“What’s not real?” His eyes widened. “M
ates aren’t real?”
She nodded.
She could still hear Matt’s voice. You actually fell for that? Ali, that’s the oldest trick in the book! She could still feel her world crumbling around her.
“Alethia, no. Mates are real. Every shifter has a mate.” Grey took her hand, and she didn’t pull away. “My parents were mates. They knew the day they met, and they didn’t leave each other’s sides for thirty years.”
Everything about him suggested sincerity: his face, his eyes, his open and leaning body.
He couldn’t be this much of a liar, could he?
She couldn’t be this much of an idiot, could she?
“Ali!”
She jumped. Rhonda was standing at the door of the office again, giving her a pointed look.
She turned back to Grey. “I can’t talk right now.” She hesitated for a long moment. “Can you meet me after my shift? I get off at seven.”
“I’ll be here.” His eyes were warm. He held onto her hand as he backed away, only letting it slip from his fingers when he was too far to keep holding on to her.
Ali watched him leave, and then went back to her customers.
***
Grey knew that Matt and Paul would be waiting for him outside the restaurant.
Every part of him yearned to come at them head-on. The snow leopard inside him growled and flexed its claws. Nothing would give him more satisfaction than to wipe that goddamn grin off of Matt’s face, leave him begging for mercy.
Ali Parker ain’t no lady. Her own brother had been standing right there and hadn’t said anything at all. He hadn’t even looked surprised.
It had taken all of Grey’s self-control to keep from shifting and charging at them both right there in the restaurant.
It was like they didn’t even hear the words that were coming out of their mouths. Matt was clearly just using Alethia as an excuse to start the fight he’d wanted to have anyway. Grey had already been pretty sure that Matt Finch didn’t care about anyone or anything but himself.
But her brother Paul seemed like he was genuinely concerned about his sister. And yet, he wouldn’t listen to her when she told him in so many words to get out of the diner. And he wouldn’t defend her when Matt insulted her.
What a worthless man. Grey was amazed that someone as kind and smart as Alethia had come from the same stock.
He’d badly wanted to take them both down right there, but because he actually paid attention to other people, he’d limited himself to telling them off. Alethia wouldn’t have thanked him for fighting her brother at her workplace.
Even now, he had to keep from confronting them. He’d promised to meet Alethia when her shift was over, and if he got carted off by the local police for brawling in the street, that wasn’t going to happen.
After he’d talked to Alethia, though, all bets were off.
Grey saw Paul and Matt waiting at the curb, kicking the pavement and talking to each other. He waited for a moment when they were both looking away, and ducked around the corner of the building to the wall of bushes that marched along the side of the parking lot. He slipped behind one and shifted. His snow leopard form was powerful but lean, and it was simple to slink along behind the hedge and come out the other side with no one the wiser.
It was harder not to turn right around and pounce on those two assholes.
But he kept himself and the growling snow leopard under control, and slipped off into the trees behind the diner.
There was a suitable tree in just the right spot, and Grey leapt up into it, sinking his claws into the trunk and climbing until he got to a fork high up in the trunk, where he could see over the top of the low building to where Matt and Paul were standing.
Hidden by the canopy of leaves, he settled in to wait.
***