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Jaz picked up their empty meal bags and stored them in a sealed bag to remove later.
“Did I say something wrong?” Adrian asked.
She should have expected him to ask why she had a safe place at some point, but not while she’d been floating in his happy pheromones.
Was he impressed with her planning or thinking about how only someone on the run for murder would do all of this? She waited, realizing this might have been her greatest mistake when she’d been so careful.
“Does this place have running water, too?” he quipped.
“No. Just the barrel in the corner where water leaks down a crevice to fill it after a rain. You’ll have to go outside for a nature call.”
He grabbed her hand when she went to step past.
She lowered her gaze to his. He moved her hand to his lips, then gently pulled her down.
What happened to her discipline?
Adrian. He had happened.
Now she wanted him happy and not wondering if he’d done all this for a criminal. “Go ahead and ask your questions,” she said.
“What questions should I ask?” He moved her across his lap where she leaned back in the curve of his arm.
“You have unfair interrogation tactics,” she complained.
He kissed her. “You’re right. I intend to uncover all your secrets, which shouldn’t take too much effort.” He lifted the tail of his shirt from where it pooled in her lap and kissed her breasts. Then he dropped the shirt back in place.
She gripped his shoulder, unsure if she intended to push him away or drag his mouth back to her breasts now missing him.
“Want to tell me why you’re pissed off?” he asked, not the least bit concerned. He barely held a grin in check.
This would worry her until they got it said. She lowered her hand that had been stuck in indecision and told it to stay put on his knee. “Admit it, you’re wondering why I have this place.”
“Sure, that crossed my mind.” He let his gaze move around. “It’s obvious you had to do this over a period of time. I’m sitting on a nine-foot-long rug. Don’t see those in caves every day or indoor lighting.”
She couldn’t believe how he teased her. Narrowing her eyes at him, she asked, “You aren’t wondering why I planned this so long ago, Adrian? Why I need a safe house? Do you mean to tell me you aren’t connecting this to Kaiser’s death?”
He stilled. “No, I’m not. You told me that was self-defense. I heard and scented the truth.”
“Scarlett knows I can pass off a lie with a shifter.”
He gave her a strange look. “I realize that.”
“You do?”
“Yes, but she only told me to explain why you wouldn’t talk to my boss. You also told me yourself a little while ago that I had known every time you tried to lie. I connected the dots a while back and realized you tested me when I first showed up in Clarenceville. I would have done the same thing in your shoes.” He pecked a kiss on her nose. “Are you now trying to convince me you’re guilty of something?”
She started to argue and realized how she sounded. Slapping a hand over her eyes, she groused, “I just ... I just don’t want you wondering about all this. I can’t take you thinking I’ve done something criminal.”
He pulled her hand away and waited for her to look at him before he spoke. “I don’t wonder. I know you didn’t murder Kaiser. Even if I doubted you, which I haven’t, I found a connection between him and whoever had you chained to a tree.”
She sat up. “You did? When?”
“Right before I found you. Now we can develop tangible evidence to prove your side of the story. I guessed you were snooping around to find Daisy, that’s her name, right?”
Jaz nodded. “Yes, I was, but that’s not how I got captured. Bounty hunters who tried to grab Thea the night you showed up, came back for me. They shot me with tranqs when I walked out of the apartment right after you left.”
“Son of a bitch! Is there anyone else waiting to hurt you?” Anger steamed off Adrian.
“That was not as bad as the spike and you fixed that,” she said, running her hand over his face to soothe him. “Guess what I found out?”
“Can’t wait,” he grumbled. “Who else took a shot at you?”
“No one.” She told him about how she’d been taken to the Blood King.
Adrian asked, “There really is a Blood King wolf shifter?”
“Evidently. I met him and ... I hate admitting this, but he’s my father, not Reinhold. He kept my mother at his place so Reinhold could visit her.”
“Well, damn. You’ve had a hell of a time just trying to figure out your family tree.” Adrian grimaced. “What a bastard.”
“Not that I don’t agree, but my mother was complicit.” Jaz had gone through so much since hearing the truth. She didn’t feel the deep emotional wound she had earlier. It would return, but almost dying put a lot of other things in perspective. “I always thought she meant Kaiser when she kept saying she loved him, and it was my fault she had to leave him. I took that to mean she ran to save me at the cost of losing her son. She’d always say, ‘you’d love him, too’, but that turned out wrong.”
“Your mother hadn’t cared about Kaiser?”
“To be honest, Adrian, I have no idea. She might have at one time, but she’d been having an affair with Reinhold while her mate, and his, still lived. He killed her mate then needed to put her somewhere. The Blood King is Reinhold’s brother and acts as if he’s a family benefactor for keeping her at his place as his brother’s sex toy. Evidently after giving birth to Kaiser, the Blood King decided to have a go at her. Ironically, she felt guilty about betraying Reinhold and ran so she would not have to face him pregnant with me.”
Adrian’s hand rubbed her shoulder and he stayed quiet, maybe realizing she had to get this out.
Jaz moved her shoulders to loosen her back muscles.
“You okay?” Adrian relaxed his hold on her.
She leaned into him, and his arm returned to keep her warm and happy again. She continued, “My mother never talked about being abused or held captive. She never said anything bad about the Blood King.” Swallowing against her thick throat, Jaz said, “I grew up thinking all this was my fault. Kaiser had been abandoned, just like me, because my mother left me with her Kodiak clan to raise. That’s why I decided to come see if Kaiser might be suffering from abandonment and would like to know he had a sibling, but I was wrong. He never showed any indication that he even knew about her. I don’t think Tanza or Leonard knew that Reinhold had brought Kaiser to his mate to raise. They weren’t that much older than him.”
“The pieces are starting to fall into place,” Adrian confirmed.
She filled him in on everything, adding, “I smelled a sickness at times around Reinhold’s pack. He would not allow any of his shifters to come around me. I was glad he didn’t want me to bond with his pack right off the bat, but I later realized he had been planning on Kaiser kidnapping me at some point. I told his pack nothing about my mother or the Kodiak clan. I wore a sheer skin covering made for my face in Alaska with a little makeup to hide my identity and never shifted around them. That’s why I used the name Jane with the pack.”
“If you had shifted, that would have freaked them out.”
She laughed. “Probably. Right before they tried to neutralize me.” After a moment, she shared, “Reinhold killed his mate when she told him to kill Kaiser. She didn’t want to raise his bastard. I think the alpha killing his mate could be the cause the sickness in the pack.”
Adrian stared at the wall. “Leonard said he once joked that Kaiser might belong to the mailman since he didn’t favor him or Tanza much. That enraged his father, which made Leonard feel bad, so he worked harder to be a good brother. It would have destroyed Leonard to know this about his father. I have to find a way to help Tanza. She seems to be the one innocent in all of this.”
Jaz tried to concentrate, but Adrian moved his fingers up and down her thigh, not being intentionally sexual.
Intent didn’t matter.
His touch disrupted her entire body.
She grabbed his hand. “Either stop this or the conversation. Both can’t happen at the same time.”
Eyes sparking with devilment, he says, “I’m done talking.” He laid her back on the rug and rolled over the top of her. “I have better uses for my mouth.” He pulled her shirt up and over her head, then did some twisty action to wrap up her wrists.
He licked one nipple then the other. “You don’t have to do anything except lay there.”
Heat rushed to her womb. She curled her fingers into her palms, digging in to hold on.
In no hurry, he took his time using his hands and his mouth to torture her breasts in the sweetest way. She moaned, pleaded, then demanded more.
He paused in kissing her body to smile. “You’ll get what you want in time.”
She growled at him. “You’ll beg harder when it’s time for payback.”
“Promises, promises.” He slid down between her legs and turned that wicked tongue on the one spot that cut off all ability to think.
