by Zoe Forward
“The driving or…”
He said, “Look, the fact I might want to fuck you doesn’t mean I will or that I understand why this is happening to me. But I’d like to arrive at the rendezvous in one piece.”
Cue jaw drop. He admitted it. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. Imaginary fist pump.
A wild laugh broke free. She accelerated to over a hundred and thirty while weaving in and out of cars. He muttered a curse in French. His body went rigid again.
“Mellow out before I hit something. If we move fast enough, vamps can’t smell us.”
“Next time, I’ll get back in the goddamned box.”
“Not an option today.” They’d had a few minutes of hell-no’s from him about riding on the back of the bike before he’d agreed. He wanted to drive. She argued she knew their destination and the area better than him. All right, her ego played a big role in her riding up front.
She glanced at the Porsche behind them in her side-view mirror. It had mimicked their last three sharp turns and had passed at least seven cars to keep up. She did a series of weaves through traffic and took another curve.
Damn. The car continued to follow, even if now further behind. As they drove into the hills, she could no longer see it, but she knew it was still there. “We’ve got a tail. We’re almost to the tunnel. Just do this like we discussed. Get off. Make the exchange. You get into the maintenance room. I’ll stop about halfway into the tunnel, and it’ll be on the right side, clearly marked.”
“What’re you going to do about the cure and your sister?”
She’d give him props for keeping the burning question bottled up. It would’ve been the first thing she asked the second they’d been face-to-face after Viktor’s impromptu appearance. “I’ll handle it.”
He hugged her as they navigated the next curve. “As soon as you find out anything about the baby, swear to me that you’ll—”
“I’ll call, I promise. Get ready.” The mountain tunnel loomed ahead. She sped up. They traveled about half a mile until, with a screech of brakes, she brought the bike to a halt at the tunnel’s midpoint. The Porsche hadn’t entered the tunnel yet.
She squeezed his forearm. “Michael…I…” She didn’t want him to go. There were so many things she wanted to say, but…what would be the point? “Be careful.”
His hand traced down her arm as he jumped off. The touch hadn’t been necessary, but it lit up her entire body. He scowled at someone over her shoulder. “Andrew Dewherst is my replacement?”
She ordered, “Get in the room. Hurry.”
Wearing the same jeans and black leather jacket as Michael, Andrew snagged the helmet from him and shoved it on his own head, allowing his long, telltale pale hair to peek out the edges of the helmet. He hopped on behind her. The door to the maintenance room closed behind Michael as he went inside, shutting off her view of him. They were off with no sign of the Porsche behind them. Exchange complete.
The further she got from the tunnel, the tighter her chest got. The road’s curves forced her to focus on driving and not on the escalating tension making it tough to breathe inside her helmet.
Andrew’s hands squeezed her waist around a curve. She squirmed to loosen his contact, missing the feel of Michael behind her. Andrew, although hands down gorgeous, inspired about as much romantically as did her bike. Actually, she might feel more for the bike.
She should feel satisfaction at saving another wolf’s life, even if it’d landed her in a complicated mess. Instead, for the first time since she’d started rescuing wolves, responsibility weighed her down. She wished the bullshit war and interspecies prejudices didn’t exist, but they did.
She wished his blood weren’t poison. But it was. There was no going back.
As leader of the initiative to fight vampire attacks, Michael could never get involved with her without destroying everything he represented.
Although she might see the sexy werewolf again—damn it, her stomach clenched with delight—to return the stolen child, she’d do her job. Too much was at stake for both of them to give in to attraction.
…
Michael checked his watch, an old Timex he’d picked up in the early eighties. He’d had the battery replaced a few times, but it still worked well, and he hadn’t gotten out of the habit of wearing it, even with the invention of cell phones.
Damn it, he couldn’t read it. The Indiglo light went out. He depressed the small button to turn it on again and moved the watch’s face near and then away from his face, squinting until he could make out the numbers. The light shut off. One more time, and he got a reading. Maybe an Apple watch wouldn’t be such a bad idea…
Six more minutes until the van arrived to pick him up. He wasn’t to step out of this room for a full ten minutes, especially since that Porsche had been on them for at least a quarter of their ride. He swiped sweat off his forehead. It wasn’t hot. But the room was cramped and stank of mildew and gasoline.
Confined spaces wreaked hell on his mind with the threat of a panic meltdown. You’re not buried alive again. This isn’t dirt. It’s got fresh air, even if it’s dark.
When the vampires had tired of playing with him and no longer needed him bolted to the wall, they’d drugged him, padlocked him in thick chains, and buried him deep in the ground. He’d struggled for three days against the locks, bleeding to the point where anemia had spun his mind with dizziness. Eventually, he accepted death as inevitable but didn’t make peace with it. Then someone had come for him. Someone he was about to ask for help once more, despite the wide rift that had grown between them.
A mechanical whir of a generator jerked him into the now. A few cars buzzed past outside the door.
His lungs seized up such that air exchange occurred in rapid gasps. Lightheaded, he stumbled, catching himself with a hand against the wall. You’re not trapped in here. Keep it together.
He depressed his watch’s light again. Checking it every few seconds wouldn’t make time move faster, but the light comforted him.
Too long in the dark, trusting her not to screw him.
She wouldn’t. That he believed. Anyone who could chat about a bloody tree, a discussion that almost made him break down in tears, and not judge him a sap wouldn’t betray him.
One hundred twenty seconds. He counted backward as slowly as possible in his mind. His hand caressed on the doorknob, testing to ensure it wasn’t locked. It wasn’t.
Get the hell out of this room.
A gray van pulled to a stop moments after he stepped out. He hopped into the passenger seat and met the distrustful scrutiny of the wolf driving, one he recognized as Blay’s butler, who might bear the title of a genteel servant, but he was lethal when needed. Karlos caressed a wicked, curved knife in his lap. Michael had to respect this wolf who, like him, chose a blade over bullets.
“It’s been a while, Karlos. Your hair’s graying out. How’s Blay managing without you to wipe his ass?”
The hand on the blade’s handle returned to the wheel. He’d been deemed not a threat, though it didn’t matter to him one way or another. The guy wouldn’t have won had he attacked. Karlos was built like a cheetah, solid muscle and agile. Based on the times he’d seen the guy fight, he was fast and efficient with few wasted movements. But not as good as Michael.
Karlos cast an irritated glare his way. “You owe us for this shit.”
“I don’t owe you jack. You could’ve called Bryan to come for me.” Bryan, Michael’s first lieutenant in the war and right hand, had probably blown a fuse over his disappearing act. Legit for Bryan to be angry, but pursuing the baby’s abductors had been personal business, not that of the entire werewolf people. If Michael had died in Paris, at least he would’ve gone out fighting for a cause. Deep down, he’d wanted to die fighting in Paris. He’d seen it as his escape from the ennui. Until Kiera showed up and blasted open the can on l
iving.
“He’s at the airport where I’m dumping you. I didn’t have time for this today, but Blay ordered me here since Kiera asked. What I don’t get is why the hell you’d go solo against the Squad, and in Paris of all places? There’re more of them crawling the streets of that city than any other place in the world.”
“They kidnapped a baby who’s just over a year old.”
“Fuckers.” Karlos’s hands tightened on the wheel until his knuckles turned white. “That explains why Kiera has a fire under her ass for information. You should’ve asked us to help, not her. She has this thing about kids being harmed. It’s one of her trigger points. The last time she got wind of a kid captured…” Karlos whistled. “First time I’m aware of that she used bombs. Not on the workers, though. She’s fair to them since they’re only minions doing their jobs, but their bosses, the ones who ordered the kidnapping…those guys she tracked down and obliterated.”
He liked her even more now. “I didn’t ask her to help. Kiera…well, you’ve met her. It’s not like she gives you a chance to argue.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” Karlos muttered. “She’s got resources we don’t have, even if she is…” He granted Michael a wan smile. “I wonder if both of you boarded the same crazy train.”
“Why didn’t you ask Bryan to come? She isn’t here now. She’d never have known.” He’d much rather have his righthand man here than one of Blay’s lackeys, who’d judge him for his vampire-fighting methods, which often weren’t sanctioned by the werewolf king. He tended to kill first by any means available and ask questions later, whereas the king preferred to separate serious hostiles—members of the Squad—from civilians and bystanders. Vampires were vampires, in his opinion.
Or so he used to think.
Kiera cast into doubt his standard M.O. and assumptions.
Karlos scowled. “Oh, she would’ve known. Never doubt she’s got every camera in that tunnel monitored. She doesn’t trust very many of us. Blay said she freaked when she saw those scars on your back and ID’ed you. He told her to dump you, and we’d go get you or would call Bryan. But no. She wouldn’t agree to release you to someone she didn’t know. She’d only give you to one of us or Blay himself. I hope you thanked her for rescuing you.”
“I didn’t need her help,” he grumbled.
“Sounded like you did. Okay, whatever. I wasn’t there. You can’t speak of the details of this or her to anyone. You get me?”
“You worried I’ll spill the identity of Nightshade League’s leader?”
“I didn’t say she was their leader.”
“Sounds like she’s helped a lot of us.”
“She’s got a good heart, but she’s reckless.” Karlos turned into the airport.
“She’s going to get caught.” Especially when she goes after Grace.
“Someday she will.” They stopped in front of a hangar.
Michael recognized the Gulfstream jet parked on the tarmac near the hangar as the one he often borrowed from a rich werewolf in Madrid who preferred donating money or logistics to the war effort rather than fight. Bryan jogged down the plane’s stairs and stalked toward his car. The stiff carriage of his shoulders suggested a high level of pissed off.
Karlos’s van was already moving before Michael shut the door behind him.
“What the hell, Michael?” Bryan stormed toward him. He crossed his arms, his button-down shirt an inadequate barrier against the biting crosswind that blasted them. “You violated your own rules about taking backup to go off on your own to a city crawling with leeches.”
Something wet hit his nose. He glanced upward, smelling rain. It’d turn the dusting of snow on the ground to slush. He despised slush. Another droplet hit his forehead. “I knew what I was doing. Had to try to rescue Grace.”
“Try? Wasn’t it you who said we don’t try, we win?” Bryan raked his hands through his surfer-length brown hair, pushing it out of his sharp, angular face. “Sir, you can’t do this kind of shit. You can’t. It’s been chaos without you on levels you can’t even imagine.”
“Don’t say I’m worth more than one baby. That’s bullshit. I’ve had a long life. That child hasn’t even had a chance.”
“All of us deserve a chance,” Bryan said with a hint of contrition. He jerked his head toward the small jet that probably cost more than Michael had spent in a generation, and they started walking toward it. “That’s why we need you to lead us to victory. Our people need you now as a stabilizing force more than ever.”
“Stabilizing.” He snorted sarcastically. “That sure as fuck isn’t me. There’s no victory in this war. There’s only casualty control.” He expected this level of pushback from Bryan, the only person he trusted with his life. He’d been by Michael’s side for almost a century and a half, ever since he’d scooped Bryan up off the streets of London, a young, transitioning teenage werewolf, orphaned and with no adult to guide him.
As they approached the ramp stairs to the plane, Bryan whirled on him, “mother hen” written all over his face. “Where have you been? I’ve been searching on the grid and off the grid and on grids I didn’t know existed for two days. When I’m at the point where I assume you’re dead, Blay fucking Lazlo phones me and says to meet you here. Blay? You two haven’t spoken in what? Over a hundred years, maybe longer?”
Michael replied, “I was saved—unwillingly, I might add, since I was trying to get into the vampire stronghold—and then kidnapped by the Nightshade League.”
Bryan froze.
Michael started up the stairs to the open door of the jet.
Bryan scrambled to catch up. “You met their leader? He’s real?”
Michael didn’t reply as he ducked his head to enter the plane and waved to the pilot. “Give me a moment before you get going, will you? We might not be headed home quite yet.”
“You seem different,” Bryan murmured as they each took two of the eight large, soft leather seats dotting the plane’s interior. “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but you’re calm. More in control. You’re like you used to be years ago. What happened in Paris?”
Michael buckled himself in and kicked up the chair’s footrest then realized those actions probably proved Bryan right—he was more relaxed, less on edge, despite the war. Despite Grace.
He should fill in his right hand, but what happened with Kiera had shaken him to his core. Bryan wouldn’t understand. He’d judge. “Do you have my glasses and cell phone?”
Bryan dug through his leather briefcase to find the requested items and handed them over.
He resented the annoying glasses he perched on his nose, but he’d never see the keys on his cell phone without them—one of the costs of being four hundred ten years old. “I have a call to make.”
He dialed the cranky wolf he hadn’t conversed with in a very long time. “It’s Michael.”
“I know it’s you. I wouldn’t have answered otherwise. I heard you made it to your plane. Stupidity all around for you being in Paris without your people and then roping Kiera into your shit.” Blay was as abrupt as ever.
“Where are you?” He met Blay’s terse question in kind. Blay never had patience with beating around the bush.
“Poland.” There was unease in the wolf’s tone.
“We’re having dinner tonight, then.”
“Is this you inviting yourself to partake of my food?”
“Yes. See you around seven.” He hung up. Blay would hate him for bullying his way into his private world, but Michael was the only person on the planet who was as old as he was, and he could offer perspective on Michael’s absorption with Kiera. More importantly, Blay wouldn’t judge since he himself had mated a vampire—Kiera’s sister—before Arie was murdered.
Chapter Nine
Andrew tapped Kiera’s shoulder and pointed at the rapidly nearing Vietnamese roadside café.
&nbs
p; She nodded and slowed the motorcycle. Andrew expertly molded against her back as she turned in to park at the curb. They involved a motorcycle in their rescues often and had ridden together many times. He was Kiera’s rock in this war. He was the kind of guy who could flash a charming smile that would get him whatever he wanted one moment and in the next moment fight viciously to the death. He didn’t tolerate bullshit, but he did sometimes go off the range and do things his own cowboy way, which forced everyone else to improvise.
She parked in front of the recently painted brick building with burgundy trim. Dusk had settled into a comfortable darkness. They selected seats outside at one of the tables with red-checkered tablecloths and small candles as centerpieces. Several tall standing heaters had been fired up. They’d chosen this place because it always had visible outdoor seating, even in January. They assumed whoever followed them, probably a Viktor spy, didn’t know who she rode with. They needed them to see she’d been riding with Andrew, not a wolf.
A young American couple sat two tables over, speaking loudly about crappy exchange rates and haughty French attitudes as if no one around would understand them. Perhaps they thought a town well outside a big city would have fewer who spoke anything other than French. Some guidebook probably indicated the restaurant as a don’t-miss point of interest.
The Porsche that had been trailing them slowed as it passed. The only visual its driver would get was her out with a notorious rake. It wasn’t the first time they’d made sure there was a public viewing of the two of them out somewhere to distract from a wolf escaping.
“What’s going on with you and him?” Andrew relaxed back in his chair, pretending to peruse the menu.
Whoa. This sure as hell sounded like jealousy. Her relationship with Andrew had never been the sort that grew on that tangled vine of love, jealousy, and obsession.
“Him who?” She forced her tone to be casual.
“Answer the question.” He slammed down the menu.
And… Maybe she’d miscalculated the depths of his feelings for her.