by Alyssa Day
14
Lucas drove steadily through the early afternoon, following the directions that Rhiannon's phone irritatingly chirped out at him periodically. His gaze kept getting drawn to her, almost despite himself. A kind of wonder simmered inside him at the realization that she felt safe enough with him to sleep, even in these circumstances.
Of course, sheer exhaustion might explain that too, his cynical side reminded him.
Still, the need to help her—to protect her—burned inside him. The thought of her daughter in danger threatened to wake up the berserker, so he consciously pushed it away and concentrated on driving carefully, staying under the posted speed limits, which were ridiculous to superior Atlantean reflexes, but this license issue might be a problem if he broke any laws.
The last thing he needed today was to find himself in a confrontation with human authorities. At best, he'd piss Denal off or possibly wind up in a face-to-face meeting with King Conlan, the man his father had tried to overthrow—a meeting Lucas had been careful his entire life to avoid.
At worse, the berserker would break free and far, far more terrible things could happen.
A few hours later, when Rhiannon jolted awake, stars shimmered in the deep-blue twilight, and the light of the full moon was already glowing, low in the sky. The full moon. Rhiannon's breath whistled out of her lungs and she suddenly doubled over, hyperventilating.
"My daughter is alone with wolves on the night of the full moon. And my only ally is the man I ratted out to Yardley and Plusick this morning." She paused, trying to breathe. "I'm sorry. I didn't--for what I told them about your mission. Your friends who were already in the H Prime complex. You trusted me, and I--"
"Save it. Everyone does what they need to do to get through life. Most people are out for themselves, but at least you were protecting your daughter. Even I know that much."
She flinched, but when she started to speak, he held up a hand to stop her. "Tell me what's going on now, instead of dwelling on the past."
She inhaled and then exhaled several slow, measured breaths, regaining her control. "The past we're talking about was just this morning, unbelievable as that seems to me now. But, yes. Since you've offered to help, I guess you need to know what's going on."
"Where is your daughter?”
Rhiannon glared at him. "Hold on. I'm trying to figure out a way to tell you this. It's a long, complicated story.”
Lucas put on his turn signal. They needed food, both for fuel and it might help make her 'long, complicated story' easier for her to tell.
"What are you doing?” Her voice was high and shaky, and she was clenching her hands so tightly in her lap that the knuckles had turned white. "We have gas, and we don't have time to stop for anything else.”
"Yes. We do. If we don't get food in us, we won't be able to tackle this drive for many more hours tonight. Also, there are certain personal needs that will need to be addressed along the way.”
Rhiannon stared at him, her mouth falling open a little bit. "Did you just tell me in a fancy Atlantean way that we're not going to be able to pee in the car?”
He laughed and was immediately surprised by it. It is been a long time since anyone or anything had made him feel like laughing. "As you say.”
He pulled into the enormous parking lot of a place labeled Truck Stop and marveled again at the human ability to come up with such unimaginative labels. "I'm surprised it's not called Truck and Car Stop. Or Truck Stop and People Eat.”
"What in the world are you talking about? And you think I'm confusing," she said, shaking her head. But, he was relieved to see, she grabbed the smaller of her two bags and opened her door. She really did look like she needed food before she blew away in the first strong wind they encountered.
When they got out of the car, she stood and stretched, and he took a moment to enjoy on a very primal level the beauty that was Rhiannon stretching. She'd changed into jeans, boots, and a blue sweater at some point, and he found that he enjoyed her in this attire even more than he had in the dress. Possibly, he would enjoy her in any clothing.
Or in no clothing at all.
He closed his eyes and tried hard not to think about Rhiannon naked, with limited success. It was like his mother used to say: "If you try not to think about a pink whale in the room, you can't think of anything other than a pink whale in the room." He'd never understood the expression until now.
"Okay, let's get a quick meal and get back on the road," she said, marching toward the restaurant entrance and leaving him to follow her. He tried not to enjoy the experience, or the view, but it was a losing battle.
She cast a suspicious glance over her shoulder at one point and caught him looking at her truly lovely ass. "Really?”
"Pink whale," he said with a shrug. What could he say? It really was a truly lovely ass.
The restaurant smelled like bacon and cheese, which suited Lucas just fine. Rhiannon stopped to show her daughter's photo to the staff, but there had been no sighting of a little girl with golden eyes and dark red hair, just like her mother. Rhiannon squared her shoulders and thanked the women, and then they stopped in the restrooms (where nobody rested, ever, she said) and 'freshened up.' He found them a table and a white-aproned waitress with tight gray curls and bright red lips stopped to take their orders. Rhiannon ordered coffee and a salad. Lucas ordered three glasses of water, two orders of steak and eggs--both with home fries, and two pieces of chocolate pie.
The waitress looked at the table, looked at the two of them, and then cracked her gum. "You got more people coming in, Hon?"
"No. Just us,” Lucas told her. "That's all for me.”
She grinned. "Well, I always did love a man with a good appetite. My Tom can put away a gallon of my baked beans during a football game. Smells up the room something fierce after, though.”
When she sauntered off to put in their order, Lucas looked a question at Rhiannon. "Smells up the room?"
Her lips quivered, but she shook her head. "No. I am not explaining that one to you."
Lucas fixed Rhiannon with his sternest gaze and made a come-along motion with one hand. "You've stalled long enough. Tell me what's happening. I need to know, so I can formulate the best plan of action."
She toyed with the salt and pepper shakers, head bent, for a full minute. Then she raised her head and looked at him. "It started five years ago, really, five and a half years. I was working in a beautiful little town in a place called Whidbey Island, Washington. I'm a secretary, and a damn good one, not that it matters. I just wanted you to know that I'm not stupid in all areas of my life. Just when it comes to men," she said bitterly. "I met this guy--isn't that how all the worst stories begin? Maybe the best stories, too. It's just that I don't have any of those."
The waitress brought their drinks, and Rhiannon nodded her thanks. When the woman walked off again, Rhiannon begin her story.
"I met a guy…”
His name was Brock, and he was the most handsome thing she'd ever seen. She'd been out at a club with some friends, and he came over to ask her to dance, even though she was sitting with two of her friends who were way prettier and much thinner than she was. She'd always been the average Jane in the bunch, but she really hadn't much cared, usually, because she loved her friends and they always had a good time together. That night, though, she had wished intensely to be prettier, sexier, wittier, funnier, and all the other -ers, just so Brock would never stop dancing with her.
Never stop talking to her.
And somehow--in what felt like a miracle – he didn't. They didn't stop talking, they didn't stop dancing, and, after a while, they didn't stop making love for the next three months. It was a whirlwind of happiness and excitement and sex for Rhiannon, and she'd been completely overwhelmed.
But then he took her to meet his family, and she discovered that she'd been sleeping with a werewolf.
Lucas scowled, inexplicably hating the idea of Rhiannon sleeping with another man. "They prefer wolf shi
fter."
Brianne and blinked, torn out of the past by his comment. "What? Oh. Yeah. I know. But my first thought was definitely werewolf."
She took a drink of coffee and then the waitress brought their food. After the woman unloaded his gigantic dinner, and the salad, Rhiannon continued while they ate.
Everything was perfect. Well, not perfect. His mother didn't like Rhi and didn't hesitate to show it. He talked to her and made her at least be civil, but she was very blunt about the fact that she wanted another wolf shifter as a daughter-in-law, not a stupid, puny human. It was a sort of armed detente between the two of them, with Brock smugly happy in the middle, and Rhi always seemed to get the worst of any confrontations, because she'd tried to be polite. Tried to make Tannis like her, because she was young and in love and didn't want to look forward to a future with a mother-in-law who hated her.
But Tannis was passive-aggressive in a huge way, and sometimes just aggressive. When her son wasn't in the room, Rhi was fair game, not just for Tannis, but for all her friends. Worse than that, though, she turned Rhi into fair game for all the jealous women in the pack who'd been making a play for Brock.
He was pack alpha, you see. And there were a whole lot of female werewolves who wanted to be his mate.
Still, things were mostly wonderful. Rhi didn't spend a lot of time with any of the women who hated her, because she still had a job, after all, although even then, Brock was making noises about her quitting to spend all her time with him.
She interrupted her story then, blinking those wide, beautiful eyes and looking up at Lucas, who was trying not to show how much he wanted to find this Brock and rip his arms off. "It's part of the pattern, I know now. A classic pattern where an abuser isolates his victim first, so it's easier to control her and make her stay with him later.”
Lucas clenched his hands into fists under the table, and he could feel the berserker roaring inside him and clawing at the mental cage where Lucas kept him trapped. For once, the berserker and he wanted the same thing—to avenge Rhiannon. But this was her story, not his, and he owed her the honor of listening. Still, he was unable to completely unclench his jaw when he asked the question that was burning in his gut.
"He abused you?"
Rhiannon took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded. "I've only recently been able to work through all of this in my mind. And I used to be ashamed, like it was my fault. But I've spent some time talking to a therapist, and now I realize that of course Brock was completely to blame. None of it was my fault. And I got away, which so many don't."
Lucas reached out, took her hands in his, and gently squeezed. "You are so brave that it humbles me. Don't ever, ever doubt it.”
She nodded and clung tightly to his hands when she continued her story.
She didn't feel very brave the first time he hit her.
"It wasn't even much of a hit, although I know now that any physical abuse is just that – abuse, and I shouldn't make light of it. Shouldn't justify it or defend it or excuse it, because those were all his tactics and techniques to make me stop believing in myself," she added, before returning to her tale.
He hit Rhiannon in the stomach after a pack picnic, because he thought she'd been flirting with one of his friends. She hadn't been – or maybe she had, a little. It was a fun day, she'd had a glass of wine, but it was only harmless joking. Nothing that any of her friends and she hadn't done before whether or not they were in relationships. It meant nothing, and everybody knew that.
Except, apparently, werewolves.
He hit her hard enough to knock her against the wall, and she fell to the floor. He was immediately sorry. He jumped down beside her and pulled her into his arms and told her over and over again how sorry he was. How he'd just had too many beers. How he would never, ever do anything like that again, and he loved me so much, and could I ever forgive him?
She was shocked. She had never been touched in anger before, and it felt like her world had collapsed. But he was so convincing, and she'd loved him, after all. She believed him when he said it was an accident and he'd never do it again.
The worst part of it? She accepted his proposal and got engaged to him after he hit her the first time. Like a complete idiot.
And after that, she was trapped. He grew more and more possessive; more and more jealous. He hit her whenever something set him off. Never her face, so nobody would see. He hit her, he twisted her arms, he pulled her hair so hard it gave her migraines – anytime and every time he had some imaginary fancy that she was even thinking about leaving him.
Finally, it was the day of the wedding, and she still hadn't figured out how to escape. The most dangerous time in an abusive relationship is when the victim tries to leave, she'd found out by sneaking in research when she was at work, before he'd caused a scene at her office and forced her to quit.
But she had one secret. One tiny, precious secret. She'd managed to go shopping – not alone, of course. She was never allowed to shop alone. But she'd managed to ditch her babysitter/guard long enough to buy a pregnancy test. And the first time she was alone in a bathroom for long enough to take it was the day of the wedding.
When she looked at those two pink lines, everything changed. She'd been hopeless, but now she was determined. She would never, ever subject her child to his abuse and insanity.
Right that moment, she put the pregnancy test in her purse, walked out of that bathroom and turned right instead of left, ducked through a tiny hallway that led to the furnace room but also had an exit door to the outside, and started walking.
She walked through the woods, so nobody standing outside the church would see her. She walked and walked and walked in that stupid white dress and those painful shoes, and then she hid in the trees at the side of the road until she saw a car coming with an elderly couple in it. She'd met all the elders in Brock's pack, and she knew these weren't among them. So, terrified, she took her courage in both hands, thinking of the baby, and then she walked out of the trees and waved them down.
It didn't take much to convince them to help, because she took a tissue and wiped the makeup off her neck, showing them the bruises where he'd choked her the night before. They took her to the bus, and she took bus after bus after bus until she landed in Florida. On the exact opposite side of the country from where he was.
And they never found her. They didn't know anything about the baby, so they had no reason to look for her other than punishment. She'd figured that one of the many werewolf women who wanted him kept Brock entertained, or he was too lazy to chase her down to kill her. Either way, she was finally starting to feel safe, and then it turned out that the only new friend she'd dared to make was a shifter, too.
She stopped talking, tears rolling down her face, and he stood and moved to her side of the booth and pulled her into his arms. He couldn't offer her much, but he could offer compassion. She leaned into him, pressing her face into his shoulder, and he wanted very badly to slay all her dragons for her.
He would definitely get her child back for her.
After a couple of minutes, she pulled away and wiped her eyes. "Thanks," she mumbled, looking embarrassed. "I got your shirt all wet."
He laughed. "Atlantis, remember? Wet is our normal. The shifters, though. You need to know that they talk to each other. They have groups on computers and other things I don't understand, but Jake would be able to tell you all about it. And wolves gossip. A lot. Somebody would've said something about you somewhere on the internet, if you ever mentioned to your friend that your child might be a shifter."
Rhiannon, still clutching his hands, tightened her fingers around his even more. "Oh, no. I did. I told Viola. Only after we'd been friends for more than two years, and after I'd started to trust her. I told her about Stevie because V was a shifter, and I had no idea what to expect if Stevie turns out to be a shifter, too. I didn't think--"
"She probably didn't mean to betray you, if that helps at all. As I said, wolves are gossips. She probably ju
st mentioned you in passing--her new friend whose daughter might be a shifter, and it went from there."
Rhiannon pulled her hand from his and angrily brushed the tears off her face. "Well, she certainly got paid back for that. Karma's a bitch when you are one, after all. Whoever took Stevie beat Viola very badly. I called 911 before I left."
"They took your daughter out of your apartment?"
"Yes. They trashed the place. I just went for my go-bag and got out of there, fast."
Lucas turned his head and looked out the window at her car. "I'm an idiot," he said fiercely. "Is that your car?"
"Yes, why?"
"If they're trying to track you, they can find you by tracking down your vehicle. We have used that tactic before, through some of our human allies who are experts on computers."
Her shoulders slumped, but then she sighed. "Really, what does it matter? They don't have to track me. They know I'll be coming for Stevie. There's no way I wouldn't go after my daughter. And Tannis knows me well enough to know that."
She shoved her practically untouched plate away and stood up. "We need to get going. Now. I can't take another minute of not being on the road after my daughter."
Lucas stood and pulled her into his arms, right there in the restaurant, because he had to do it. Had to hold her and offer some comfort. "I swear to you that we will find her, and we will get her back. I swear it on my soul."
"I am definitely going to hold you to that promise. Now, we need to get out of here. And this time, since we're not in Italy, I'm driving.”
"Fair enough." He tossed what he assumed was enough currency on the table to pay for the meal, and Rhiannon shook her head. "That waitress is going to be very, very happy."
"Good," he said flatly. "At least one of us is."
15
As Rhiannon drove, Lucas entertained himself by calling ribbons of water in through his open window and making them do tricks. He wasn't showing off; he wasn't even paying attention to what he was doing, as far as she could tell. He played with water magic the way someone else might twirl a pencil while thinking deep thoughts.