I jerked my gaze back up to Aidan. “The money?” I didn’t want thaton tape. “No. It’s about my father.”
“Your father?” Behind his wire glasses, Aidan’s gaze roved over the darkness surrounding me as though searching the night for my father.
“The man you shot six years ago?” I sounded aggressive.
I needed to cool down or he’d slam the door in my face.
Or worse, he’d release his dog.
It growled again, slobber dripping down its jowls. My wolf bristled within.
“You must be mistaken. I’ve never shot a man.” Aidan’s navy eyes met mine with a disconcerting steadiness.
“He wasn’t a man when you shot him. But you know that. You know everything about us. Isn’t that why you asked me to dinner? Did you get lots of interesting material for your blackmail file?”
His lips thinned. “Careful, Ness. One phone call to the police, and I’ll show them your escort profile. I don’t think they’d take too well to a minor-”
“Because you think they’d take well to an old man paying said minor.”
His mouth quirked. “I’m not that old. Besides, I never paid you.”
The money in my account had been wired from the agency, but cops could trace his payment to the agency, unless it was made in cash. “Look, I didn’t come here to blackmail you into apologizing for what you did to me or to my father. I don’t even care if you took me out to dinner to gather information on my pack. The reason I came here was to get closure. To understand whyyou shot him.”
His gaze flicked again to the darkness, and it dawned on me to check the hand that wasn’t holding the dog-check for rifles or knives or whatever weapon a crazy, werewolf-hating recluse could wield. The fingers of his right hand were empty, simply toying with his earlobe.
“I shot a wolf that was on my property. I didn’t shoot your father.”
He was careful with his words, as though he was aware I was recording him. But he couldn’t know. My phone was wedged deep inside my bag.
“Then why didn’t you shoot the other wolf he was with?” I asked.
Aidan studied my face. “The little one wasn’t threatening.”
“The big one wasn’t threatening you either.”
“It was on my property,” he repeated, as though that was a sound reason for murder.
“So was the little one.”
His eyes bore into mine. “In hindsight, I should’ve shot the little one.”
“But you didn’t shoot…me.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed and rippled the lax, stubbly skin of his neck. “Want the truth, Ness Clark?”
I crossed my arms in front of my tank top, which stuck to my back. “That’s what I came here for.” Sweat beaded between my breasts but quickly absorbed into the fabric of my hot pink bra.
“Packs have Alphas. Alphas are larger than other wolves.”
I frowned, but then his words sunk into me like the perspiration into my clothes. “My father wasn’t the Alpha.”
“It was dark. And there was a small wolf next to a larger one. How was I to know it was a pup?”
“So you meant to kill Heath? My father’s death was a…a mistake?”
Aidan nodded.
Damn. Speak the freaking words! I tried to rephrase my question so it required a verbal response when his hand skidded off his earlobe. In the next instant, he’d released his hound and grabbed a rifle which he pointed at my chest. I shut my eyes, expecting the hound to pummel into me, but it flew toward the tall pines hedging the property.
I started inching backward when he hissed, “You move, I shoot.”
His hound snarled, and then it didn’t. Bones snapped. And then silence.
I strained to look behind me, but my vision was hazy with fear.
“They just killed my dog,” Aidan whispered, a manic inflection to his tone.
Who’d just killed-
He shoved the barrel of his rifle into my chest, jerking my attention back to him. “They leave me no choice but to kill theirs.”
Theirs? Was he referring to me? Adrenaline spiked through me, clearing the haze. I gripped the barrel and shoved it upward. A shot detonated. I jammed the butt of the rifle hard into his shoulder blade. His grip faltered, but he didn’t drop the weapon.
Growls resonated behind me, and Aidan’s eyes turned wild with bloodlust. He cocked the rifle. I tried to ram it into his shoulder again, but sweat had slickened my palms, and my hands slipped. Aidan ripped the rifle from my fingers and pointed it at the wolves behind me.
The wolves who’d just come to help. Who didn’t deserve to get shot.
“Go!” I yelled as I stepped in front of the still-warm muzzle.
My heart spun like a flicked top. I shrieked the word again, but neither wolf moved. I could smell them mere feet away from me, like I could smell the sharp stench of gunpowder.
Aidan’s knuckle flexed.
My body reacted. My fingernails lengthened into claws. I punched the rifle away again. The shot flew wide. As he actioned the bolt, I swiped my claws over his sideburns, ripping hair and skin. Blood dribbled down his throat.
“You little cunt,” he growled.
I bounced away from him as he stared at his bloodied fingers, momentarily forgetting about the weapon in his hands. Why had I stepped back? I shouldn’t have stepped back… I needed to take the rifle from him.
I lunged for him again, and he swung the rifle into my cheek. My neck cracked, but I didn’t fall. The hot metal barrel scorched my skin, and the blow had my ears ringing.
“Crazy bitch!” He shouldered his rifle again.
“Better not shoot me in human form,” I said. “You wouldn’t be able to pass it off as a…hunting accident.”
He angled the gun’s muzzle on my thigh. My ears rang louder. If he spoke, if the wolves behind me howled, the sounds were lost to me.
Aidan smiled, and his knuckle whitened on the trigger.