the lot.
"Was that Anton?" she asks.
I turn and look at the road right as the black SUV disappears around the corner. Then I see the rear plate.
A N T 0 N X.
Personalized.Of course it is.
I turn back to Elowen. "How did you know that was him?"
