Bait novel 189

Chapter 189

Jonas

Seeing the loft through Perry’s eyes is different from when I first came here on my own. It felt like a cage then, but as she shows me around, I can see that this was definitely the place she came to get away from everything. There’s a level of ease I’ve never seen before and I feel more than honored to have her share this with me. She can’t say three little words, but she can show them.

“Print these in order for me, Kitty,” she calls out as she sets up pink folders in front of several printers and they’re all pink and covered in stickers. The doorbell buzzes and she excuses herself to get what she ordered.

“First file complete,” the cute AI announces.

I take it off the table to go through the pages. Weaponry. The next one is pharmaceuticals. Bio–engineering and

weaponizing. The list goes on and on and it blows my mind that all she did for this sick fuck was setup his tech and kill a few people to keep any of this shit from getting discovered.

“Real food,” Perry says walking in with several bags.

“Do you need help?” I ask, setting the files back where she had them.

“This is it,” she waves me off and starts putting things away.

She drops a glass jar and without skipping a beat a little robot rolls out from under the cupboard. She picks up pieces but the little thing cleans it up trailing the scent of pine before going back under the cupboard.

“Did you make that?”

“No, It’s one of Mack’s. A prototype she threw out and I picked up to tweak. Cute, huh?”

“Yeah,” I nod.

“You can

the bigger

watch whatever you want on the TV. There’s also hella coding and history books on the shelves under the TV. They range from human to werewolf. I don’t have Lycan written stuff because I didn’t think you guys were going to make it very far,” she smirks.

“Look at you now,” I laugh going over to the shelves.

“I mean someone had to save you, clueless babies,” she shoots back.

There are a lot of textbooks here and they’re all annotated. I take a coding one to find stickies and notes all on the inside. Her handwriting is messy but understandable and as I go further along the shelf the writing improves as well as the notes.

“Are these all from school?”

“Some of them. I like to keep up with what others update so a lot are just light reading. The ones with the pink stickies are the ones I make fun of because they think they’re inventing something but they’re really just ripping off other people,”

I laugh when I see that more than half are fucking pink.

“What are the greens?”

“That’s the excellent stuff. Blue is eh and the purples are concepts I’ve disproven. Reds are mods that weren’t compatible with Kitty. I was able to modify the orange ones to fit her, and the yellow ones are completely compatible. Like the cleaning bots,”

This is insane to me. I mean I’ve studied a lot over the years, but this is something she did on her own. Something she

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taught herself. The best I could do was adapt my journaling skills from my therapy sessions after everything that happened. Her outlet is magnificent.

The history books are a little less used, but it’s clear that she was researching specifics. Everything is centered around the Royal family and as I read through the sticky notes and highlighted parts it’s obvious that it wasn’t because she wanted to know more about the laws and how everything worked. She was looking into their powers and strengths.

“Why were you looking into the royal family like this?” I ask holding up an encyclopedia. I don’t know what she’s making, but the apartment is starting to smell amazing. Like ginger and beef broth.

“Uh,” she grins and clears her throat.

“Perry, were you planning on doing something to them?” I ask putting the book back.

“Just to the former King, but the old man and Violetta never let me,” she admits. “Please, don’t tell my cousin that. He admitted to me that before he found out we were related he had a sick crush on me,”

“I heard him,” I roll my eyes.

“You are the world’s worst snoop. I can teach you to be better at it,” she laughs.

“I’m not a stoop,” I scoff.

“Jo,” she laughs. “It’s a good thing to be when you’re the King. You know your surroundings a little better,”

“And I can use private information to blackmail people,” I glare at her.

“You said it,” she points at me with a chopping knife and shrugs it off like she’s innocent in the thought.

“What I want to know is how you got so good at masking your scent and presence. It scares me a little when you pop up places at random,”

“I think it’s funny that you guys believe that you’re not two things at once because if you’re asking me. It’s far from the truth I admit that it’s different than the presence of a wolf, because the spirit of the wolf is so powerful, and this. But it’s also the

same.

“What you interpret as rage or primal instinct is the distinction between you and your beast. Your primal instinct is different

betas and your from the beasts. As wolves, we are taught to remain human. We’re ranked the way we are because of the spirit, right? But while the wolf is a beta rank, it doesn’t mean the skin does beta–ranked things. So, you have your top fieldwork betas, some betas are considered omega by the nature of the skin.

“We don’t push our skin side to be more than it’s meant to be like you guys. I’ve been reading a lot about how you became gray and I became white. And by circumstance it makes sense. Our environment was very hostile. However, you didn’t make that leap into white because it’s not in your nature to be a killer. Not like it is when you’re in Lycan form and even then, you’d do it to protect what is yours,”

“So how do I tell the difference between the two?”

“With focus. When you want to hide, you concentrate on the you that’s pure. The happy guy who wants to save his people and his family. The guy who likes to journal and hang out with his new manic–depressive mate. It pulls in the beast. You overpower the instincts that make you an animal and poof. Presence gone and it has nothing to do’with shifting,”

She looks up at me with a smile and even while my eyes are focused on her, I get nothing. I don’t feel her in the room with me. I step up to the counter and take a seat on the stool on this side of the island. I do as she asks. I focus on us and the things that keep me centered. I feel it then. The peace that usually only comes when I shift back after a run.

“Oh, I place my hand on my chest.

“Perfect,” she says and continues slicing thin strips of beef to put in the pot on the stove. “Now, hold that for as long as you

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can. I like to hold it all the time. You know, so it scares the fuck out of people when I finally let it go,”

“What are you making?” I laugh

Pho. You ever had it?”

“I don’t know what it is,”

“You’re annoying sometimes. How are you so worldly at times and then not? It doesn’t make sense to me,” she smirks. “When you go to other countries it’s really rude to reject trying a slice of their culture and the best way to do that is to honor them by trying their food, Lycan King. Or hunting with them. Both are always fun,”

You’ve never even been to Japan,” 1 glare at her.

“Racist on top of being an American ass. Very on brand for you, Lycan King. Pho originated in Vietnam and I have been there. Three times. Two of those times were search and rescue missions with Violetta. I’d say you were thinking of ramen, but I doubt you knew that,”

“You’re a fucking know it all, you know that?”

“I do know that. It’s in the poorly thought–out description you just used,” she laughs.

All right, big head. How do I mask my scent?”

“Easiest thing you can do. Take a deep breath and hold it,” she instructs.

do as she asks and stare back at her holding it. Her eyes stay focused on me and I have to admit that I’m panicking a little after holding my breath for a while. I break eye contact focusing on not breathing out. Two whole minutes go by and I feel like my lungs are about to fucking explode. She laughs when I breathe out and gasp for air.

“You fucking asshole,” I say feeling a little lightheaded. “You got me,”

“Two minutes and four seconds, Jonas. That was amazing,” she grins. “Just take a couple of deep breaths to slow your heart rate. That one takes a lot of practice. You’re already really good at tiptoeing. Those are the fundamentals of being a little snoop when, you know, you’re not so little,”

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