Truman shrugs. “They were here—then gone.”
Slash frowns. He knows Julia, a little. Even though she's a Singer and not a female of his kind, she does not impress him as a flighty female. His knowledge of their kind is limited.
A scream from the direction of the mansion scatters his thoughts. Slash's nose tells him it's not Adrianna. Nonetheless, adrenaline surges through his system.
“Come on, stubborn Red.” Truman hauls him to his feet, and tossing him on his back, he melts to wolfen underneath Slash, racing to the mansion.
*
They burst through the doors, and Truman lets go of Slash.
Slash slides off his broad back, hitting the door jamb and clutching the deeply profiled wood trim.
His nostrils flare, hitting on a scent. The only scent.
Adrianna was here.
The knowledge of her absence affects him deeply, and his wolf howls to be within her presence. His wolf doesn't think; he only feels. And right now, he's kicking Slash's mental ass for the blow-off he gave his mate.
It's for her own good, he reprimands the beast inside.
Still, Slash feels sick that she’s gone—and unprotected.
You're best isn't good enough, Slash.
Cynthia, the Singer and part-Were rushes into the parlor. She slips and falls on her butt with a yelp.
Truman is suddenly there. He grabs her arm. “What?” he bellows in her face.
She's pale, her face pinched, void of any real emotion, except one.
Slash's nostrils lift.
Her fear rolls over him like a wave to shore.
“Truman,” Slash cautions in a low voice. “The female isn't in her right mind.”
Truman scowls at Slash.
Slash sweeps a palm toward her feet. They're slick with blood.
Truman’s eyes bug then go hard and flat. His fists clench.
Slash realizes the expression is his “thinking cap” look, the same one he probably wore when he was a cop.
He picks up a shaking Cynthia and brings her to Slash.
Her green eyes flutter, rolling up into her head. “Jason,” she manages, before passing out in Slash's arms.
“Wait!” Slash barks at Truman. He whirls.
“I can't defend her!”
Sharp lines of determination settle into Truman’s face. “And I don't know what's down that hall that scared the bejesus outta her.” He stabs a thumb at his chest.
Moon.
“Fine,” Slash hisses. “Hurry up. My mate is somewhere, and a crazy Alpha from the Western is making up whatever tale he wants while I can't feel my fucking back.”
Truman and Slash lock eyes. “Okay, hang tight.”
He doesn't have to tell Slash to protect Cynthia. Slash gets it, however, in his semi-paralyzed state he's a weak choice. But like Truman said, he has to see what the danger is. Slash's role as a male Were has never been confusing to him. That there are males who would abuse their precious females—or any female, for that matter—confounds Slash. It also makes him deeply angry.
And rage is always close to him, waiting. Slash is hardwired that way.
Cynthia's sleep is unnatural. Her face looks unanimated rather than peaceful in his lap.
The time rolls out. Though only ten minutes have passed since Truman went to inspect what new horrors lay down the hall, it feels like a thousand years. Each step Adrianna takes from his side is a small knife in his heart. His only consolation is that Tramack is here, and she is putting distance between herself and the Were who harmed her. Slash suddenly smells Cynthia's wakefulness and glances down.
“I couldn't fix it,” Cynthia whispers.
“Fix what?” Slash asks softly, as though speaking to a child.
“Jason.”
Slash stiffens, slapping a palm on the floor and lifting them both upright.
Cynthia sits up, notices she's on his lap, and gingerly climbs off.
“Don't leave,” he says, remembering Truman's words.
She wipes a tear from her face. “No,” she breathes out in a pained gasp.
“What's wrong with Jason?”
“Something…” Cynthia covers her face with her hands. “Something killed him.”
If he hadn't been Were, he would not have heard that last.
Slash flares his nostrils. The stench of death reaches him easily. Beneath that, he smells blood and brain matter.
Slash hates to hear about the death of a solid Were. While he didn't really know Jason Caldwell, he did know Jason was volatile, but not mean-spirited.
This would not bode well—losing Jason so closely with the loss of Zeke. A bad trend had begun.
Jason had been threatened on many occasions to leave or force an ultimatum on the Rare One.
Slash understands. He could never share Adrianna. However, Were are a different species from the Singers. Apparently, Caldwell did not feel the same. Maybe he was human for too long. Maybe he was too much Were. In death, it no longer matters.
Gently, Slash asks, “What killed him, Cynthia?” It's never who in their world.
Shaky hands fall to her jean-encased thighs. “I don't know, but whatever it was, I couldn't heal him. There was no chance. None.”
Slash isn't a soft, comforting male. But her needs are not complicated. Even an idiot Were like him, one who callously gets rid of his mate, can show mercy. “Not your fault,” Slash manages to murmur. “Couldn't have saved him.”
She nods absently, as though she’s merely placating him.
Truman jogs into the room, sliding to a stop in front of them. “You know?” he asks, looking between them and ascertaining that Cynthia must have conveyed the details of Jason's death.
Slash confirms anyway. “Yes.”
“I don't know what bashed his brains in, but it's nothing I've seen in my short acquaintance with the supernatural world.”
Cynthia flinches at his uncaring rundown of events. “Who cares, really?” Cynthia flips a palm over helplessly. “Something killed Jason. And Julia's not here. Neither is Scott or Victor.” A bubble of snot grows from her nostril as a tear rolls aimlessly down her face. “I mean, if Jason's dead, where the hell is Jules? Where the hell am I?” She dumps her face into her hands.
Truman walks over to her, holding out his hand. She shakes her head, denying whatever a hard Were like Truman can offer. Slash thinks he was a hard human before the change, too. “Nope, you're sticking with me like glue, girl. Stand up and wipe that face. We're finding out what the hell is going on—like yesterday.”
“What about?” she asks as body-wracking sobs break over her. She waves her hand toward the hall where Jason's body presumably lies.
Truman gathers her against him. Her body so small inside his arms.
Adrianna is even smaller inside mine.
“We'll take care of him the right way, Cyn.”
She nods against his shirt, fisting the material as sadness drenches the fabric.
Slash stares out the window, wondering how soon he will be able to leave this place and right what went so terribly wrong.
CHAPTER NINE
Tessa
Tessa flops back against the seat. “Listen, Laz…” she rolls her face to the right, looking at him. Beyond that are the deep woods.
“We can go,” he says to Tahlia.
She slaps the steering wheel. “Where?” Tahlia rotates to face them, clutching the driver's seat. “I have been driving for two hours. We are at a crossroads. If we keep going north, we'll be in Canada.”
“Nope,” Tessa says, suppressing a shudder. “Don't need foreign heat.”
“It's hot enough in America,” Tahlia agrees.
“You are Lanarre. Where is the nearest pack?” Laz asks.
Tahlia shakes her head vigorously. “I cannot return to my own pack in the Redwoods of California. It's—the shame would be something I couldn't stand.”
Laz stares at her and Tessa asks, “What do you mean, Tahlia?”
Her eyes
fill with tears. Tessa just came to terms with the fact that Tahlia's a baby in Lycan years, and she’s been driving like a bat out of hell for two hours while they fought their way down the highway with three quarters of a car.
“As a Lanarre princess,” she says, quickly looking to the two of them as though they would laugh at her. They don't. “I was on my way to meet Drek, my chosen. That entire plan was derailed when Tony Laurent slaughtered my guardians. Now there is another bad force in play, and I must run. It is Drek's pack that I must go to.” She covers her face with her hands. “I don't know why I didn't think of this before. Eventually, Drek will return when he cannot locate me. Then we can be mated.”
“Wait a sec,” Tessa begins with slow deliberation. “I thought you weren't sure about this Drek guy?”
Tahlia's hands shake a little as she lowers them to her lap. “I'm not, but there is protection within the borders of the Lanarre. It's there that I won't have to fight to remain alive. I am skilled, but am only one.”
Small point.
Laz has been silent until then. “The Lanarre will kill me,” he states simply.
Tessa fingers convulse on the seat cushion. “And what's their policy on rogue female alphas?”
Tahlia's silence is answer.
“Shit.” Tessa slumps in her seat, folding her arms, thinking about the possibility of her heat cropping up. “Can't catch a break,” she mutters.
Laz brushes a stray hair over her shoulder that's come undone from the single plait down her back. “Perhaps the Lanarre princess, betrothed to be mated to their prince, holds sway.” His pale-blond eyebrow rises, and his eyes level on Tahlia.
She shakes her head. “I can't guarantee anything, because they have never scented me. They will scent that I am Lanarre. But the protocol for a betrothal mating is strict. Only Drek and his personal guard know my scent.”
“Oh, this is special sauce here.”
They look at Tessa.
She slumps farther, attempting to become one with the seat. “So we head to Drek's Lanarre stomping grounds—”
Tahlia interrupts, “At the edge of the Hoh Rain Forest.”
Laz cringes. “I am familiar with the area. Very wet.”
Tessa's eyebrow hikes. “Duh.”
Faster than Tessa can track, Laz lifts her and seats her on his lap. His nose buries at her throat, and she makes an inarticulate sound. It speaks of deep satisfaction. Damn it all.
Laz tenses beneath her.
Tessa opens her eyes to find a talon buried against his insta-erection. Her eyes widen on Tahlia.
“We can sit here at the side of the road, drawing attention to our deplorable vehicle and its strange occupants, or we can take our chances with the Lanarre of the Hoh Rain Forest.”
Laz lets out a measured breath, his eyes narrowing at Tahlia, arms still locked around Tessa. “She is my Redemptive. Tessa will be my freedom from hell, Lanarre. Your talon beside my prick won't change anything. Except to incite my rage.”
“Incite away,” Tessa says, glaring at Laz. “I'm so glad I'm your one way ticked to above-ground living. But I don't know if I'm up for the job.”
“You must be ʻup for the jobʼ and accept my claim as my Redemptive.”
Or what? Her desire-laden brain attempts to think.
His thumb presses above her clit, and she groans.
Laz groans, too—but in pain.
I’ve clearly lost my marbles.
“Do you want to mate with a horned one, Tessa?” Tahlia asks with clear disdain, her talon having sliced through Laz's stiff denim jeans.
Tessa drowns in the treacherous seas of his eyes. “I don't know,” she finally whispers. Too much has gone unexplained and Tessa finds she can't think when Laz touches her.
“Then moon help you,” Tahlia replies with disgust, removing her talon. “I can't save you from yourself.”
Who can?
Tahlia starts the engine again and turns west, to travel the Hood Canal Bridge, straight for the Olympic Peninsula. Beyond that is the den of the Lanarre.
*
Tessa wakes with a start, completely disoriented.
They've stopped.
She pulls away from the damp drool spot she’s made on Laz's lap.
Oh Moon, terrible.
She sits up, and his arms slide from around her body. His gaze finds her, and for the first time, Tessa thinks about bad breath, hair, and body odor.
He scoops her against him, scenting of her deeply. “You are part of me.”
She says something in her daze of wakefulness, then his hands jerk her hips onto his lap. Again.
Their position leaves little guesswork to the equation.
Laz wants her.
“Where's Tahlia?” Tessa manages. But her hips grind down against his erection. Her shame isn't enough to stop her.
Gotta be heat. Apparently, when it comes to the demonic beneath her, nothing matters.
“We're in Port Angeles,” Laz says, spreading his palms at her lower back and pressing her deeper against his hardness.
Tessa has to pay attention to their surroundings. What if the Were are after her again?
Tramack will heal anything, even his own evisceration.
But right now, Laz is doing his best to make a hole through their jeans. “Laz,” Tessa gasps.
He licks her throat, and she cries out. “Stop.”
“Your body says yes, Tessa.”
Hell yes it does. “Maybe I'm in heat,” she says without thinking.
“So much the better, my Redemptive.”
Bad, Tessa. Very bad.
Tahlia jumps into the truck. “What?” she yells.
But Tessa barely hears it through the fog.
“We're at Walmart.”
Tessa opens her eyes and really looks around while Laz dips between her breasts, licking and kissing. Her head tips back, and she takes an upside-down gander. Wall-to-wall cars are stacked everywhere.
Her head snaps up. “Laz!” she says, shaking him.
“Hmm,” he mumbles between her tits.
Tahlia puts a talon against his neck.
His face jerks up, his eyes rolling to black.
Tessa tries to scramble off his lap, but his grip on her back tightens, and his hand whips out, closing over Tahlia's small wrist.
“Ow!” she yells, her talons useless inside the vise of his fingers. Her eyes smolder at him.
“You will cease and desist. I am not a male Lycan who can have his cock on a leash. I am a high demon, and my Redemptive sits before me. I must sate her heat, Lanarre.”
“Oh,” Tahlia says in a stunned voice, forgetting Laz's grip on her arm, snapping her attention to Tessa. “You're in heat. How did I not scent this?”
Tessa looks away, embarrassed. “I think I might be.”
“You cannot mate with Laz, Tessa. What are you thinking?” Tahlia yanks her hand out of Laz's lax grip. “You will whelp a monster.”
Tessa glares at Tahlia. “I don't think so. I won't get pregnant by a male who is not Lycan. You know this. It's basic law.”
“Do you wish to take the chance if it were not? How certain are you of this?” Tahlia asks, searching her face.
Laz says yes at the same time Tessa says no.
Horrors.
“Of course you cannot scent another female's heat,” Laz remarks.
Tahlia retracts her talons, gifting him with a dirty look, and raises a bag with the Walmart logo emblazoned on the front. “Hungry?”
Starved. Tessa's not some delicate flower. She's a full-grown Were who has spent two decades keeping a physique that's allowed her to escape from her pursuers. She tries not to dwell on what Laz is really offering her.
He's demonic. She's a Were.
Laz has Praile on his ass, and he's as possessive as any male Were she's ever encountered. But Tessa might like his brand.
And that scares her.
Tessa's stomach rumbles, and she puts a palm over her belly. “What do you have?” s
he asks Tahlia, and Laz chuckles.
“What?” she half yells at him. “Do demons not eat?”
He strokes a finger from her temple to her jaw.
Tessa shivers.
“We eat, female.”
He says it as though peaches are melting in his mouth and he wants to lick off the juices. Hers.
“Moon, you make me tired, demonic,” Tahlia comments from the front.
“Address me as Laz, or I shall address you as princess.” Laz lifts an eyebrow.
The silence engulfs the vehicle.
Finally, Tessa moves toward the bag, then rattling noises fill the tense atmosphere. Beef jerky, honey-roasted peanuts, hard-boiled eggs, cheese, and… Hot Tamales?
Tessa asks, “What's with the candy?”
Tahlia fidgets with her hands. “It is not allowed for Lanarre to poison their bodies with sugar.”
“You've got to be kidding. Well, this Were is downing them.” Tessa’s so starved, she thinks the jerky and Hot Tamales will be amazing together. She frowns. Or separate. “No chocolate?” she asks Tahlia, still rummaging.
Tahlia laughs.
Laz's fist covers his mouth. Their gazes meet. “Definitely in heat.”
All right, chocolate craving is a dead giveaway. Were females normally don't love chocolate, but like human women, a Were female has certain cravings before her cycle. The Ben and Jerry's ice cream is just because.
“Probably,” Tessa says without looking up from the bag.
Laz opens the jerky and puts a piece underneath her nose. Tessa opens her mouth. She takes it from his hand without thinking.
Tahlia sucks in a breath. “Tessa!”
His fingers are in her mouth as she sucks the juice of the jerky off them. She groans in pleasure, so hungry from the ordeal and length of time without food that she wants to just plow through the supplies. Instead, she lets a near-stranger demonic hand-feed her and slam his erection against her. Slick, Tessa.
“You trust him?” Tahlia asks.
Tessa meets Laz's icy bluish-gray eyes and nods. “I do.”
Something in Laz's expression softens. “Let me feed you.”
After the fifth piece of jerky, Tessa is parched.
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