“Personally,” began Havana, “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a human was asking questions about Camden a few days before he was almost taken.”
“Neither do I,” said Tate. “We need to speak with the human.”
Blair tensed at the deadly note in the Alpha male’s voice. It was clear that by speak, he meant torture. And each person in the room nodded in bloodthirsty approval. “You’ll have to be careful how you go about it.”
“In what sense?” asked Tate.
“You can’t approach him as a pride unless you’re comfortable exposing what you are,” said Blair. “Sure, it may be that he’s connected to the attempted kidnapping—if that’s the case, you can kill him, and then he can’t pass on that you’re not human. But you don’t yet know for certain that you’ll have a reason to kill him. He might not be involved.”
Havana licked her front teeth. “She’s right. I suppose we can have Camden do the questioning. We’ll act as if we’re simply there to have his back. If it turns out that the human is guilty of anything—”
“I can let out my snake so she can bite him, yes?” asked Bailey, her hands joined as if in prayer.
It was Tate who answered. “I don’t see why not.”
The black mamba shifter pumped her fist.
“We still have the human’s address, right?” asked Tate.
“I have the info that River sent us in my phone,” Luke told him.
“Then as soon as Camden is ready to leave, we’ll go have a nice, long talk with the human,” said Tate. “His name is Davis Regent, if I remember correctly.”
Luke nodded. “That’s him.”
Hearing her phone beep, Blair slipped it out of her pocket and peeked at the screen. A message from her brother read: If you don’t take my next call I’m gonna haul ass to Luke’s building and hunt you down.
Blair silently swore. He’d tried calling her several times in the past fifteen minutes but—considering the severity of the current pride situation—she’d ignored each call with the intention of contacting him later. Knowing he’d live up to his promise, she looked at Luke. “I need to speak with Mitch or he’s going to come find me. My guess is he’s heard about the email.” She gave Luke’s arm a brief squeeze and then headed to the kitchen. She called her brother, who answered after two rings.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about that goddamn email,” Mitch complained without so much as a hello.
“I take it Embry debriefed you,” she said.
“He told a few of us just now. Kiesha’s gonna lose her mind. Why didn’t you say anything to me about it?”
She rubbed at her forehead. “Mitch—”
“Hey, I get why you didn’t bother taking the matter to Embry. He’s been a condescending ass toward you lately, treating you like you’re being dramatic. But I would have taken the email seriously. You know that.”
“I do know that.”
“So why didn’t you tell me?”
“Two reasons.” She leaned back against the counter. “One, I wanted to tell Luke first—God knows I kept him in the dark long enough. Two … Let me ask you a question. Who would you say is responsible for all of this?”
“Probably some stranger who saw you in the street, developed all sorts of messed-up fantasies in his head, and is now acting as if you belong to him.”
“And that’s why I said nothing to you about it. You’re determined to believe it’s an outsider. I understand why. But I’m not quite as trusting as you. Way too many things point at the probability that my so-called admirer is from the pack. You would have argued against that. You would have hated that I felt unsafe in the pack, so you’d have gone above my head to Embry, wanting him to back you up on it in the hope that I’d then feel better.”
Moments of silence ticked by. “Okay, so maybe I would have told him but—”
“You’d have meant well, I know. You’d have thought you were looking out for me. And I couldn’t have been mad at you for it, especially when I knew you would have been uncomfortable with keeping a secret from your Alpha. But I still would have hated that you’d told him.”
Mitch muttered something beneath his breath. “I can see why you might suspect that it’s someone from our pack, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t—I want you to be careful who you trust right now. It’s just that … we’ve grown up around these people. I feel like we’d know if one of them was so damn twisted inside.”
“I thought that at first but, as Luke pointed out, people like that wear masks. They’re often very good at blending. We can’t say for sure that that isn’t the case here.”
He sighed. “I guess I can’t deny that.” He paused. “Mom and Dad will find out about it soon, so expect a phone call from them.”