Things that Go Bump in the Night

Chapter 38: The Lying Game

“H-he was asking about what was going on with….him. Kyrie I need to-“

“For God’s sake your eye is trying to swell shut Juni.” Kyrie cursed in anger as he searched through his bag for something.

“Kyrie he-“

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out he hit you Juni.” Kyrie interrupted me. “I need to go find an ice pack.”

He moved to get up and I grabbed his arm and ripped him back to the ground with an amount of strength that I didn’t know I had.

“Kyrie forget my face.” I commanded. “Listen to me damn it.”

That finally got his complete attention and he really looked at me for the first time since he had stepped into the apartment, looking over my terrified eyes with growing unease.

“What happened?” he asked.

“He saw a photo while he was….” I trailed off, not able to describe exactly what that monster had been doing to me before he had happened upon my family photos.

“What photo?” Kyrie asked.

I raised my gaze and pointed at the abandoned picture frame that lay on the ground next to where I had collapsed when the monster left. Kyrie got up and went to retrieve it, looking down at the picture with a confused expression.

“You and your sister were cute when you were little but what does this have to do with anything?” he asked.

“His mate’s in the photo…he saw her eyes.” I finally was able to explain after a moment of just letting him stare at the photograph. At those words he froze and looked up at me with an expression on his face that was somewhere between horror and pain.

“I told him it was my cousin who lives in Nevada…”

My hands had started shaking again and by the expression that crossed his face as he looked down at the picture one more time I knew that I didn’t have to say another word of explanation to him. Kyrie and I had always seemed to be on the same wavelength and in this instance was not an exception. I could see that he understood me just by looking into his eyes.

He knew that I had lied.

He knew that Cheyenne was the Alpha’s mate.

“Shit.”

Again we were on the same wavelength as he muttered the curse a couple more times, standing up jerkily to put the picture back in place on the bookshelf. He paced the room for a minute, forcibly trying to get the wheels in his head to turn before returning to my side.

“And he believed you? He has been to the western pack before looking for his mate.” He asked.

I shook my head.

“He didn’t look at humans. Not in the low sector.” I mumbled to myself. Kyrie took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose slowly.

“And he didn’t smell her? He didn’t smell Cheyenne’s scent here?” he asked in bemusement. My mind flashed back to when the Monster told me that he knew that he would find me with Cheyenne because he smelled my scent on Chey’s hand-me-down clothes. And the Alpha hadn’t smelled Chey? I took a deep breath almost if I was trying to smell her out myself and realization dawned in my head.

“The baking…he said he couldn’t smell anything other than derby pie.” I remembered. So my manic baking obsession had actually served a purpose.

I had never been so thankful for baked goods in my entire life. Kyrie sighed again and ran his hands over his head while thinking.

“If he believed you….he wouldn’t have wasted any time before going to find her.” He concluded. “Even if he flew it could take days to go through all the humans of West Pack…we only have three days left. We might be able to escape before he realizes that he was lied to.”