envenoMATE

25. Help Her Please

Adina bit her lip and frowned extensively. Tabitha was angry. Tiger was angry. Daniel was angry. Chester had been deserted. And beneath it all, Adina was confused. The stress ballooned in the small car, pressing in on all sides and threatened to suffocate her. She rolled down the window an inch, but Tiger shot her a death glare with his mocha brown eyes. Lifting a hand from the steering wheel, he pressed the button on his side to seal the window shut again. Adina gnawed her lip when she saw Tiger lock the mechanism.

“Are you warm?” he asked steely. Giving her body a once over, he wondered if he should have let her change out of her pajamas before he dragged her on the road trip. No, he decided quickly. He’d done the right thing. 

“I’m fine. It’s just, stuffy in here,” Adina mumbled. She rubbed her hands over her arms. The temperature wasn’t bothering her. The atmosphere, however, set her on edge. But how could she explain that? She couldn’t taste the atmosphere. She didn’t hear it. Her five senses could not detect it, but somehow, she felt the undercurrents of anxiety and strife hanging thick. 

Tiger nodded non-committedly. The gravy scent of his passenger was filling up the car and drowned out the wonderful mixture of his beloved: maple syrup and brown sugar. His tiger wanted his mate, wanted her scent imprinted in his car and in his mind, and instead he was stuck smelling gravy. He hated himself in that moment.

Fresh air would be nice, but the last thing they needed to do was open a window and let a perfect trail of that scent waft out behind them for someone to follow. A good excuse, but not one he could explain to his ignorant little passenger. 

Thankful for his heated body and the heat passing through the vents, Tiger began to sweat. Reaching into the back seat, he grabbed one of Caroline’s spare towels that she used to wipe herself down after working out. Rubbing it over his head and face, he removed the sweat daring to sting his eyes and inhaled his mate’s special perfume, her own special scent. 

That helped the smell problem, but unfortunately, not the sound problem. Adina cleared her throat and shot Tiger a quick look. 

“What did you mean when you said snakes hunt in the forest but shifters are everywhere?”

“Shifters could be everywhere. That doesn’t mean they are.”

“Oh,” Adina said, quieting for a moment. “Well what’s a shifter?”

Tiger gripped the steering wheel, thankful Caroline wasn’t here to slap him when he lied. “It’s just a nickname for hunters. While in the woods, they act like animals and hunt. When they shift ecosystems, leave the forest for the city, they cease to hunt and they act like normal people. That’s all.”

“Oh,” Adina repeated, her face scrunching. 

Her curious robin blue eyes tried to sneak a look at Tiger’s face. Was he telling the truth? Her mother could tell when she or her brother had lied. Had did she do it? Did something in the face give it away? But what? 

With a sigh, Adina turned back to the window, cursing her naivety. Wasn’t the whole point of being innocent to stay out of trouble? Obviously that had not worked, and now she had no means of knowing what to do when in trouble. 

Crossing her fingers, she closed her eyes and hoped that Daniel would be enough to help her. 

Please...