Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 151489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 757(@200wpm)___ 606(@250wpm)___ 505(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 151489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 757(@200wpm)___ 606(@250wpm)___ 505(@300wpm)
She frowned. Now that the haze had begun to clear, a very important detail struck her. “Someone…”
“Someone what?” pressed Trey, breezing his thumb along her jaw.
“It felt like someone grabbed my ankle.”
“There was no one there when I got there.”
“Someone grabbed my ankle,” she said with more conviction. “They grabbed it, and they pulled it to make me fall. Then I was being dragged down the steps.” She lifted her hands and stared at the burning abrasions on her palms. If the same burning and tingling coming from her elbows and knees were anything to go by, she had similar abrasions there.
“That’s probably just from when you placed your hands out to break your fall.”
Dante took a closer look and shook his head. “No, those are scrapes…You can see where the skin was peeling like her hands were dragging along the floor.”
“Okay, well maybe she slipped down a few steps.”
“I didn’t slip.”
Not liking what this could mean, Trey shook his head. He didn’t want to believe it. “Baby…No one here would hurt you.”
Her brow arched. “Oh really?”
“Spray painting your car is one thing -”
“What about LJ?”
“Who?”
“The raven. Someone killed him and hung him upside down outside my window. That someone is not balanced.”
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.”