I pry my tongue off the roof of my mouth and whisper, “Thanks to you.”
I’m rewarded with another almost-smile.
Parker lifts his hand and I think he’s going to tuck my hair behind my ear, but he cups my cheek instead. His eyes fall shut, and he sucks in a deep breath. Have to be patient. She needs time. She’ll trust me eventually.
His thumb brushes my cheek so softly my eyes flutter shut, and I shiver. The air around me shifts, and then Parker’s soft lips press against my forehead. “Good night, Nora.”
I’m speechless and frozen in place, until Parker gets in his car and drives off. I watch him go, unable to reconcile the warring emotions inside me. I don’t know what I’m doing with him. He’s too intense, and I know part of him is under the same spell everyone else is under. I know he’s drawn to me more than he should be. But for some reason, I can’t help encouraging him. I like him, but I’m playing with fire, and I always get burned.
I yelp when a hand clamps down lightly on my shoulder, and Nick chuckles. “Come on, little spitfire. Let’s go back to the Agency and beat a confession out of a merc.”
I snort but follow him to his bike. He stops before climbing on and grins at me. “You know…I also saved your life tonight. I think I deserve a kiss, too.”
He’s joking. But at the same time there’s something in his expression I’ve never noticed before. A hint of, I don’t know, a dare? I narrow my eyes at him. Just what is he playing at? When his lips twitch and I realize he’s only messing with me, I have the overwhelming urge to punch him. “You know what you can kiss, Gorgeous? My ass.”
Nick bursts into laughter and climbs onto his motorcycle, patting the seat behind him after the bike roars to life. “Come on, Nora. Let’s go interrogate our perp. I’ll let you be the bad cop.”
Damn him for making me laugh.
The interrogation room at the FUA looks the same as it does in the human world. Small. White walls. One-way mirror. Single table. The main difference is that it’s warded to be magic suppressing. By the time I follow Nick into the room, my new werewolf friend is bitching about his silver handcuffs being too tight. The guy stops complaining when he notices me. “What’s she doing in here?” He almost sounds scared. Nervous, at the very least. “She’s not a cop.”
Nick winks at me. “Nah, but she’s cute, though, isn’t she?”
I roll my eyes. Wolf Man scoffs.
“So…Dennis,” I say, reading the rap sheet sitting on the table in front of Nick and me. “No priors. Attempted murder is a pretty serious first offense. Money must be tight for you to take that job.” I meet his blazing yellow eyes. “It was a job, wasn’t it? Or did you just try to kill Parker and me for the fun of it?”
Dennis snarls at the accusation. “It was a job, but I didn’t try to murder anyone. I didn’t go near the vamp, and we were only paid to get you out of the picture—employer wasn’t specific as to how. Turning you and mating with you would have done that just fine, and you’re only human. That’s not against the law. I’m allowed to claim a human mate.”
I grit my teeth and glare at no one in particular. “There really should be a law that you can’t just take humans at will.”
Lack of that law is the whole reason Henry originally took me and why I’m neck-deep in the underworld now. But, underworlders aren’t big fans of humans as a whole, so I doubt that law is getting passed anytime soon, even if it would make my life infinitely easier.
“Fine,” Nick says to Dennis, shrugging casually. “You’re allowed to claim a human mate. Nora is exempt from that because she has underworlder blood, but you probably didn’t know that, right?”
Dennis vigorously shakes his head, staring at me with wide eyes. “I didn’t know. I swear.”
Nick cocks his head to the side, considering something, then nods once. “Fine, you didn’t know.” Can he smell lies, like a werewolf? I wouldn’t put it past him. “Tell us who paid you, and we’ll let you go.”
“Seriously?” I shout.
Nick shrugs. “Unfortunately, he’s right. Claiming a human mate isn’t illegal, and, technically, he didn’t go after Parker.”
“But he was an accessory! And he was hired! Isn’t there some kind of law against being a mercenary?”
Nick leans back in his chair and folds his arms across his chest. “Not if the job isn’t for something illegal.” When I scoff, he sighs. “I know you’re pissed, but he’s not really the person we’re looking for. Small fish, you know? We need him to talk.”
Who knew I really would be the bad cop of our strange little duo? I start to lose my patience. I want to know who paid these guys to come after Parker and me, and I have a better way of getting that info than making deals with this jerk. “Screw it.”
Dennis’s hands are shackled to the table in front of him with silver cuffs. He can’t move them, so I lean across the table and rest my hand on top of his. “Who paid you to come after me?”
His thoughts go exactly where I want them to. He can’t help it. When I hear the answer, I pull my hand back so hard I nearly fall out of my chair. “It was Huron River pack money?” My heart plummets into my stomach at the betrayal. “But why? I helped them!”
Nick’s staring at the wolf, incredulous. “The Huron River pack hired you?”
Dennis doesn’t answer. He’s too busy gaping at me in horror. “You’re a mind reader?”
The door to the interrogation room opens, and Madison West, the Director of the Detroit Division of the FUA, strolls in wearing either a smug or impressed smile. I can’t tell which. “So it’s true, then?” she asks. “It was the Huron River pack who ordered the hit?”
“It wasn’t a hit,” Dennis growls.
“Technically,” I grumble. I turn to Director West. “Was that confession enough for you?”
“It’s unconventional.” She glances at Nick.
He shakes his head. “There was no lie in her words.”
So he can sniff out lies. I wonder if he’s a shifter of some sort.
Director West thinks for a moment then nods. “The truth from you about what you heard in his mind is still the truth.” She smiles at me like a cat who’s caught a canary. “Nora, we really must discuss, again, you coming to work for us. Think of all the good you could do.”
I can’t think of anything right now except for the fact that the pack I’d just helped put out a hit on my life as thanks. “Sorry, Director West, I have a more pressing issue at the moment than my current employment.” I turn my gaping gaze back to Dennis. “Was it really the Huron River pack? Or was it just someone in the pack working individually? Who, exactly, paid you?”
“Garrett paid me,” he snaps. “You know, the wolf your buddy here killed?” He jerks his head in Nick’s direction.
I snort. “Yeah, I don’t feel bad about Nick sending him into his next life. He was about to do me the same courtesy. You know he was.”
Dennis’s glare softens a little, as if he feels bad about that. “He wasn’t supposed to,” he mumbles, looking away from me. “It was a mistake to hire him. He’s always been bloodthirsty.”
“That’s probably why he was hired,” Nick says. He narrows his eyes in thought and taps his lips with a finger. Slowly, he nods his head. “Yeah, that makes sense. If you want someone dead but you don’t want to be guilty of ordering their hit, you hire the most unstable, bloodthirsty mercenary to do the job and give him loose orders not to kill. Very smart.” His eyes flick back to me. “Technically, whoever paid them is not really guilty of being anything more than a jerk.”
“Of course not.” I roll my eyes at the complete crap penal system of the underworld. “But guilty or not, the fact is, someone in the Huron River pack wants me dead, and I need to know who before they try again.”
I turn to Dennis with a sugary sweet smile and bat my lashes. “Dennis, sweetheart, who in the Huron River pack paid Garrett to not kill me?”