Aidan freezes as if she’s slapped him, and then the black bleeds out of his eyes as he shakes his head. Suddenly, he’s releasing Kole, blinking like he doesn’t quite remember how he got here.
“Aidan?” Nolan asks carefully, taking a step forward.
The platinum-haired alpha is like a deer in headlights as he whips his head around from Mabel, to me, to Kole, and then to Nolan.
“I…I apologize,” he stammers, his cheeks going red. “I don’t know what came over me.” He takes a step back. “I came to tell you what I learned about Roland Olivier, and then I saw him…touching her…and…”
“And you thought he was makin’ a move on me.” Mabel nods once, repeating the lie I stated earlier.
Kole quickly jumps in. “I commend you for so quickly defending your adopted sister’s honor.”
Aidan frowns, scratching his head. Before he can tell us that he’s not so sure that’s what happened, I step around Mabel. “I can assure you, Aidan, there’s nothin’ untoward goin’ on here. So why don’t we let Kole continue his temporary-tattooin’, and I’ll grab Sam so you can tell us what you learned?”
At the mention of temporary tattooing, Aidan’s gaze darts to Mabel’s exposed arms. It only occurs to me at that moment that he probably hasn’t really seen her without sleeves since she was rescued. His eyes zero in on the jagged forced-bond marks on her arms, and they go dark again. Not quite as dark as before, but still noticeable.
Fuck.
“The men that did that to you…” he trails off, swallowing hard as his hand goes to his own throat. “Are they the ones you killed?”
Her fingers run over the marks. She tilts her chin up in a move more defiant than I’ve ever seen from her as she steps out from behind me. “Yes.”
Catching me by complete surprise, Aidan steps forward, snatching Mabel’s hand. When he lifts it to his throat, her fingers brushing over the scar tissue there, her breath catches. His voice is rough, and his eyes never leave hers. “I killed mine too.”
He releases her just as quickly as he had grabbed her, running his hands down his shirt.
Then, like the last ten seconds never happened, he turns to me. “Shall we go?”
My brow furrows, and I glance back at Mabel, who is staring at her hand like it just gave her the world’s hardest riddle. My gaze darts back to Nolan, who’s looking at Aidan with pure confusion, then to Kole, who is trying his hardest to not smirk.
“Yeah,” I nod once, turning towards the kitchen. “Why don’t—”
“Who?” Mabel asks suddenly, her voice full of something that sounds an awful lot like possessiveness. “Who bit you?”
Aidan freezes, but doesn’t turn. “That is a story for another time, Little Viper.”
With that, he continues walking towards the kitchen, and Mabel gives me a helpless look as Kole gets ready to startdrawing again. I can only look away, hoping to high hell that Mabel doesn’t start asking too many questions.
twenty-five
Jo
“What do youmeanhe doesn’t exist?” Sam snaps, stabbing the knife he was just using to cut up cucumber for a salad into his cutting board.
“Exactly what I said,” Aidan says flatly, looking bored now that he’s seemingly recovered from his run-in with Mabel. “He’s erased every trace of himself from the grid—or he hired someone to do it. The only reason I don’t think your beta got the name wrong is because there is one mention of a ‘Roland Olivier’—and that’s on Adela’s birth certificate. Whoever did his sweep didn’t do a perfect job.”
“Why would he want to disappear?” I frown, popping a piece of cucumber from the cutting board into my mouth.
“Well, if his wife left him, and then he sent his own daughter away, that would leave him with nobody, right? Maybe he made some bad decisions, got into a bit of trouble, and just…disappeared.” Nolan speaks from the doorway.
I scowl at him. “Why are you still here? You sated your curiosity, now beat it.”
Nolan chuckles, sauntering to the kitchen island. “I need to talk to Aidan when all this is done, so I figured I’d help out while I wait.”
“You’re not helpin’.”
Before he can retort, Sam cuts me off by popping another piece of cucumber in my mouth. “So why alienate the only family he has left by sending her to Thornfield if him being lonely is what drove him to his bad decisions? Something isn’t adding up.”
I scowl at my alpha, but chew the food anyway. Can't let a good cucumber go to waste. “He could be a self-sabotaging idiot,” I swallow, pointedly glare at Nolan, still annoyed that he snuck into my house to spy on my sister. “He wouldn’t be the first.”
