“And watching, too. This baby can record images simultaneously from both cameras for forty-eight continuous hours. The CIA made an offer, but I refused. I’ve been burned by them too many times before.”
“I want you to erase last night’s recording.” Every muscle in Jase’s body was tense, ready to lunge at the guy who had the nerve to lounge in Jase’s chair as if they were all just hanging out and talking video games.
Joshua looked from his screen to Jase and back again. “But I want to hear the heartwarming confessions.”
“Erase it. Now.”
There was a sigh as his fingers flitted across the screen. “Fine. Done. Now, it’s your turn.” Joshua dropped his feet off the desk and leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. All traces of the lovable goofball were gone. This Joshua meant business, and instinctively Talley knew this Joshua was dangerous. “I need to know where Liam Cole is hiding.”
Unlike Talley, Jase grew more relaxed the more serious Joshua became. “Are you sure you paid close attention to those recordings? Because the very next thing Talley and I talked about was how we don’t know where he is.”
“But you know how to find him.”
“Sorry, bro, I really don’t.” Jase used the hand that wasn’t tethered to Talley to lazily scratch his chest. “Listen, if you’re going to call in the big dogs, now is the time to do it. I’m not going to tell you anything else. The only person I’m passing information to is Sarvarna.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Listen, I don’t know what they told you, but I’m a Shifter. Do you know what that means?”
“That you require the occasional flea bath?”
“It means I can break every bone in your body before you can even think about defending yourself.”
Joshua looked at Talley. “He really believes that, doesn’t he?”
“We want to talk to Sarvarna,” she said instead of answering his question.
Again, he waved off the request to speak to the Alpha Female. “No, you don’t.”
“We don’t?” Jase asked. “What exactly makes you think that?”
“Because you hate that bitch almost as much as I do.”
Chapter 11
Joshua was genuinely happy for the couple sitting on the bed. When he’d first hacked into the school’s network and made certain he ended up sharing a room with the person everyone assured him was the most conceited Shifter in the Hagan Pack, he thought he was setting himself up for weeks of misery. The first day had tested his patience, but then Talley had shown up with a box full of gourmet cupcakes and enough goodwill to light up even a dank dorm room. The surly, self-important roommate he’d been trying to start a conversation with for the past hour changed in the blink of an eye. His sarcastic comments went from mean to witty, and the apathetic expression on his face was swept away by pure adoration. From then on, Joshua got his daily entertainment watching the two of them flying towards the inevitable. Along the way, he’d learned that Jase wasn't quite as annoying as he originally thought. In fact, he was starting to see why most people couldn’t help but smile when they said his name.
“W-we don’t hate Sarvarna.”
“You don’t hate the woman who tried to kill your best friend?” Knowing Talley, she really didn’t. ‘Hate’ didn’t seem to be a word in her vocabulary. “You’re a better woman than I, Miss Matthews.”
“We’re Alpha Pack Potentials,” Jase said, his eyes weighing Joshua’s response. “We serve Sarvarna and trust her judgment in all things.”
Jase’s tenacity in not blowing his cover would have been admirable if it wasn’t so damn annoying. “You can drop the act. I’m no more an Alpha Pack loyalist than you are.”
A movement just out of his line of sight caught his attention. Joshua shifted his gaze just enough that he could watch Talley’s foot inch towards his without giving away where his focus had gone.
“Talley, I don’t think it’s appropriate to play footsie with your boyfriend sitting right there,” Joshua said when her foot finally touched his own.
“Sorry,” she said, jerking it back under the covers. “I- I-”
“You were just trying to See if I was telling the truth.” He kicked off his flip-flop and stuck his foot up next to hers. “It’s okay. Footsie away.”
Instead of attempting another foot-to-foot contact, Talley reached out and grabbed onto his ankle with her hand. He felt a push of… something in his mind, but then it was gone. Talley’s eyebrows were knitted together when she looked up at him. “You’re blank.”
“Blank?”
Jase’s fingers visibly tightened around the hand she wasn’t using to latch onto Joshua’s ankle. “What do you mean ‘blank’?” he asked.
“I mean, I can’t get a read off of him. It’s like hitting a wall.” Her forehead crinkled. “No, that’s not the right analogy. There is something there, I just can See it clearly. It’s like he’s hiding behind a thick fog, kind of like Walker…” Her eyes flew wide open. “Thaumaturgic?”
“Immortal.”
She and Jase looked at one another, and he fully expected them to turn back around and tell him they didn’t believe in immortals, but to his surprise when Talley looked his way again she asked, “Can you project?”
Joshua took a deep breath, and then using a voice he was sure they could hear at the end of the hall, said, “Four score and seven years ago…”
Jase glared, but Talley giggled, confirming his belief that she was the one with the sense of humor in the relationship.
“Wrong kind of projecting,” she said. “I can See thoughts and emotions. You’re closed off to me now, but I think if you tried to project them into my head, I would be able to See you.”
“That doesn’t sound like a very good plan. What if I project lies?”
“I’ll know.”
“Are you sure?”
Talley leaned in and met his eyes. “If you want to try lying to me, fine. Try it. But I’m warning you right now, it’s not going to work.”
He almost wanted to try it to see if she was really that good or if she was bluffing.