"What? The two of you... you know each other?"
Max turned to Elara, her voice cracking as she forced a confused smile. Elara's face was absolute expressionless. The woman who usually wore a playful smirk like it was part of her skin now had her lips pressed into a thin line. She tilted her head at a sharp, dangerous angle, her gaze fixing on something other than Max's face.
Her eyes were aimed specifically, the white, trembling fingers still trapped in Max's firm grip.
Even though Max wasn't an Alpha and couldn't sense the sudden surge of Elara's pheromones, she seemed to have a vague, instinctive understanding of what that look meant. It was the look of a dragon watching someone touch a gold coin from her hoard.
A forced, elegant cough broke the suffocating atmosphere. The woman beside Elara lowered her fist she had used to cover her mouth and gave Max a look brimming with a hidden meaning.
