As soon as she finished speaking, the enforcer paused and then burst out laughing. He bent double while clutching the box in his hands. "You—you really know how to joke."
"Who told you that I am joking?" Inez rolled her eyes as she opened the door and headed inside the lodge. She heard the sound of footsteps behind her and thought that the man was going to leave the box that held the crabs and leave her alone, but contrary to her expectations, the man followed her inside.
Pausing in her stride, she turned to look at Ajax. she stood still and shot him a fuck off glare. The last thing she wanted was to deal with him when she had already had enough things to think over. That was what Inez did. Whenever she was faced with a situation she couldn’t handle, she would stay alone for a while, think things over and get her thoughts straight before facing the problems.
She might act like an ostrich sometimes, but once she was determined to deal with it, she would do it without a hitch.
And Ajax’s presence was putting a serious halt to her pondering session.
"Just tell me what you want from me?" Inez asked. With her arms crossed in front, she said, "I don’t think you came here to bond with me, did you?"
"That’s the thing," said Ajax as he moved close to her, but not close enough to put Inez on her guard. "I wanted to talk a little with you."
"For what?" Inez asked as she sank into one of the armchairs.
"Don’t tell me you expected no one to bother you after what happened between you and Killian?"
Heat flooded her cheeks, but Inez kept her expression neutral as she spoke, "I don’t understand how it’s bothering you or anyone else. It’s not like I am going to get pregnant with his child. And more importantly, I should have the right to have some privacy—especially after the shit that happened."
She didn’t sense any disrespect or contempt in Ajax’s eyes, which was the only reason why she didn’t kick the man out of the lodge. The seriously hot enforcer came off as a little flirt, but Inez could see that there was more to his personality than just him trying to get laid. At least she believed that he was seriously perceptive and very serious when it came to the safety of his pack and alpha.
He allowed that with a nod. "That’s another reason why I came to look for you. I wanted to make sure that you were okay. Not because I thought that you would be huddled in a corner and bawling your eyes out. But because I was genuinely worried about you."
"Why would you be worried about me?" Inez asked, sounding honestly bewildered. There were times when she had faced situations worse than this, and she didn’t recall anyone other than Scarlet caring for her.
Her heart twinged with pain when she thought of Scarlet. She hoped that her sister was alright and Dominic didn’t hurt her too much after her disappearance. If her mother had allowed Inez to let her disclose her identity, she could have at least met with Scarlet, but she couldn’t because her sister didn’t know that she was a siren.
"Because you are my pack member," stated Ajax as if it made all the sense.
Inez huffed. "It still doesn’t explain anything. Do you often care for your pack members ?"
"Of course. That’s what a pack does."
Now that threw Inez off. It wasn’t that the members of the Venus pack didn’t care for her. They did, but only because she was close friends with Dominic and the boys; if not, then they would have never even looked her way.
"You are not used to it," offered Ajax when he saw Inez looking completely bewildered.
"I am not," she was honest, as there was no reason for her to lie. "I won’t say that my pack never cared for me; they did, but only when things felt right." When they could please Dominic by getting close to her and caring for her. They cared, but their care was tainted.
"Then you need to get used to it." Ajax leaned back and crossed his legs at his shin.
"What? To your obnoxious presence?"
"That too." Ajax watched as Inez sat on the armchair with her legs tucked underneath her. "So... Kill marked you." Inez didn’t appreciate that teasing lilt to his voice. "It’s a shock that he allowed such a thing to happen. He had never done it with any woman before."
Yeah, he did, and she had heard it countless times already. What was funny was that she couldn’t even vilify Killian for that because she had done the same; it would be really hypocritical. Not that she planned to tell such an intimate thing to Ajax. But something in her expression must have given her away, because a second later the enforcer turned all smiling and giggly.
"Oh... so the two of you marked one another," he laughed. "This is going to be fun to watch."
She narrowed her eyes and questioned, "What will be fun to watch?"
"Kill trying to handle you. It’s what alphas do when they get possessive over their females; however, something tells me that even though you are a latent, you will not allow a man to control you." He cocked his head while frowning thoughtfully. "Has he tried to do it to you?"
"No." And she appreciated that Killian had not tried to push his way further into her life when she wasn’t prepared.
"I should have known." The man threw his hand behind the couch, and his eyes narrowed as he commented, "The last time I saw him with you, I thought that he treated you like a wild and injured beast. As if he was trying to coax and comfort them and slowly make them get used to him."