His lips curved as I sat across from him at the dinette. “Yes, I can understand your misgivings.” He tilted his head to Elder Jacobs and Elder Merrick. “Especially after it was explained to me what has been going on behind my back.”
I stilled completely, swallowing my drink slowly at the confirmation. Feeling the blood drain from my face, my heart stuttered, then stopped, only to pound rapidly. An eerie ache settling like a rock around my heart. I swallowed again, feeling like I was going to puke, as utter hatred bubbled inside of me from the betrayal of the most intimate kind. Brown eyes scanned over my face, red eyebrows quirking in silent question when I started chuckling, a purely malicious sound. I ran a hand through my hair, setting my Coke down calmly, even if my hand was shaking somewhat. “Yes,” I inhaled shallowly, my tone like a cold chill, even if shaking somewhat, so I cleared my throat, “I had suspected.”
“I thought as much, since I don’t imagine much gets by you with enough consideration,” King White murmured softly, his head cocked as he watched me. He flicked his hand to them. “I thought I would let them explain, so as there would be less bad blood between you and I, seeing as I had—,” he cleared his own throat, his voice clipped, “no fucking clue any of this was occurring.”
Ever so slowly, I turned my frigid gaze to Elder Jacobs and Elder Merrick, staring at them mutely, my thoughts like fiery ice.
Elder Merrick’s own voice void, not peering up at me, eyes trained on the gun as he rotated it in his hands. “I wondered about this.” Another rotation of the gun while he studied every detail. “I even looked it up. We don’t have guns like this right now.”
I didn’t even look at the gun I hadn’t even thought of them not having in this age, staring only at the man on my couch. “When did you really first see me?”
Navy blue eyes peered up to mine, a cold intelligence, a brutal ruthlessness he had hidden to me, watched calmly, black curls dangling about his face. “When you were dancing with the Prodigies.”
I huffed a cold chuckle, even as Elder Jacobs shifted on his seat, a sure sign he hadn’t known this little fact. And…not only that…my lips curved with my simmering hatred for him, utterly loving the fact it must have been a rude awakening the next morning after he had thought to dupe me to realize I wasn’t a Shifter, and then, I thoroughly enjoyed the frigid hatred he didn’t bother to hide entering his own gaze as I laughed in his face.
Elder Jacobs cleared his throat after a moment, sitting forward in the recliner, putting himself into my line of eyesight to catch my gaze. “It wasn’t entirely Elder Merrick’s fault to deceive you as he did.” I quieted some, trying to reign in my anger, raking hair off my face with a damn still slightly shaking hand as I turned my attention toward him while he continued. “When we saw you outside the hotel with the Prodigies, we thought it surprising you recognized us so quickly, thought perhaps we had met before, but since neither of us forgets a face, and we knew we had never met you, we brushed it off as an oddity, our faces recognizable because of our history and position.”
I had recognized Elder Merrick instantly when I had rolled over that morning, right along with recognizing Elder Jacobs instantly outside the hotel.
He waved a hand. “But, after we followed you, ran the background checks, and ran your prints on a glass you’d used from the limo,” he shrugged a shoulder, sitting back on my recliner, “you didn’t exist on any databases, so Elder Merrick and I…did what we do best.”
My mind whirled, realizing they had already done a fingerprint check…and the bit he was blatantly telling me they were damn spies.
Elder Merrick efficiently released the clip on my gun and begun a quiet study of each of the silver bullets without flinching. “Now that we know you’re from the future, Elder Jacobs and I believe you knew us before.” He rubbed on one of the bullets, peering at it more closely. “In the future, I mean.”
I snorted, glaring at him. “Fuck you.” Oops, we had already done that, hadn’t we, which I bet chaffed him like no other.
“Hmm.” He peered more closely, ignoring my anger. “Which means, we knew you, too, since this,” a flicked hand around the room, “is the past for the us of the future, if you are truly meant to be here.” I went quiet, thinking that through slowly, even as he asked, voice still void, “How did we really meet in your eyes?”
“Elder Merrick…” King White murmured a quiet warning.
A cold, direct order. “Answer the question.”
My nostrils flared, but he did have my damn gun in his hands, so I sucked in a breath, keeping it simple. “I met you and Elder Jacobs for the first time in a formal living room after a dinner.” Not to mention, he hadn’t seemed to like me very well, which made sense now, the him of the future with this as his past, and…there had been something in both of their eyes, and even an odd comment by Elder Jacobs…I shook my head. “Yes, I think you both knew me. There was something there you both tried to hide.”
“Hmm.” He started putting the bullets back in the clip. “We only knew each other briefly?”
“Somewhat,” I stated vaguely, not going into details. “I went back in time not too long afterward.”
“But, we didn’t tell you.”
Not a question, but I stated, “You couldn’t alter time.”
He grunted, slamming the clip back into place on the gun, eyeing me coldly with his own simmering hatred.
Elder Jacobs interjected then, taking over, stating calmly, “As I said,” my eyes turned to him, “Elder Merrick is not only at fault for this. Since I was currently busy with another affair, it was decided between us Elder Merrick would take the lead in a private investigation of you. And after learning more about you during the interrogation, it was quickly surmised it would work.” His lips actually quirked. “You should feel somewhat fortunate, Ms. Farrow. You appeared to only need companionship. Had it been me doing the investigation, instead of someone who despises mixed-faction relations with a vengeance, I would have used a more sensual approach.”
My face stayed blank. “Yes, that’s very fortunate, because I probably would have killed you while you slept one night had you deceived me like that.”
Ah…that idea had merit.
Dark eyes stared back at me calmly. “Was that a threat?”
“Did you sleep with me to gain information?”
“No.”
“Then it wasn’t a threat.” I kept my mouth shut after that, seeing as how my gun was in the hands of the man I was threatening.
Elder Jacobs sighed heavily. “I understand you’re upset, Ms. Farrow, and I can’t even say I apologize for our actions because we were moving in the best interests of the Prodigies, but you shouldn’t take out your hurt feelings on King White. He had no indication of what was transpiring while we conducted our private research,”