Boarlander Silverback (Boarlander Bears #3)(50)

“Yeah,” she whispered. “But it’s different hearing you say it out loud. Feels better than just hoping you feel the same as I do.”

Kirk kissed her soft lips, then stood to leave, but she held his hand. “Don’t go. Not yet. Can you just stay here with me for a little while? I don’t want the night to end. Not yet.”

“Okay.” Kirk kicked out of his shoes and climbed onto the bed behind her, spooned her against his chest, and nuzzled his face into the back of her neck.

And then Ally—his Ally—took another first from him as he fell asleep beside her.

****

Kirk’s warmth left her back, and Ally pouted sleepily. She was still lying on top of the covers, and the only thing that had kept her from the chill in the air was her big, naturally hot-natured mate.

But when she turned around to beg him to lie back down beside her, the look on Kirk’s face had her sitting straight up beside him. He had his head canted, his ear directed at the window to the back yard. Outside, gray dawn light streaked through the sky, which made it easy to see the suspicion on Kirk’s face.

“Can you hear that?” he asked.

She listened really hard. Other than a few morning birds chirping outside and her own breathing, she didn’t hear anything. “No. What does it sound like?”

He narrowed his eyes as if searching for the right words. “Like something tiny and high pitched. Like the whine of a mosquito, but it’s constant. A buzzing. Electric maybe. It’s almost too high for me to hear but I had trouble sleeping because it doesn’t belong out here.”

She ran her hands over the gooseflesh on his back. Something had his instincts up.

“Do you have a computer?” he asked low.

“Yeah, in the other room. It’s turned off, though.”

“Huh.” He was doing it again, angling his ear toward the window. In a distracted voice, he said, “I’ll be right back.” Lithely, Kirk slid out of bed and padded silently out of the room.

In a less graceful maneuver, Alison flopped out of bed like a tuna fish and bolted for the peg on the wall where her holster was hung. She pulled her Glock and checked the clip, then slipped out the back door behind Kirk.

He was standing in the clearing, hands on his hips as he scanned the canopy above. He slid one bright-eyed glance at her over his shoulder before he strode up to a giant pine and climbed up the branches so easily she lowered her weapon to her side and gawked. Midway up, Kirk gripped the trunk and yanked something off the bark. Then just as gracefully and swiftly, he climbed back down and stared at something small and black on the palm of his hand.

Ice prickled her blood as Alison approached him slowly, gun angled toward the ground, eyes glued on the contraption. “What is that?”

He rolled his palm, turning the device over in his hand, and she gasped as she recognized the lens of a small camera. She’d used similar ones in her years undercover.

Kirk lifted his troubled gaze to hers. “You’re being watched.”





Chapter Twenty


Alison leaned against the doorframe to her bedroom and studied Finn as he reclined in the office chair and tossed a tennis ball into the air. He looked calm-as-you-like, but her red flags had been flashing non-stop about him lately.

He’d become combative and hard to hold a conversation with. After the influx of videos from the silverback fight, he’d spewed his disdain for Kirk and her involvement with him. Thank goodness her years undercover had made her hart to track, because so far, no one had listed her name yet in the videos of the fight. She’d been there, followed by the cell phone cameras as she’d walked beside Kirk out of that barn. On the outside, she’d looked calm and collected, head held high, her hand on Kirk’s ribs as Kong and Layla had followed them directly, the other shifters of Damon’s mountains pushing back the crowd around her. If anyone had questions about Kirk being paired up before, those had been put to rest with the #kirksqueen that was circulating the Internet.

Finn had gone bat-shit crazy over the footage—yelling, calling superiors, and filing formal complaints, but the cold, hard fact was that her relationship with Kirk wasn’t illegal. Marriage and claiming marks were, but she hadn’t told anyone she bore his scar, so she was free to date him all she liked. At least for now, until the government tried to strip the next round of rights from shifters.

So far, the footage hadn’t damaged public perception of shifters that Cora could tell. In fact, she’d told Harrison the silverback battle had boosted curiosity on shifter culture, and her pro-shifter website had been surging with hits and questions. Harrison’s relief had been almost tangible. They hadn’t taken a giant step back in public relations and now, at the Boarland Mobile Park, Alison was utterly happy. But here at the post, Finn worked very hard to drain her.

For the last two days, she’d kept the fact that Kirk found the cameras a secret, waiting for some kind of reaction from Finn, but so far, he showed no signs of suspicion. Her mind had immediately gone to her partner when Kong had tracked down five cameras, all pointed at her house, while the woods behind Finn’s house boasted none.

Alison opened her palm and glared at the small black device she’d disabled. Someone had been watching her, but maybe Finn didn’t know about them. She hoped he didn’t. That betrayal would sting like a lash if he did. He was an anti-shifter jerk, but he was also her partner who was supposed to have her back.