Page 14 of Targeted By Fate

I guzzled half my coffee to avoid responding, though my cock did.

“Now I want you to fill me in.”

Gods, he had to stop talking like that. My dick swelled even more.

“Okay.” I had another kind of filling in mind, but that would have to wait. “What do you remember?”

“Alphas following me out… I think.” He rubbed his scalp. “My memory is fuzzy.”

We had to discuss the drug situation. No detours or delays allowed.

I cleared my throat and took some seconds to formulate my thoughts.

“I know what you’re going to say,” he added.

I almost fell to my knees and thanked the goddess for getting out of that awkward situation.

“You’re thinking when are we going to get naked and mark one another.”

Wait? Was I? No, absolutely not. I was about to discuss something else, but I couldn’t quite grasp what that was. It eluded me.

“Ummm, can we put a pause on that? Ummm, this is a little delicate.”

Hysterical laughter filled my head as I imagined my five siblings reacting to me using the word “delicate.” That wasn’t me. I didn’t dance around difficult situations but rather jumped in with both feet.

“It’s about the Duskthorn in your system.” There I said it, and there were no take-backsies.

Who are you?Even my wolf picked up on the change in me.

Keane held up his hands in surrender mode. “I swear I didn’t ingest that on purpose.” He grabbed me. “Please, please believe me.” Teardrops lined his eyelashes, and they sparkled in the early-morning light.

His sincerity was apparent in his eyes as he pleaded, and also his shaking hands and the blood draining from his cheeks.

“I do.” Whew. That was one huge potential problem crossed off the list. “My brothers and I suspect patrons’ drinks were spiked. You were lucky because some shifters died.”

“Were there any cat shifters?” he asked.

“They were not among the dead.”

There was a pause as I thought back to our meeting in the alley. That extended until the break in the conversation was beyond awkward. We’d leaped from the drug issue to people dying, and that led me to the killing in the alley.

“I was there,” he said in a quiet voice as his lower lip trembled. “Hiding under the dumpster. I have vague memories of getting from a bar to the alley—I think I was looking for a job.”

Perhaps he’d shifted and leaped into the killers’ car. Not that it mattered. That was the past.

“I’m sorry, not for what I did but that you witnessed me slaughtering one shifter.”

Keane clamped his teeth on his lower lip before replying. “More of a massacre. I remember it now.”

Ouch! If I could have planned how to meet my mate, that wasn’t it. I could almost smell the blood, though I’d had multiple showers since.

“If me and my men hadn’t eliminated them?—”

My mate put a finger to my lips. “They had to be crushed. I don’t know how I know this, but I do. My cat trusts you.” He fisted his hands, and his nostrils flared. “I wish I could have joined you but a house cat isn’t much of an adversary against a wolf.” He forced a chuckle.

Another hurdle cleared. He didn’t think of me as evil. I was calling it a win.

“You’re not scared of me?”

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