Running with Rogues

CHAPTER 34 - CONSPIRACY

"What dots?" I asked, hardly daring to breathe.

"Oh, come on," Lin drawled. "It's pretty obvious. Your 'mate' is walking around stinking like an Alpha. In three days, I haven't seen you kiss him once. And then there's the fact you're absolutely shit at cooking and cleaning and everything else domestic. You aren't just some average girl from New Dawn, are you?"

My heart stopped in my chest. I thought I'd been pretty discrete. I spent a good few seconds just blinking at her before I managed to spit out, "I'm... You're not-"

Lin stepped closer again. She had me backed up against the wall, and she was smirking at me. "So here's what I think, Eva. I think your boy smells like Jace Lloyd's kid because the two of them were ... close, shall we say? I think his Dad found out and sent him here to keep them apart. I think he hired you, a 'working' girl with a particular skill set, so he could pass as straight."

I ... um...

Come again?

Liam smelt like Hayden because he was wearing his clothes. That was all. That was the extent of ... that. And yet ... she'd managed to construct an elaborate scandal from that one fact. I would have been impressed if I hadn't been so stunned.

"So Liam and Hayden Lloyd are in a gay relationship and I'm a prostitute?" I whispered.

She folded her arms and nodded smugly.

"Huh."

Footsteps behind me. "Who's in a gay relationship?"

Oh, for heaven's sake. I'd been so engrossed that I'd failed to notice that Mason was coming over. He looked somewhat pissed - probably a mixture of casual homophobia and annoyance that we weren't doing our jobs.

Lin jumped to attention. "Oh, no one. We were just talking about a TV programme."

"Stevens," I blurted. "Stevens and ... um, Ed."

I wasn't going to miss such an easy opportunity to throw that prick under the bus. Ed was a name I remembered from that god-awful group chat, so he could burn too for all I cared.

"You're supposed to report that shit, not gossip about it," Mason told us flatly.

"Yes, Alpha," Lin chimed without a second's hesitation.

He looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

I winced. "Yes ... Alpha..."

The words had a bitter aftertaste.

"Good," Mason said, while his eyes told us it was anything but. "Now, I'm trying to work. I suggest you ladies do the same, because I'm getting really tired of listening to all this yapping. Do I make myself understood?"

Something about his voice was getting on my nerves. It was probably the drawling, condescending undertone that did it, and so I didn't stop and think before I muttered, "We were just-"

Lin smacked me, and I was surprised enough to fall silent. It was already too late. Mason closed the distance in a heartbeat, and his hand closed around my arm. I was slammed backwards into the wall and pinned there. His grip was like iron, squeezing hard enough to leave a bruise.

Apparently, he wasn't accustomed to pack members talking back. His wolf was flattening mine. For once in my life, I didn't roll over on the spot. Instead, my fingers inched towards my pocket-knife.

I was about to do something really, really stupid when Mason's daughter burst into tears. She'd fallen off the sofa, by the look of it. He gave me one last derisive look, his lip curling, and then he went to go and help her.