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Bailey closed the laptop. “We should probably ask the rest of the pride to check if anyone has cloned their profile as well. It might not be that Deke is the only one.”
Havana’s brows inched up. “That’s true.”
“It would be good if there are others,” said Bailey.
Deke felt his face scrunch up. “How could it possibly be good?”
“Our boy was careful with your profile; he left no crumbs to lead us to him,” she replied. “But he could have made a mistake with others; could have gotten cocky or careless. Then we’d have something on him, and then I could dig out my poleaxe and go stab a fucker.”
Deke almost did a double-take. “You have a poleaxe?”
She looked up at him, her brows sliding together. “You don’t?”
“Of course not.”
“Huh. Well, that’s weird.”
“Weird?”
She tipped her head to the side. “You don’t think so?”
“What I think is that you want to drive me batshit.”
“Well, it is on my list.”
Yeah, that had become apparent. “Any particular reason why?”
“Not one that you’d understand.”
“In other words, it isn’t rational.”
Bailey pursed her lips. “Maybe not to you. You like things to make sense.”
“People generally do.”
“I don’t.”
“You’re a special case.”
Hiding a smile—God, he was so fun to mess with—Bailey wrinkled her nose at his prickly tone. “You don’t mean that in a good way, do you?”
“No,” he curtly replied.
Bailey only let out a snort of amusement. His level of surliness never failed to tickle her. “Are you trying to hurt my feelings?”
“I gave up on that a long time ago. You’re impervious to insults.” He looked at Tate. “I’m heading home. Later.”
The Alpha male pushed out of his seat and walked him to the door.
Seeing that both Havana and Aspen were staring at her, Bailey frowned. “What?”
“There’s still some mighty tension between you and Deke,” said Havana, keeping her voice too low to carry to the guys.
Aspen nodded, rising from her seat to move closer. “And it’s even more electric than before. What are you going to do about it? You could say nothing, but then you’d be lying.”
Not much liking the taunting glint in Aspen’s eyes, Bailey didn’t respond. She merely began examining her nails.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” asked Aspen.
“About what?” Bailey asked distractedly.
“You. Deke. The mighty tension.”
“Oh.” Bailey didn’t look up from her nails. “No, nothing.”
Setting her hands on her hips, Aspen began tapping her foot. “You’re not fooling us. We know you’re not as aloof about this as you’d like us to believe.”
Bailey flexed her fingers, still eyeing her nails. “Hmm.”
“We’re not buying it, Bailey.”
“’Kay.”
Aspen’s foot stilled. “I mean it, you ain’t fooling us.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re not,” the bearcat ground out.
“Hmm.”
Havana sighed and lifted a hand. “Aspen, don’t bother.”
“But I hate when she’s in ‘I can’t hear you mode,’” griped the bearcat, sliding her hands down to her sides and balling them up into fists.
“Which is why she does it,” said Havana. “Leave her be for now.”
“Can I slap her first? Please?”
“No,” the Alpha female firmly stated.
Aspen let out a moan of complaint, her shoulders drooping. “But I really want to.”
“It’s still a no.”
The bearcat turned to Bailey. “You won’t care if I slap you, will you?”
“Huh,” was all Bailey said.
Aspen growled. “Oh my God, stop being a little bitch!”
CHAPTER FIVE
Staring down at the screen of his ringing cell a few days later, Deke cursed beneath his breath. Dayna.
Not that he didn’t like speaking with her; it would just be difficult to act normal when, unbeknownst to her, he’d made the official decision to pull out of their vow. He was good at deception, but he didn’t like to mislead people.
His moody cat turned his back on her, uninterested in giving his time or attention to her or anyone else. The feline really needed to get over his shit.
A glass of orange juice in hand, Deke sank onto his gray leather sofa as he accepted the call with a swipe of his thumb.
Usually, Dayna would be wearing a wide smile. This morning, a frown creased her face.
She looked nothing like the black mamba shifter who took up more of his mental space than he’d like. Dayna’s wide-set eyes were a startling blue. Faint freckles dusted her narrow, elfin face. Her auburn, corkscrew curls fountained down her back and would bounce with each jerk or tilt of her head.
“God, Deke, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” she complained, leaning the phone against something to hold it up.
He blinked. “Well, good morning to you, too.”
“I just heard from Therese. She said someone did a fake profile of you and used it to seduce some poor human woman. What the hell?”
Deke grunted, feeling his mouth tighten. “Yeah, the situation is fucked.”
“Do you really think it was someone in the pride?”
He’d been asked that question over and over by various members. They didn’t want to believe that one of their own would do something so messed up to a fellow pride mate. The code they lived by was to protect, support, and look out for each other. Inter-pride squabbles were one thing. This was something much bigger.
