Page 98 of Slashed Bonds

To look at Killian.

He’s watching too.

And I know his face.

I’ve known it for four years, and what’s in it is either the same thing that’s in mine or something worse.

There’s jealousy.

That’s expected.

He and Niko have had their arrangement for three seasons, and it’s held, and there’s a new variable in it now.

But under the jealousy, there’s the thing I was afraid of.

Desire. And not only for Niko anymore.

He’s looking at her hair the way he looked at Niko’s hands the first time. Long. Still. Filing it.

We’re officially fucked, then.

If he’s committed too, that’s two of three, and the third one’s already sitting on a bleacher at seven in the morning instead of running his own fucking team.

I stand.

Killian finds people.

That’s not on his file, because nobody’s ever been able to prove it. But when a man in Kingsmere said a thing about Niko’s skin in a parking lot and needed four months of physical therapy afterward, it wasn’t luck that put Killian in that parking lot.

It was an evening of quiet work with a laptop, phone, a habit of noticing things, and a patience I’ve never once seen him lose.

Somebody sent that text from somewhere.

Somebody bought that phone.

Somebody has been watching a woman for long enough to know which Alpha to warn, and that somebody has an address.

Killian will have everything by the weekend. He won’t tell me how.

“Work your magic,” I say.

I turn my back on him, and I feel his eyes come to it, the way you feel a stick blade on your skates.

He chuckles.

Low.

“You’re giving me permission this early in the game?” A pause. “How many bodies you want under? The whole team?”

I don’t fight the smirk.

He can’t see it.

“To be fair, I don’t want any under yet.” I let that sit. “The rejected deserve their podium of glory. Don’t you think?”

I look back over my shoulder.

And there it is, in his face.