Page 52 of Saving Stella
“Someone? Was someone in there?” he snarled.
“I didn’t see anyone.” She tried to force a laugh. “I’m just being silly. The students are always making up stuff, like saying there are ghosts who haunt Crestholm, so maybe I spooked myself … I’m fine.”
Lifting his head, he sniffed the air. “We’re leaving. Now.”
“What?” Before she could protest, he grabbed her arm and dragged her away. “Hey! What’s wrong? Cliff!” It took a lot of effort, but she managed to pull away from him. “I can’t just leave in the middle of the day. I have to get back!”
“You can’t.”
“And why not?”
“Because you’re in danger, that’s why!” he roared.
“D-danger? H-how did you?—”
“I’ll explain later, okay?” He raked a hand through his hair. “We need to leave. Now.”
She’d never seen Cliff quite like this before—truly frazzled. Her gut told her that this was serious.
“All right.”
She followed him all the way back to the pickup truck, then as she settled inside, sent a quick text to Tyler to let him know that she had an emergency she needed to attend to.
Tension filled the cab of the truck, and Stella didn’t dare move, not even to turn on the radio to fill the agonizing silence during the drive home. The skies, too, seemed attuned to his mood as the clouds swelled and turned dark. By the time they arrived outside the house, big fat drops of rain began pelting the windshield.
“I’ll grab the umbrella?—”
“No.” Her hand shot out, and she dug her fingers into his forearm. There wasn’t much force, but somehow it was enough to stop him. “Not until you tell me what’s going on. What makes you think I was in danger?”
“You know about scents, right? Lycan scents, I mean.”
She nodded.
“It’s easy to tell humans apart from Lycans because of their scent—or rather, their lack of.” His jaw ticked. “But from what I could tell, there was a Lycan in that building recently, from the scent in the air. It had followed you inside.”
She gasped. “How? I mean, couldn’t it be my scent?”
“Wasn’t yours.”
“But what does all this mean?”
“I’m not sure.”
“But you have a suspicion.” Then it dawned on her, what he really meant. “You think there was someone watching me, and they’re Lycan.”
“Like, I said, I can’t be sure it’s connected to you.”
“Then why did you have to drag me away from the carnival?” She leaned back and crossed her arms under her breasts. “What if it was a student or another teacher you scented? I wasn’t done for the day, you know.”
“I bet you weren’t.”
Her head snapped toward him. “What is that supposed to mean?”
To her surprise, he met her head-on, those bright green eyes seizing her gaze. “You made plans to go home with him.”
The way he said it made it sound so sordid. “It was just—” She clamped her mouth shut.
She didn’t need to justify herself to anyone, and especially not to him.