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Hawk dropped into the vacant chair and patted his thigh. “You can sit on my lap.”
Blood rushed to Roxie’s cheeks, and a vein in her forehead throbbed. I would have laughed if this situation wasn’t so awkward. And I sure as hell wasn’t sitting in Hawk’s lap during a meeting. I was surprised Roxie hadn’t jumped at the chance.
I hooked my thumb over my shoulder. “I’ll sit somewhere else.”
As I turned, a chair scraped the ground, and Hawk followed me to another table. “You don’t have to sit with me.”
He scoffed. “You’re my partner. We stay together.”
My smile didn’t reach my eyes as I sat. If I hadn’t returned, he and Roxie would be partners and probably still screwing each other.
I rolled my shoulders, trying to shake off the unease flowing through my bloodstream as more ravens spilled into the room. I’d never felt more out of place at Corvin Manor. If any of them knew my secret, they wouldn’t even allow me in this part of the house.
Gia walked in with Axel who smiled in my direction, making Hawk stiffen.
“That guy really needs to learn his place,” he muttered.
I turned to him, my eyebrow arching at the venom in his tone. “And where is that?”
“Far away from you.” He scooted closer and rested his hand on my back in a possessive move that had my skin crawling.
If Fane had done that, I probably would have purred, but Hawk made it feel oppressive and suffocating.
I shrugged his touch off. “Don’t start with Axel again.”
He frowned and leaned his elbows on the table. “I don’t like the way he looks at you.”
If he only knew about Fane.
Coltrane finally came in and closed the door before marching to the front where whiteboards stretched across the entire wall. The lights shone on her dirty blonde hair slicked back into its usual low ponytail, and as she turned, her dark gaze landed on me.
I shifted in my seat as she continued to stare, a few people angling in my direction to see what caught the captain’s focus. Hawk leaned toward me, trying to get his aunt’s attention.
Finally, she shook her head and cleared her throat. “Thank you for coming so quickly.” She dropped a notebook on a desk in the corner.
“What was that about?” Hawk whispered.
I tried not to fidget as my pulse raced. “No idea.” Was Coltrane beginning to sense something different about me?
“As you may have heard, several shifters are missing.” Coltrane grabbed a black marker and scrawled names on the board. “According to Head Alpha Barric, the numbers have recently risen.”
The day I left for my ill-fated mission, Coltrane had been meeting with the head alpha, expressing his concern for some missing shifters.
“Has any kind of pattern been established?” Gia asked from her spot in the front, writing in a notebook on the table. She’d twisted her caramel braids into a low bun at the base of her neck, revealing the sinewy muscles in her upper back.
Coltrane shook her head. “None that we can decipher.” She pointed to some of the names with numbers beside them. “As you can see, it’s both male and female and varying ages.”
Axel drummed his pen against his palm as he spoke. “All from different packs and species?”
“Not one type or community has been singled out, and it has stretched beyond Savannah now.” Coltrane pointed to a name. “Steven Gregory is the most recent one.”
Panic slithered around my windpipe, cutting off my air supply as I thought of Fane’s family. “Has anyone in the Mohan pack gone missing?” The Anders had been so kind to me, and if anything happened to them…
Coltrane raised her eyebrow, and Hawk’s questioning gaze bored into me. “No one has been reported that far west yet.”
The tension loosened from my muscles, and I gave a jerky nod. “And what about the upper packs? Anything in Liberty or Dawson?” I threw out names farther north, hoping to appear like I was gathering information.
Hawk nudged me with his elbow. “What’s up?”
