Dani’s location.
It made an awful, horrible kind of sense. Her stomach sank.
Still, she had to protest. “Even if they did have backup, why would they go there, to Addie’s?”
“Addie’s is the only bar of its kind in the area, you know that. Shifters and vampires hang out there, alongside the oblivious humans. It’s a meeting place. Hell, we met there. Where better to wait for news from the ones who captured us?”
“You’ve got to be wrong. You’d better be wrong.” She took a deep, shaky breath, gripping one hand with the other so tightly it hurt, terror knotting inside her. “You have to be.”
Expression grim, he felt in his pocket, bringing out his phone. Opening it, he punched in a code. “I’m calling her cell. Maybe I am wrong. If she answers, we’ll know.”
If she answered. She tried to force herself to relax. No if. Of course Addie would answer.
But as the silence grew, Beck holding the phone to his ear, she began to worry she wouldn’t.
Trying not to shake as awful images built in her mind, Marika watched, waiting, willing Addie to answer. Which she would. Any second now. She had to. The alternative was unacceptable.
After a moment, Beck shook his head. Closing the phone, he shot her a bleak look. “No answer.”
Everything seemed to freeze at exactly that moment. She tried to clear her head, to force herself to move, to do something, say something, anything—but she couldn’t even force air past the blockage in her throat.
Finally, one word of protest escaped her. “But—”
He touched her, lightly. “Don’t panic. There could be a thousand reasons why she didn’t answer. We’ll try her again later.”
She nodded. A thousand reasons. Right.
Despite his assurances, panic clogged her throat. Icy fear twisting around her insides, she felt worse than dead, immobilized, horror-struck. She couldn’t seem to make her voice work, though she wanted to talk, to convince herself even now that she had no reason to worry. She couldn’t seem to do much more than take quick shallow breaths and try to keep from screaming.
Finally, still clenching her hand so tightly her nails dug into her palm, she forced more words past the knot in her throat. “Okay. I’m sure everything’s all right. Maybe Addie left the bar and went back to my place. Or maybe she never left, and stayed at my house. It could be she decided not to make Juliet’s remembrance ceremony with you this year. She might have, you know.”
“Call your house.” He held out his phone.
“I can’t.” She shook her head. “I don’t have a phone there. Too easy to trace. If I need to contact her, I use Addie’s cell.”
Which he’d just tried, with no answer. Still trying to keep from absolutely freaking out, she looked at him.
“Beck, we can’t be all that far from the bar. Just to make sure—”
“We’ve got to go there now,” he finished for her, his deep voice calm and reassuring.
“Exactly.” Finally, she could move again. Take action. In the driveway, a nondescript black pickup was parked.
Perfect.
Beck made it to the vehicle a second after she did, proving that shifters could move fast, too.
“I’m driving,” he said.
She didn’t bother to protest. She was too shaky to function normally and would only be a danger behind the wheel.
As they climbed in, and she settled in her seat, buckling herself in, he gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I’m sure everything’s all right.”
She wasn’t. Hell, she couldn’t even summon a fake smile. Knowing her extremely fragile control quivered on the verge of shattering, she focused on details. “Do you have any idea where we are, how far we are from Alpine? For all I know, they could have driven us into Mexico.”
“I think we’re still in Texas. Though I was in and out of consciousness when they brought me here, it didn’t seem like we drove that long. And I’d remember if we’d stopped at the border, which would have been really risky with me tied up in the bed of the pickup.”
“What about your phone? Can’t you use your GPS to find out where we are?”
“I don’t want to take any chances of drawing any attention to ourselves.”
“Good point.” Aware he was making small talk to try and keep her calm, she pointed, noting how her hand shook. “The keys are in the ignition.”
“I’m thinking they didn’t worry about thieves out here.” His calm, even voice made her want to lash out at him. But inside, she knew he was right. A Huntress out of control was a dead Huntress. If Dani was in danger, Marika knew she needed to keep her wits about her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “Good to go.”
Starting the engine, Beck put the truck in Drive and pulled out. The black silence inside her gnawed away at her confidence. All she could do was yearn for her baby girl.
As though he somehow sensed this, he indicated the eastern horizon, where the lightening of the sky had been painted with broad brushstrokes of pink, red and orange.
“Looks like the sun will be coming up soon. Guess it’s gonna be a scorcher.”
Small talk. Small talk. Gratefully, she clung to the idea, knowing she had to regain and then maintain her composure. “Last night, do you have any idea what time they grabbed you?”
“A little after midnight.” He shook his head. “We couldn’t have driven too far, though time flies when you drift in and out of consciousness.”
Leaning forward, she peered at the speedometer. Eighty. “Can’t we go any faster?”
“I’ve got it floored. This is as fast as this beat-up old truck will go.”
Not fast enough. Just thinking of Dani being captured, of their hands on her soft white skin—rough and hurting—shattered her.
“Marika.” Beck’s sharp tone brought her out of her dark reverie. “Stay with me.”
He was right. Grateful, she nodded. “I’m here. It’s just—”
“Don’t go there.” Fear and anger glittered in his eyes, but his voice sounded even and composed. “We were talking about how they grabbed us. I was at Addie’s. What about you? Where’d they get you?”
Deep breath. And another. Drawing on years of training, she managed to keep her voice steady. “In Lubbock. I had an assignment there, which is why I had Addie come stay with Dani.”
“What happened? How’d they get you?” His quiet questions contained no condemnation that she, a Huntress, had let herself be captured. But then, how could he, a Protector, condemn her when the very same thing had happened to him?
She sighed. “They set me up. I suppose I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t think they had the brains to come up with such a plan. I’d completed my assignment but hadn’t taken the time to feed. They doped up a goat, then hit it with a car, knowing I’d come across it in a few minutes. It was still alive when I found it. I was hungry, so…” She shrugged. “I put it out of its misery.”
“And whatever they’d given it got to you through its blood.”
Because there was little she could say, she settled for a quick nod, still trying to keep panic at bay.
Beck’s deep voice became her lifeline. “How long were you held in the basement of that house?”
“How long? I don’t know.” Though the landscape flew past, the hands on the dashboard clock seemed to barely move.
“Try to think,” he urged. “I need you with me, a hundred percent.”
“They kept me closed up inside a stone box. It was extremely dark in there, with no way to keep track of time. If I were to give it my best guess, I’d say a couple of weeks.”
While Dani had been left with Addie, safe at Marika’s house. Not in the open, unprotected, at Addie’s bar. Even if it had been the anniversary of Juliet’s death, what had Addie been thinking?”
“Did Addie know?”
Blankly, she brought her gaze back to focus on his face. “Know what?”
“That you’d
been captured?”
“No. Though I’m sure she must have figured it out when I didn’t come back as promised. I couldn’t let her know I was being followed—I couldn’t risk giving away my house’s location. I was careful not to contact her since I was being tracked. I didn’t want to take a chance that they were monitoring me that closely.”
“Your house is well-hidden?”
“Yes.” She choked back a cry. “No one knows where I live, even Addie. When I brought her there, I was careful. I blindfolded her, made sure no one followed us.”
“But she left to meet me at the bar.”
“You don’t know that for certain.” Lashing at him with her voice, she reached for his phone. “Maybe she decided to skip it this year.”
With a slow shake of his head, he let her know what he thought of that.
“Either way, no one should have any idea that she’s with Dani. If she had to go to the bar to meet you, she would have known enough to keep Dani hidden and safe.”
“Which no doubt she is. We’re probably worrying over nothing.”
More than anything, she hoped that was true. But even though she no longer knew Beck very well, she could hear the ring of falseness in his voice.
After all, if everything was okay, why didn’t Addie pick up her phone?
As if he sensed her thoughts, he reached over and gave her shoulder an awkward, quick pat. “It’ll probably be all right. Even though we can’t be too far, I want to keep calling her from the car. Maybe she’ll eventually answer.”
Maybe. But her jangling nerves insisted Addie wouldn’t. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.
“I need to talk to her, too,” Beck continued. “She’s bound to wonder what happened to me last night. I’ve never stood her up, not once in the three years since Juliet died. If she did come to meet me, I don’t want her to worry.”
When Marika didn’t reply, he gave her a curious glance. “You and Juliet were close. What did you do to remember her death?”
The change of subject didn’t fool her. Still, because she knew she’d be of no use to her daughter if she didn’t get herself under control, she gratefully took the bait. “I tried not to think about it. When I remember Jules, I want to remember her alive. Vibrant. She was a shifter. She shouldn’t have died. You know as well as I do that most people don’t load their guns with silver bullets. I think she was murdered intentionally.” She was opening a can of worms, but there it was—out there on the seat between him.
Rather than protesting, he only gave a quick nod. “Could be. Jules never did anything to deserve death. Like you, I searched for her killers.”
“And you didn’t find them, either. At least you have your organization’s vast resources.”
“I was a Protector.” His dark tone told her what he thought about that. “I’m not anymore.”
“You resigned?”
“Yeah. I take it you’re still a Huntress.”
“Of course. That’s why I had to leave Dani—I had a mission.” A mission she’d regret to this day. “You know, maybe it’s time to think about leaving the organization. At least until Dani is grown.”
He grunted, concentrating on keeping the truck on the rutted road while flooring the accelerator.
“Dani has to be okay,” she said fervently. “She has to.”
“Think about something else.” He shot her a grim look. “Have you ever visited Juliet’s memorial?”
Somehow she knew this question was important to him. “Yes, of course I have. I bring flowers with every new season. Jules loved flowers.” She took a deep breath. “You meet Addie every year for a remembrance? Why?”
“Because she was the last person to see my sister alive.” He gave her a lopsided smile tinged with pain. “And because, just like you, Addie is like a mother to me.”
“A lot of people feel that way about her.” Again her thoughts returned to her little girl. Grabbing his phone off the console, she hit redial, listened to twenty-two rings without an answer before hitting the Off button and dropping the cell back in its place.
Beck didn’t comment. “Addie introduced us, remember?”
More diversionary tactics. Normally, she’d shy away from these types of memories. But now, welcoming the distraction, she let herself be swept along, back to the past. “Of course I remember. We met there, at her bar, on Fat Tuesday. I’d gone with a bunch of other Huntresses, and you were alone at the bar.”
“I was waiting for you. Addie had told me about you.” Though he spoke in a calm, unaffected voice, Beck gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles showed white, proving his control was as ragged as hers.
“You didn’t mind that I was a vampire, either.”
“Just like you didn’t care that I was Pack.”
“At first I did.” But then she’d seen him. One look and she’d been hooked. Bouncing along on a potholed road, she wondered if they’d still be together if things had been different. “Once I met you, that didn’t seem to matter.”
Beck glanced at her, expression serious. “We were kind of radicals, with our mixed relationship. My Pack friends gave me hell, though once they saw you, they were probably only jealous. What did your friends think of you taking up with a shifter?”
Though the speedometer inched past eighty, the landscape hadn’t changed. They were in the middle of nowhere, still miles from town and Addie’s.
“Marika?” His tone was sharp. “I need you to focus. What did your friends think of our relationship?”
Bringing her attention back to him, she understood what he was trying to do, though she couldn’t help but wonder at his choice of topic. For her, this was all still painful. She guessed that, for him, the three years that had passed had eased the hurt.
“They weren’t too happy.” She shrugged. “But what can you do? You like who you like.”
Like was putting it mildly. She’d never put into words what he’d made her feel. When she’d first seen Beck, everything else had faded into insignificance. The sight of his face, so ruggedly beautiful, had made her feel complete for the first time in her very long life.
“What about since then?” His casual voice didn’t fool her for a second. “Has there been anyone else?”
“Not of any importance. Dani has been my only priority.” Taking a deep breath, vibrating with panic, she dared to ask him the same questions. “What about you? You’ve never been in love?”
His hard look dismissed her question. “That’s not in the cards for me.”
A few more miles. A bit closer. She glanced at the phone. “Try again.”
He did, finally closing it without commenting.
She swallowed. Hard. Grasped at straws, desperate for distraction. “Me, either. I haven’t really tried. Don’t want to.”
After Beck, when their disastrous relationship had ended with his sister’s death, she’d known she’d never let herself care about anyone so strongly again.
How long ago that all seemed now. Meeting Beck that night, when his eyes had locked with hers, she’d known she’d been waiting for him all her life. She’d wanted to ask him where he’d been, what had taken him so damn long to find her. He’d brought color to her world. Everything had been gray until he’d shown up.
Now, Dani was her color, her reason for existing.
She swallowed again, awash in emotion, hovering on the razor edge of terror. Dani, Dani, Dani. Her daughter had to be all right.
“Try Addie again.”
Though barely a minute had passed since his last attempt, without questioning, he did.
A moment later he closed the phone and shook his head. “Still no answer.”
A moan escaped her. “Bloody hell. If anything—”
“No. She’s fine. I’m sure we’re worrying for nothing.” He sounded confident, certain.
How she wished she could agree. But every instinct told her he was wrong. She bit back a second moan.
“Marika, look at me.”
Slow
ly, reluctantly, she dragged her gaze from her intense study of the landscape to his face.
His reassuring grin took her breath away, suddenly and unexpectedly making his craggy face beautiful. “Don’t worry. Not yet. One thing I have learned in my time as a Protector is to wait until I have all the facts. Doing otherwise just brings trouble. We don’t want that.”
“No,” she said slowly. “But I can’t ignore my instincts.”
“You’d better. You know how hard it is to fight when you can’t focus.”
Damn. He was right. She knew this. “It works when you’re not emotionally involved, but this is my daughter.”
“Our daughter,” he corrected. “And you worrying about her isn’t going to help her if she’s in trouble.”
Taking a deep breath, she made herself continue to study him. Distraction, distraction. “You know,” she said slowly, considering, “I’d forgotten how beautiful you are. Does that ever get in the way of what you have to do as a Protector?”
“Former Protector. And, Marika, you can’t go around saying things like that.” His voice sounded thick. The faint reddish tinge under his skin told her he didn’t take well to compliments.
No matter. As soon as she reached Addie’s, barring a disaster, she planned to take Dani and run. If things went well, she’d never see him again. Though he was Dani’s father, she couldn’t take a chance on letting him endanger her.
Assuming she wasn’t already in danger.
She gave herself a mental shake. Everything had to be all right. They’d get to Addie’s, wake her up, find Dani and while Beck was distracted, she’d take Dani and disappear.
Dani had to be safe. She had to be. The alternative simply wasn’t acceptable.
Again she focused on her plan. Take Dani and run. If there was a way she could keep Beck away from her… The less complicated she could keep their lives, the quicker escape she and Dani could make if it became necessary to make one. Beck would only get in the way.
Dani’s father. A niggling of guilt still bothered her. Casting him a sideways glance, she knew he wouldn’t give up easily. Separating from him would be best accomplished quickly, before he had a chance to stop them.
Not only would Dani be safer without him, but the truth of the matter was that being around him brought too much pain. She’d never forgotten him or understood how she’d let herself come to care for him so much, so quickly. Being with him reminded her too much of what she’d lost. Even now, the carefully constructed shield she’d put around her emotions was cracking.
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