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What I was scenting for was the other half of her DNA.
When I found it, I shrank from her, confusion whipping up a hurricane of thoughts.
“I can smell that you’re hers…and mine.” Stopping, I huffed to clear my sinuses before continuing. “But, close like this, you smell too much of wolf.”
Her gaze jerked in Doone’s direction, both of them looking guilty.
“Oh,” I grunted, a laugh suppressed inside my chest. “I don’t mean like the two of you took a roll together. More like I can smell it in you in a way not explained by the children who’ve been born in Night Falls from parents with different totems. Although maybe that has to do with how young they are.”
She didn’t offer an opinion, just rolled her lips and stepped back from me.
“Fine,” I snapped and thrust two glasses at them. “Sit down and tell me everything I need to know before I call church—starting with your actual name.”
Doone’s expression whipped into something I imagined it wore when he was taking a rough shit. The woman’s face reflected only confusion.
“Church is what we call it when our pack’s leader convenes a meeting," I explained. "Well, at least when one of the males call it. We’re very backwoods around here, little girl.”
Backwoods, indeed, I thought, anger beginning to churn within me with the idea that the little panther would have come to Night Falls and found herself a sweet butt if she wasn’t my daughter.
What in the hell was Justine thinking?
CHAPTER13
DOONE
Feelinglike I had a hundred-pound weight settled in my stomach, I joined Mosa and the old man at his wobbly kitchen table. My cheeks flushed for a second with the idea I should have fixed the wobble already, but there always seemed to be a list of chores from Mallory and I had lost the initiative to look beyond all the additions he made on a daily basis.
“You can fix the wobble later,” Mallory said with a slight tease to his voice. “Never knew a wolf to be as anal retentive as a cat.”
I snuck a glance at Mosa to see how she took what could have been viewed as an insult. She was busy studying the lines on her hand, the faint scent of her anxiety detectible.
“Real name,” Mallory ordered in the same gruff voice he’d used when I showed up to Night Falls as a stranger. His tone had been so convincing, I had been certain he would be the first to tell me to hit the road. Instead, he had sponsored me.
“Mosaic Acevedo Leopold,” Mosa answered. “The middle name is—”
“I know where that damn middle name comes from,” Mallory barked. “Your mother’s father was a mean bastard. In my entire life, I’ve only met one man more sadistic than him. Henric.”
She nodded, her lips rolling.
“Damn it!” Mallory slapped at the table. “Why do you smell so much like a wolf?”
Reaching over, I covered her smaller hand with mine. The suggestion lingering at the tip of my tongue was full of hypocrisy, but Mosa’s secret was one that couldn’t be kept once she was within a dozen or so feet of another shifter now that she’d made her first shift to a wolf.
She withdrew her hand and placed it in her lap before looking at Mallory with the most magnificent poker face I’d ever seen.
“Because you’re my father?”
He slapped the table again then lurched onto his feet. He patted at his pockets, his gaze jumping around the room. I wasn’t about to tell him that his cellphone was wedged between the arm of his recliner and the bottom cushion he must have had his ass parked on when we drove up.
Giving up the search, he jabbed a finger at me.
“Your phone, now!”
“Who are you going to call?”
“Prospects don’t get to askwho, orwhat, orwhy! Prospects follow orders or get their asses handed to them.”
I folded my arms across my chest, the message clear to anyone with half a brain that I wasn’t giving Mallory my phone so he could call someone and endanger Mosa.
