Dante winced. “Yeah, that was some sick shit.”
“Killing a bird and trying to seriously hurt you are two very different things.” He kissed the uninjured side of her forehead and scanned the room for Rhett, intending to tell him to go ask Grace to make Taryn a coffee. That was when he noticed Ryan. “Ryan, what’re doing over here? Have you left the gate unguarded?”
He frowned. “I’m not on guard duty this morning.”
“You’re not?”
“No.”
“Tao is the one on duty,” Trick informed him.
Trey’s frown now matched Ryan’s. “Brock said you’ve been trying to call me from the security shack.”
“I haven’t tried calling you at all.”
An uneasy feeling came over Trey. “Where’s Brock?” Looking confused and defensive, the guy stepped forward. “Why did you say Ryan wanted to talk to me?”
Brock double-blinked. “I didn’t. I haven’t spoken to you all morning.”
“But you sent a message to my cell phone.”
“No.”
“Where is it?” demanded Dante. “Where’s your cell?”
Brock dug his hand into his empty pockets and shrugged. “I must have left it in my room or in the kitchen.”
“Well that’s convenient.” Dante marched out of the room with Marcus and Trick on his heels.
Trey switched his attention back to Taryn. Suspicion was written all over her face. “They pledged their loyalty to you,” he reminded her, or maybe himself.
“Not all of them.”
She was right, and he knew Selma and Kirk disliked her enough to hurt her, he just didn’t believe for one minute that they had the guts to do it. Not only would they be very much aware that there was a strong chance Taryn would kick their ass, but they would then be branded traitors and exiled. Selma and Kirk didn’t have the nerve to take that kind of risk – which was partly why they acted so big and bad. As for Hope…he suspected that the only reason she hadn’t offered her loyalty to Taryn was because she was following Selma’s lead, just like always.
Dante’s re-entry brought him out of his thoughts. “You have the phone?”
His Beta nodded. “The message is right there.”
Brock spluttered. “What do you mean the message is there? I didn’t send him any message, dammit.”
“Well it’s right there in your Sent box,” said Dominic.
Brock snatched the phone, read the message and his face reddened. “Then someone else must have sent it. I didn’t. Why would I? Why would anyone even lie to you about Ryan wanting to talk to you?”
“Maybe you wanted Trey out of the way so you had a chance to snatch Taryn. You would have known that he would feel her panic and help her…unless he was far enough away that he wouldn’t reach her in time. Just what were you planning to do with her? Or to her?”
“I didn’t send that message!”
“If my dad says he didn’t do it, then he didn’t do it,” said Kirk as he stood beside him, folding his arms across his chest. “I’m not disputing that someone tried to pull you away from Taryn,” he told Trey. “But whoever it was used my dad’s phone, most likely to implicate him and shift the blame. It wasn’t him.”
Taryn groaned. “I can’t deal with all this yelling.”
“Come on, baby.” Trey rose with her in his arms and carried her out of the room, through the tunnels and into their bedroom. He placed her gently on the bed and lay down next to her.
“Now do you believe me?” She sighed when he didn’t answer. “I don’t care what you say, someone grabbed me. If you don’t want to face the fact that someone in your pack – the people you’ve grown up with – could do that, then I can understand that. I really can. But it doesn’t change that I’m right. Like it or not, you have someone in your pack who would willingly hurt your mate, because I’m not lying.”
Angry with himself for hurting her, he stroked a hand through her hair. “Hey I never thought you were lying, baby. Not that. Just that maybe you tripped.”
“Oh I tripped. With help.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Okay so there was being possessive, there was being crazily possessive, and there was this: being a total shithead. Taryn groaned and slapped her hands over her face. All she wanted was to go shopping with Lydia. It wasn’t like she was planning to go shopping on a whole other continent or that she would be walking around naked the entire time. Trey, however, was totally opposed to the idea of her going without him.
When attempting to bully her into taking him along hadn’t worked, he had switched to trying to manipulate her with a little reverse psychology. When that failed he introduced some seriously good bribes. As she had still refused, he was now trying his hand at emotional blackmail.
Releasing her face she looked at her mate who sat at the kitchen table wearing a kicked puppy expression. “For God’s sake, Trey, I’ll only be gone a few hours. I’m pretty sure you’ll cope without me.”
“Yeah, but I like being with you.”
That should have sounded corny or pathetic, but it had managed to sound sweet and cutely protective. Oh he was so good at this. She had learned over the past few weeks that although Trey was mostly hard and antisocial, when he really wanted something he was more than capable of a little charm. He had a way of focusing totally on her in a manner that she would have expected to freak her out, but instead it made her feel adored and safe.