“Who. Did. This?” Her voice was dead, toneless.

“We don’t know,” replied Trey, his own voice thick with anger. His mate’s car. Someone had dared to do this to his mate’s property. His wolf wanted to surface so that he could hunt them down. “Almost every pack member’s scent is in this lot because everyone uses it. If we had gotten to it when the paint was still wet then maybe the culprit’s scent would be heavier in the air than the rest but…”

An arm curled supportively around her and she turned her head to see Tao looking down at her wearing a sympathetic expression. “It’s okay,” Tao assured her. “We will find out who did it somehow. In the meantime, someone will clean it.”

She shook her head. “I’ll do it.”

“No,” they all objected at once.

“It’s my car.” Hers, it was her baby…and someone had vandalized it. Sure it was only a little paint, but dammit that wasn’t the point. Her shifter territorial nature made it even harder for her to keep calm. Rage was coursing through her, making her grind her teeth and ball her hands into tight little fists. “I’m going to kill them.”

“Get in line,” said Ryan.

Tao took one of her fists and uncurled it. “Come on, come inside.”

“Go,” said Trey, “we’ll take care of this. Go inside.” He knew he’d probably sounded a little sharp with her, but he didn’t like seeing another male’s arm around her. In fact, he wanted to snap it off.

She sighed. “I -”

“No.”

Her wolf calmed a little when he came close, but he didn’t touch her just like Taryn knew he wouldn’t even though she needed it, even though he would feel that she needed it. “It’s my car,” she repeated, knowing that it didn’t really have any bearing on the matter of who cleaned it. She was simply pissed off to think right.

“You don’t need to see this. Whoever did this did it to upset you, don’t give them what they want.”

“Says the world’s worst brooder,” she couldn’t help muttering through clenched teeth.

“Taryn, we’ll take care of it.” He raised his hand to touch her face, but then he dropped it again. More than anything he wanted to comfort and calm her with his touch, and that was exactly why he didn’t. “Go,” he urged softly.

Relenting, she allowed Tao to lead her inside, but she didn’t go into the living area to relax the way everybody was advising her to. No, she went straight back to the kitchen and over to the onions to continue dicing them. Grace opened her mouth as though to object, but a warning look from Taryn kept her quiet. Taryn didn’t want to relax, didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts and her anger, she just wanted a distraction.

The entire time that she and Grace had been working on the evening meal, Marcus and Trick had been speaking to every member of the pack trying to establish each person’s whereabouts over the past few hours. Cam, Rhett and Brock were the only ones who didn’t have alibis for their story, Marcus informed her as they ate the evening meal. Of course everyone was straining to listen to their conversation and she got the feeling that that was the whole idea, that the guys were closely monitoring the expressions of the others as Marcus told her everything they knew. Taryn still wasn’t convinced that Selma didn’t have something to do with it, but apparently Kirk and Hope stated that she had been with them the whole time. She wouldn’t put it past Kirk and Hope to lie for her though.

It wasn’t a surprise that in spite of how Trey had to sense how much her wolf was craving comfort from her mate, he barely spoke to her through the evening meal, let alone touched her. Nor was it a surprise that she went to bed alone or that he didn’t lay beside her when he finally did join her. But it still burned. Not just in a physical sense, but in an emotional sense. She hated herself for that. Her and him, in fact.

Instead of the burning easing over the next few days as she resigned herself to the way her mating with Trey was going to be, it only worsened. It wasn’t just because of her wolf’s hunger for contact with her mate. Taryn the woman wanted Trey the man which made absolutely no sense given that they barely interacted or touched. But when they did interact and they did touch…Ah, hell.

None of this was good. Not a damn thing about this mating – other than her having escaped Roscoe – was good, but she wouldn’t back out on a deal. That wasn’t who Taryn was. It wasn’t like she had anywhere to go even if she did leave. Her uncle still hadn’t gotten back to her, if he even intended to.

And so the burning stayed and worsened as more days and nights passed with absolutely no change. Sure there had been moments where she had been tempted to just jump on him and be done with it, but she didn’t want scraps and neither did her wolf.

It was extremely annoying that Trey didn’t appear to be going through the same struggle but she ignored that annoyance, she ignored her urges, she ignored her wolf’s pining and she continued on as usual. But then one really shitty day came a few weeks later and she was seriously at risk of exploding with it all…the anniversary of her deceased mother’s birthday.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Trey jumped to his feet as the door to his office suddenly burst open. Thinking that there must be some sort of emergency – and feeling a spike of fear that something might have happened to Taryn – he walked around the desk toward where Dante, Marcus and Trick stood, scowling. His wolf had snapped to alertness and was pacing within him.

“What the hell did you do?” demanded Marcus.

Surprised by not only the question but Marcus’ insubordinate behaviour, Trey frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Taryn. What did you do to her?”

His wolf went still. “What about Taryn?”

“You’ve been holed up in here all morning so you wouldn’t be aware that she’s got the personality of a zombie right now. We can barely get any conversation out of her. She’s not even responding to Greta’s taunts – just looks through her like she’s not even there. That’s not Taryn.”

No, it wasn’t and he had the sudden urge to go see her and find out what was wrong. Instead, he simply shrugged. “She seemed kind of quiet earlier but other than that…”

“Yeah? Well now she’s really quiet. As in mute. That’s when she’s not telling us to get out of her way while she cleans every room.”