by S. Young
The words were barely out of his mouth when the back-passenger door of the sedan heaved open, an arm appearing.
“Yeah, we need to go.” She nudged him toward the car and looked down at the little girl. Guilt suffused her but the sirens were growing ever closer. The kid would be fine. Just as long as her mom and dad woke up.
Things didn’t look good for her dad.
Thea’s heart ached but she shoved down the pain as she and Conall grabbed their rucksacks and belongings, abandoned their vehicle and ran into the cover of the forest that ran beside the freeway. Thea sent a prayer out into the universe. She wasn’t certain she believed in God, but if He did exist, she asked Him to watch over the kid, to make sure she didn’t end up alone.
The trees camouflaged them as they ran at full speed. Thea was faster than Conall, but he did an admirable job of trying to keep up. There was forestation all along the freeway, toward the town Thea had intended Conall to drive to, which provided much-needed cover.
Given their speed, they arrived quicker than they would have in the car. The tingling never abandoned Thea’s neck, so she knew her pursuers were still after her. She and Conall cut southeast through fields and trees, and she’d never longed for the dark of night more.
“I can hear them. They’re werewolves.” Conall grabbed Thea’s biceps, pulling her to a halt. “We cannae lead them into a town if they’re armed. We’ve caused enough damage.” He searched the fields in the distance and Thea saw her own guilt mirrored in his eyes.
“There.” He pointed to what looked like industrial farm buildings.
They fled across the fields and stopped within the protection of the trees surrounding the largest of the buildings.
Conall held a finger to his lips, and she stayed silent. Her hearing was good. His was better.
Finally, he looked down at her. “Empty.”
“I’m guessing this is a kill-or-be-killed situation.”
“Aye.” He took off his rucksack and urged her to do the same. After hiding them behind a tree, he nudged her in front of him and they crouched low as they broke out of the trees and dove against the building. Conall pulled the large double doors open and Thea followed him inside.
It was entirely empty.
There were stalls and chunky metal gates everywhere but no animals and no people. There wasn’t even a strong smell of animal waste in the air, just a musty scent and sparse bits of old hay scattered about.
Her eyes swept over the disused barn.
Unfortunately, there was nowhere they could set up a defensive position. Everything was out in the open.
The thought had barely processed when the tingling on her neck increased. “Conall—” She whipped around as two female wolves stormed into the barn, handguns blazing.
Thea’s body moved before she could think, instinct fueling her speed as she jumped in front of Conall and felt the bullets ricochet through her like hot stings. She shoved the Scot with such force, he flew into the air out of the way of the spray.
Thea turned as the wolves reloaded and she thanked fuck they weren’t packing automatics as she pushed through the awful feeling of having metal foreign objects lodged in her back. Two were through and through. Three were not.
Dipshits.
It took seconds to kill them.
Break wrist holding gun. Tear heart out of chest. Rinse and repeat.
A deep sadness filled Thea as she stared down at the two women, but she knew she had to kill them. If she’d merely knocked them out, they would have come after them again, and Thea needed time to take care of the three bullets inside her.
Whoever this coven was, they underestimated her. They weren’t exactly sending their finest to fight her. Well, except for the strong vampire in Prague who Conall had annihilated. Speaking of which ...
Groaning, she bent down and picked up the handgun, releasing the magazine. Silver bullets winked in the light. Just as she’d suspected. These weren’t for her.
Hearing Conall moving across the barn toward her, she turned and showed him.
He stared fiercely at the bullets and when his eyes finally met hers, she saw confusion and something she didn’t quite understand burning in his pale gaze.
Feeling a bullet lodge itself a little deeper into her back, hot blood soaking her shirt, Thea dropped the gun. “Uh … we need to get to a bathroom.”
Conall reached for her, spinning her around. “Jesus fuck, Thea. How many?”
“Five, but one in my arm and another in my shoulder were through and through. There are three in my back.”
He reached for the hem of her top. “Let me—”
“No!” Panic suffused her at the thought of him tending to the wounds. “I can do it.”
Anger radiated out of the wolf and he gave her a clipped nod. “I need to bury the bodies in the woods. Can you wait?”
Waiting sounded a whole lot of not fun, but Thea knew they needed to cover their tracks. She nodded.
Conall was remarkably fast and efficient, though he wore a grim expression as he buried the wolves who had been sent to specifically kill him and capture her.
He came back, their rucksacks in hand, looking pissed and distracted at the same time. “Let’s go.”
Sweat trickled down Thea’s temples as she followed him out. As they walked into the yard, she could feel a bullet move deeper with every step. She wasn’t going to make it into town.
“We need to find an empty farmhouse or something.” She ignored the pinching pain all over her back.
“Aye, your back is soaked in blood.” He grimaced. “If someone sees you, we’re done for.”
“Well, it looks like it might be our lucky day,” she said with more glibness than she felt as they walked out of the farmyard to encounter a road. It appeared to lead straight into town and across it were two houses nestled among the trees.
Conall hurried them toward the houses and pushed her behind a tree. “Wait here while I check things out.”
As she waited, Thea reached a hand behind her neck, sliding it beneath her shirt where she felt a bullet in her shoulder. Tweezers would be good, but this bullet wasn’t lodged too deep. She dug her fingers in, wincing. Thea yanked it out just as Conall reappeared.
He eyed the squashed silver bullet in her blood-covered hand and shook his head.
“What?” she snapped, growing irritated by the pain in her back. Her irritation, however, fled at the expression in Conall’s usually icy eyes. There was something warm in them.
“You’re tough as leather, lass.”
Annoyed by the prickle of pleasure she felt at his words, she rolled her eyes. “Admire me later. Do we have an empty house?”
“Aye. This way. But we best be fast.”
“It would really not suck if you’d stop stating the obvious.” She hurried after him, up a gravel drive toward a quaint family house with a red-tiled roof.
He pushed open the front door, which he’d clearly broken during his reconnaissance of the property. “No alarm, if you can believe it.”
Thea studied the cream carpets as he strode right on in. “Well, some people aren’t expecting a werewolf and whatever the hell I am to break into their house.” She wrinkled her nose. “Where’s the bathroom?”
“Come in and see.”
“No. I need to whoosh there, so I don’t get blood on the carpet.”
Understanding, Conall strode farther into the house and returned seconds later. He handed her a small black cloth bag. It was his first aid kit. “Down the hall, last door on the right.”
Thea found what she needed in the kit. She used forceps scissors to dig all but one bullet out. Sweat coated her skin as she tried to bend her body to reach the bullet that had lodged deeper than the others right in the middle of her back. Realizing they were running out of time, she decided she’d have to leave it until they got to safety in a hotel somewhere.
The other bullet holes closed over and she cleaned them up as best she could. Bandaging over the
hole made by the bullet she couldn’t get to, Thea then searched her rucksack for her last shirt. She pulled it on and stuffed the bloody one into the backpack. Once she’d dressed, Conall came into the bathroom to help her clean up any evidence of their presence.
Her heart rate kept up a fast pace as they hurried into the town. The Scot had to remind her to slow her steps. They had to appear casual. Thea thought it a shame they were venturing into the picturesque Saxon town of Wilsdruff under such circumstances. As they walked across the cobbled town square, she ignored the way people stared at them. Or Conall, to be specific. There was no way to make him inconspicuous.
“We need to get out of here,” he grumbled. “And I dinnae want to steal a car.”
“You may have to abandon your scruples on that one if they don’t have a bus station.” Thea winced as a sharp pain shot through her back. A sign for accommodation caught her eye. “We need to stop, anyway.”
“We cannae,” he said, matter-of-fact and annoyingly bossy. “We need to keep moving in case the girl gives our description to the authorities. I wouldnae blame her after what we did to her parents.”
“We didn’t do it.” Thea ignored the aching pang in her chest. “Those asshole female wolves did it. As for us, we need to move, yes. But first I have to stop somewhere with a bathroom. And I need time.”
“Why?” He halted, turning to her.
Anyone else might have been intimidated at the way he towered over her, his expression forbidding, his scar stark against his tan cheeks.
Thea was too pissed to be intimidated.
The bastard hadn’t even thanked her for saving his goddamn life.
“Because one of the bullets I took for you is still lodged in my back and I need time to get it out.”
His scowl deepened. “I can do it.”
Her stomach lurched at the thought. “Uh … no thanks.” She swerved around him and kept walking. “This sign says there’s a hotel somewhere.”
Conall didn’t argue. “Fine, but we cannae stay long.”
“You can go out and find either a bus station or a car while I deal with the bullet.”
The rest of their walk was silent as the wolf stewed at her side. The accommodation turned out to be a stone-built hotel on the outskirts of town. It was quaint and far nicer than Thea would have preferred. People who ran nice hotels paid attention to their customers.
The owner looked terrified of Conall, and Thea cursed him for being so easily recognizable.
“It’s like trying to hide a T. rex behind a MINI Cooper,” she grouched as they walked down the red-carpeted corridor to their room.
“Well, if you’d let me help you with the bloody bullet back at the house, we wouldnae be here, showing my scarred face to potential witnesses,” he snapped back.
She frowned. “It’s not your scar that’s the problem. It’s your size.” She led them into the room. It was small with two tiny twin beds they, unfortunately, wouldn’t be using.
And an even smaller bathroom.
Instead of leaving to see about transportation, Conall insisted on waiting while Thea got the bullet out. She stood in the cramped bathroom, feeling him too close to her on the other side of the door, wishing he’d get the hell out of the room so she could muddle along by herself.
Pulling her shirt up and over her head, she glanced at her back in the mirror, reached behind her to rip off the bandage, and then opened the first aid kit for the forceps.
Angling her arm this way and that, Thea could touch the bullet hole with the medical scissors, but she couldn’t seem to stretch quite enough to dig in.
Grunting, she was determined to do it.
But try as she might, she could not get the goddamn bullet.
Frustration got the better of her and she let out a low growl.
“For fuck’s sake”—the door flew open—“let me see the—” Conall slammed to a halt as his eyes drifted down her bare back.
Thea’s stomach pitched, nausea welling inside her as the wolf gobbled up the sight of her in all her messed-up glory.
13
Conall could hear Thea struggling inside the bathroom and it was pissing him off. His mind hadn’t stopped racing since the car accident.
First there was the guilt of involving innocent civilians in the hunt, and of then having to leave the wee lass and her broken parents behind. But protecting his world, his pack, was the priority, even if it made him feel like the biggest wanker on the planet.
As for Thea …
Conall considered himself a good judge of character but walking through the small German town with Thea by his side, he questioned everything she’d done in the last hour.
Why had she gone back for the little girl in the car and then risked a lot of pain to save the girl’s father?
Why had she shoved Conall out of the way of the spray of silver bullets and taken five shots to the back in the process?
Was it all some grand manipulation to win him to her side?
And even if it was … fuck, he’d never met anyone as tough as this woman.
Hearing her struggle to get the last bullet out pricked at Conall’s guilt. Manipulation or not, she’d saved his life, and it pissed him off she wouldn’t let him help her in return.
Finally, when she let out a low growl of frustration, Conall’s patience died. If she was afraid of him seeing her seminaked, she needed to get over it. They had to get the hell out of this place in case the little girl gave their description to the authorities.
“For fuck’s sake,” he snapped, pushing into the bathroom, “let me see the—” His words cut off at the sight before him.
Thea stood at the small bathroom sink, shirtless, with her arm twisted up her back, a bloody pair of medical scissors fisted in her hand. It wasn’t the seeping, inflamed bullet hole in the middle of her upper back that shocked him into silence.
Conall’s gut twisted as he took in the mass of scars that crisscrossed Thea’s slender back. It looked as though someone had taken a whip to her. Brutally. Many, many times.
Confused, he shook his head, trying to make sense of it. Thea’s healing abilities were second-to-none … What could have caused permanent damage?
He thought of his own scar, created by a wolf’s one weakness.
Silver.
So what was Thea’s weakness?
The black concoction in the syringes came to mind.
The syringes Ashforth had given him.
An unexpected rage began to build in Conall as he lifted his gaze from evidence of abuse on Thea’s back to the horror that darkened her eyes to black. “How did this happen?”
“Now that you’ve barged in without an invitation,” she said, glaring and covering her breasts with one arm while she held out the scissors with another, “you might as well try pulling out the bullet.”
Stunned to silence by her seething anger that dared him to question her further, Conall could only stare. What the fuck was going on here?
“If you aren’t going to help, get the hell out.”
Scowling, Conall took the scissors. “Face forward,” he said gruffly. He dug the small forceps into her back and other than the rigid line of her spine, Thea gave away nothing of her pain. Just when he worried the bullet had moved too deeply inside her, Conall felt it. She made a low sound in her throat as he tried to catch hold of it.
“Sorry, lass, this one is tricky.”
She merely nodded.
Finally, Conall got hold of the misshapen bullet and pulled it out. He watched in awe as the bloody, swollen hole in her back closed over, good as new, as if it had never been there. Their eyes met in the mirror and he held transfixed, watching her pallor brighten to a healthy glow.
What the hell was she?
“I’m naked here.”
Conall glanced down at where she had her arms wrapped around her bare breasts. She covered her nipples well enough, but her arms were too slender to cover much else of their full lushness.
Heat flu
shed through him and he wrenched his eyes away, dropping the forceps and the bullet in the sink. He gave his hands a quick wash and turned from her.
“I’ll see about transportation.” He strode out, willing the sudden and throbbing need from his body. To do so, he mentally forced his last image of her out of his head and replaced it with that of her scarred back. Just like that, the heat transformed from desire to rage. The vehemence of it took him aback but he couldn’t deny he felt it.
It was obvious Thea didn’t want to talk about it, but as much as Conall wished this whole fucking situation between her and Ashforth was black and white …
Och, it wasn’t.
Before he returned her to Ashforth, he needed to know who whipped her so brutally her back was a checkerboard of scars. Then Conall had to find out what Thea was. The clue would be in whatever was used to harm her. Whatever was in those syringes. Her weakness would lead them to her origins.
Gritting his teeth in frustration at the mess he’d found himself in, Conall pulled out his phone as he exited the hotel and googled the nearest bus station. It was a two-hour walk toward Dresden. He’d have to go back for Thea but first, Conall wanted to check they had the all clear out of town.
Following his phone’s directions, Conall approached the exit onto the road that would lead out of the typical Saxon gingerbread town and abruptly retreated. There were two police cars stationed on the road out of town. Cursing under his breath, Conall disappeared up a side street.
The girl had probably given their description to the police. He didn’t blame the wee lass.
He considered their options. There was a huge possibility the police were stationed at all exits. After all, they were looking for not just two but four suspects. It would be a shitshow if anyone dug up those bodies before Conall could tell Ashforth about them.
Ashforth.
As much as he hated asking for help and especially asking that arsehole for aid, they were trapped. Conall needed to get on the road again so he could work out what the fuck was really going on.
It shouldn’t matter, he knew that.
All that should matter was Callie.