"Dom?" Blake tentatively called his alpha, who snapped his head up and questioned, "What?"
"Do we have to continue with the search?" Blake asked softly. "I mean, there is no point in looking for her anymore. With what you have done, I don’t believe that Inez would ever accept you—"
A burst of alpha vibes caused Blake to stiffen in fear. He raised his head and looked at Dominic, who was looking at him with a gaze so intense that it made Blake tremble in fright. He lowered his head, not daring to look at Dominic anymore.
Tao cursed inwardly. He knew that this was going to happen; it was for this reason that he didn’t bring up the indecent incident till now. He, too, had many questions that he wanted to ask. Why did Dominic hold back from letting the bond break completely? Why did he keep Inez alive when he hated her for killing Abertha? And why did he sleep with Eve if he didn’t want Inez to let go of him completely?
Or did he regret doing what he did to Inez?
There were questions, but there were no answers to these questions.
He stepped forward and diverted Dominic’s attention. "Don’t worry too much," He said to Dominic. "I have traced her scent around the city where the humans live. We will try to expand our area of search. I am certain that with so many enforcers looking for her, Inez would still be able to hide herself."
"...Investigate Lyla," Dominic said after he was done listening to Tao’s explanation. "Try to find out about her and where she is from."
Tao turned helpless upon hearing his command. He said, "Are you sure, Dom? Trying to investigate Killian’s woman will not end well. Sokolov never begins a fight, but they never let any disrespect slide either; you know that they are always the ones to end the fight."
"Do you think I fear him?" Dominic rumbled. His eyes flashing wolf as he straightened up in his seat.
"Of course not." Tao shook his head. He continued, "I am just giving you a warning, for I am worried that you are jumping to conclusions. Even if that woman was a bit similar to Inez, her scent was not that of a shifter. She was neither human nor a shifter, which is enough to prove that she is not Inez."
He paused and added, "And Killian admitted that she was Inez’s substitute."
Tao closed his eyes and went on bravely, "A substitute will remain a substitute. Who knows? Maybe she was trained to act like Inez by someone?"
Dominic’s lips moved, but no noise came out. He knew that Tao was correct.
That woman could never be his Inez because she would have never given him the cold shoulder; she loved him way too much.
He raised his hand and rubbed his forehead with a hint of annoyance. "Just investigate her."
"Alright, if that is what you want." Tao lowered his head and conceded with a sigh. He knew that he was fighting a losing battle.
"You can leave," Dominic said to his enforcers. "I want to be alone."
Tao nodded and left with the two men without offering more words of comfort to Dominic, for they knew that the man would not listen to them.
"Why did you bring up Eve?" Tao asked Blake while looking at the man who was silently walking next to him.
"I simply asked a normal question," Blake responded. Tapping on his phone’s screen, he continued, "Do you even know how many enforcers were pulled off their usual positions and tasks because of this matter?"
"If I had known that she was speaking the truth, I would have stopped her back then," Luca whispered, and both Tao and Blake turned to look at the man.
Tao blinked his eyes and questioned, "You knew? You actually knew that she was going to run away?"
"Of course I didn’t." Luca rolled his eyes and snapped harshly. "The last time we talked, she made a casual remark, and I thought that she was just saying it in anger. I never thought that she was already planning to escape. If I had known then, I would have thought of a plan to counter hers."
Luca ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. For the first time, he felt like he had been played like a fool. The truth was right in front of him, and yet he couldn’t see it clearly.
"I just don’t get why he is being so desperate." Luca lowered his voice and questioned the two men. "I mean, even if Inez ran away, it is not like it’s the end of the world. Didn’t he say that he wouldn’t care even if she disappeared? Then why is he worried? If she is gone, then let her be gone. Think of her as dead; isn’t it easy?"
Though he said those words, he too was determined to hunt down Inez.
Tao glanced at Luca, who was gritting his teeth. As he knew what Luca felt for Inez, he knew that this matter was far from being closed.
Inez sneezed as she headed down to the kitchen. Once she returned to the pack, she went back to her lodge and cleaned up. However, ever since her return, she had felt a bit sick, and she knew why this was happening to her.
"I guess it has been a month," Inez muttered as she raised her hand and rubbed her nose. She raised her head and looked at the window that was overlooking the ocean, and wondered if she would find any coral wisps growing next to the shore.
Though those plants were often treated as weeds by the shifter community, they were quite handy when it came to suppressing the desires of sirens. As a siren, there were times when she craved the flesh of a man. Inez certainly couldn’t feed on men, since that was the case; she could only use the coral wisps that suppressed that desire.
It was because of this desire of hers that her mother often called her a monster.