Tempting Whispers: The Kategan Alphas 6 by T. A.Grey Page B

glass showed no features,
only the figure of a man. The hairs at the back of her neck stood on end and
her stomach muscles bunched hard like she was about to take a hit. She dared
not even take a breath.
    It could be him .
    The figure turned to face the door and
she sucked in a breath. She already knew what would happen next. The door would
open and Joseph’s stocky face would be there with his angry dark eyes and hard
fists. The head of the figure moved as if searching inside the office or
reading the label on the door which read: Justicar Brayden Erickson. The figure
might have stood there for only a few seconds, but it felt as though time had
stilled. She wanted to leap from her seat and switch the light off, but then
whoever it was would know someone was in there for sure. She wanted to turn the
small lock on the handle, but she couldn’t move. She sat rooted in place in
fear.
    Then the figure turned and kept walking
down the hall. Only then did she release the breath she’d been holding.
    The door swung open and she screamed.
Brayden eyed her curiously; he had a thick manila envelope in his hands. He
checked her from head to toe, then closed the door behind him.
    “What’s wrong?”
    Deep breaths. Deep breaths. “Nothing.
Just freaking myself out, I think.”
    His gaze fell down, left her eyes. “You
can stop gripping the chair like you’re trying to strangle it now.”
    Startled, she looked down to find what
he saw. She had a death grip on the arms of the chair. Slowly, she uncurled her
fingers, but then they felt empty so she grabbed her can of soda two-handed and
drank it. The taste fell flat and lifeless on her tongue.
    He moved around her and took a seat at
his desk. She didn’t even watch him move, just heard his soft steps on the
carpet floor. Her gaze stay glued to the thick-paned glass, which made
everything on the outside look milky and blurred, sinister.
    “Vanessa.”
    She jumped, then looked at him. She
hated the look on his face. The concern. It made her feel like a crazy person
whom he couldn’t dare leave alone for a minute without doing something nutty.
    “Yeah?”
    “Just give me a minute and I’ll get you
out of here. You’re safe with me. You know that, right?”
    She took a deep breath and let it out.
The man had tracked down kidnappers just to save her. He’d killed them with his
freaking hands . Yes, she knew he could be dangerous, and yes she
trusted, so she nodded.
    What she soon realized as she crossed
her legs into an Indian-style position was that Brayden’s sense of time was way
off. He poured over papers, his brow furrowed deep, occasionally scribbling
down notes in a small black notebook as the hour hand on the clock on the wall
ticked by. He didn’t speak. He didn’t even make a sound except when he flipped
a page over or tucked it behind the rest of the stack.
    Her skin felt itchy. She couldn’t stop
scratching her nails across her arms. Pink lines had already started to appear
across her forearms like she’d been under some kind of animal attack. Every few
seconds or so, it seemed, she found herself staring at that door waiting to see
if the figure would appear again. But it didn’t. He didn’t.
    Seething inside, she scrubbed a hand
through her hair and tugged until the strands pulled along her scalp nearing
the point of pain—then she pulled harder until spikes of pain exploded along
her skull. Her heart rate calmed then and her body relaxed, some.
    Sighing, she looked back at Brayden and
found him staring intently at her. A flush came over her. Had he just seen her
childish little tug-of-hair bit? His eyes flicked up to her hair and she
gulped. Yes, yes he did.
    “All right, let’s get out of here.”
    She was out of her seat and waiting at
the door in a flash. “God, I feel like I’ve been cramped up in here all day.”
Looking back at the clock, she moaned. More like three hours. Brayden’s sense
of timing was way off.
    He shoved the files back into the