by Juniper Hart
“We are not done here,” Gabriel snarled, seizing her arm. “You owe me for more reasons than one. You think I’ve forgotten what you did because I never punished you for it? Don’t you get what you did, Dani?”
“I did the right thing by those women,” Danica snapped. “Get your hands off me. I need to get out of here.”
“I’m taking you out of here,” he replied. “With me.”
“I’m not your prisoner.”
“You weren’t,” Gabriel agreed. “But if you’re not coming with me willingly now, you will be.”
“Stop it!” she shrieked. “Half the Lycans in the world are looking for you!”
“And they haven’t found me yet,” Gabriel reminded her. “I’m always one step ahead.”
“Just go and leave me alone,” she moaned. “You don’t know the damage you’ve done.”
“Me?” he snorted. “What about the damage you’ve done?”
Danica hung her head, despite feeling nothing but disdain for him. How could I ever have been so naïve?
“You can’t leave me, Danica. You basically sold that right when you helped the others go free. Now there’s only you left to bear the offspring of our pack.”
She stared at him dubiously. “You fool!” she hissed before she could stop herself. “You may have just killed the baby I’m carrying!”
At first, Gabriel didn’t seem to understand what she had said, his eyes blank.
“What?” he asked, a strange smile on his face. “The baby you’re carrying?”
Why did I say that?
“He’s not yours,” Danica tried to say, but the words stuck in her mouth as Gabriel yanked her toward him.
“You’re pregnant?” he hissed. “How many months?”
“Let me go!” she cried. Gabriel’s fingers were like vices against her upper arm.
“You bitch,” he breathed, pulling her through the woods. “Have you sold out the entire pack to save yourself?”
“I didn’t!” she insisted. “I protected you as much as I could!”
“You were going to take my baby and raise him in another pack?”
“He’s not yours!” she yelled, but even she didn’t believe her words when they met her ears.
“For your sake, you better pray he is,” Gabriel growled. “Because I am not raising another man’s baby in my pack.”
“You better pray nothing happened to the baby because of this stupid attack on your part!”
He grunted in response, apparently unmoved by her declaration. As he half-dragged her through the forest, Danica forsook fighting him off. At least she knew he would take her toward medical treatment, and all that mattered in that moment was the safety of her child.
Yet she couldn’t help but look at him with undisguised contempt when they finally found themselves at the roadway where a small Honda Civic was waiting. Inside, a young blonde woman sat in the driver’s side.
Wes loves me enough to overlook the fact that this child is fathered by such a despicable creature, she thought. Gabriel would sooner feed an offspring not his own to the rest of the pack.
“Who is this?” Danica demanded when she was shoved ruthlessly into the back of the car. The blonde flashed her a blinding smile, laced with venom.
“Amy,” she offered.
I guess this is who helped him escape from prison. Oddly, there was no more jealousy, no more wondering who this newest player was in the deadly game of cat and mouse in which Danica had been entrenched. She honestly didn’t care if she’d been replaced. In fact, she hoped she had been. What mattered now was ensuring the safety of her baby and finding Wes again. And then we’ll end this thing once and for all.
But she also knew that if she was still pregnant, there was no way Gabriel was ever going to let her out of his sight until the baby was born.
“Back to the safe house, hon?” Amy asked, and Gabriel nodded curtly, his eyes fixed on Danica.
“Tell me the truth,” he growled. “Is the baby mine?”
Danica clamped her mouth together, her mind racing. If she said yes, she would buy herself some time. If she said no, Gabriel might kill her.
She shot her eyes toward Amy, who stared at her through the rear-view like the road ahead wasn’t even there. Was there malice in her eyes?
If I say the baby isn’t his and he somehow found another Lycan female to bear children, I’ll be of absolutely no use to him whatsoever. But if Amy could bear children, Gabriel wouldn’t have gone through so much trouble to find her, would he?
It was a dangerous gamble, one which Danica wasn’t ready to take.
“The baby is yours,” she muttered, darting her eyes away, and Gabriel laughed happily, clapping his hands together.
“Of course he is!” he chortled, sinking back into the passenger seat. “We’ll find you a doctor right away.”
It was all Danica could hope for in that moment.
First, I’ll make sure the baby is fine. Then I plan my escape from this psychopath.
11
Wes had no doubt who had constructed the bomb and why. In the back of his mind, he had been anticipating action from Gabriel. Even so, the event had caught him completely off guard.
“She’s here somewhere,” he growled at Gale. “You and the others have to help me find her.”
“If you’re right about this and it is Gabriel who made the car bomb, it means he’s here, too,” the beta wolf insisted. “We can kill two birds with one stone.”
“All I care about right now is getting Danica back. Gabriel can wait.”
Gale eyed him warily.
“Go!” Wes yelled, staring at the darkening road where the remnants of his Lexus had been. Firefighters had contained the blaze, and cops still milled about, refusing to let him go far. It was why he’d had to summon his pack for assistance.
She’s here. I can sense her. But every time he made a move to sneak away, he was stopped by a cop. Aren’t there any Enchanted cops or emergency responders around here?
Unbelievably, Wes couldn’t detect one. As always, the universe was jesting with him, and there was nothing he could do but endure it.
All had been lost in the explosion: his cell, wallet, keys. EMS had been stunned that he was walking about with barely a scratch on him.
“There was a passenger with me!” he repeated. “She must have been thrown from the car. She’s pregnant. You need to find her!”
“The police are on it, sir. You just need to relax and let us check you out.”
They obviously found no damage on him, and when they finally, dubiously, let him go, he was cornered by the police.
“Who would want to do this to you?” they asked. “Do you have any enemies?”
You’re wasting time! Wes wanted to scream at them. How could he explain what was happening to them, though?
He turned around in a full circle once again, hoping to see Danica ambling from the bushes, shaken but unhurt. It had been hours, and there was still no sign of her anywhere.
Gabriel got to her first. I lied to her. I told her she was safe from him, and I lied. His stomach rocked with bile as he considered the baby. Wes was sure that Danica would be able to heal, but would the child be able to withstand such a blow?
“Mr. Vance?”
He whirled around at the sound of his name. “Yes?”
“We still haven’t found your girlfriend, sir,” the uniformed cop told him, looking uncomfortable. Wes’ eyes narrowed, wondering why they would have sent a rookie to give him the news. It took him a minute to understand that he was facing the only Lycan on the emergency scene.
“I have to get out of here,” Wes hissed at him. “She’s my mate, and she’s in danger.”
A sympathetic look crossed over the young officer’s face, and he exhaled.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Vance, but I’m afraid that’s not going to happen any time soon. They are still investigating, and…” He trailed off and inhaled before continuing in a much lower tone. “It’s not ju
st the cops you need to worry about now.”
Wes eyed him. “What now?” he muttered. “The Council?”
The rookie nodded and sighed again. “Landon Burke is on his way. He’s worried about what the first responders might have seen when the incident took place.”
“What did they see?” Wes asked, unsure if he’d been found in his mortal form.
“Nothing—you weren’t conscious, but you hadn’t shifted.”
“Goddamn Landon,” Wes muttered, wondering what the hell else could go wrong in his life.
“You need to stay put until he arrives.”
You really do have your hands tied now, he told himself. You can’t rouse a lick more of suspicion, or Landon is going to smell it on you from a mile away.
“Thanks,” Wes muttered, even though there wasn’t an iota of gratefulness in his tone.
“Sorry, Mr. Vance. I really like your literature class.” The cop turned away, leaving Wes to stare after him blankly. He hadn’t even realized the cop was a student in one of his lectures.
He looked down at the burner phone that Gale had brought him after being summoned to the scene.
I need to warn the pack that Landon is coming, too. With a sigh, he dialed out, and to his relief, Gale answered on the first ring.
“Any luck?” Wes asked without preamble.
“Not a sign of her anywhere,” Gale replied, an appropriate note of sadness in his voice. “But we’ll find her, Wes.”
You’re damned right we will.
“Landon Burke is on his way to the scene,” Wes said. “I need you to alert the others and stay the hell away. I don’t need him asking unnecessary questions.”
“All right, boss.”
He didn’t bother to correct Gale that time, his nerves far too frayed to argue. He needed every bit of strength he could muster to deal with what was coming.
“Ask unnecessary questions about what?” Landon asked from behind him. Wes’ heart caught in his throat.
“You really didn’t need to come,” he told the councilman without answering his query. “Nobody saw anything.”
“Someone tried to kill you, Wesley. I’d say this warrants my attention.”
Wes snorted. “You know they’d have to do a lot better than that if they wanted me dead.”
“That’s really not the point. I understand that Danica was in the car as well.”
Wes’ mouth became a fine line. “Yes.”
“Do you think this is Gabriel’s handiwork?”
“Yes,” Wes answered honestly. He had lied to Landon long enough. “I do.”
“Makes sense, since she’s gone AWOL now, doesn’t it?” Landon mused, his eyes traveling over the roadway as though he was seeking for clues. “Where is your pack?”
“Searching for her.”
Landon glared at him. “What is it you don’t want me to know?”
Dammit, Wes cursed to himself. I guess he’s not going to let that slip by.
“She’s pregnant.”
“I know that,” Landon said, his usually arrogant face softening slightly. “I hope the child is safe.”
You wouldn’t if you knew the truth, Wes thought, but as he did, he paled. Landon had been reading his thoughts.
“And what truth would that be?” he asked quietly, a sinister undertone to his words.
“I’m just confused, tired,” Wes breathed, willing himself to come up with a plausible story that wouldn’t result in certain death for everyone involved.
“You’ve also been lying to me, Wesley.”
Wes tried to shake his head, but there was no point in debating the issue. Landon obviously knew more than he was saying. He was waiting to see if Wes would come clean with him.
“What do you know?” Wes asked, resigning to the fact that the bubble he’d created around Danica had officially burst.
“I’ll take that to mean that you’ve been lying on more than one front.”
Wes inhaled and met Landon’s eyes steadfastly.
“I did what I thought was right,” he muttered. “It took me some time to understand what had happened, that she wasn’t like the others.”
“But you didn’t come to me when you did.”
Wes scoffed. “You expected me to hand over my mate knowing what I know? How could you even ask me something like that?”
“Your loyalty is to the Lycans!” Landon barked.
“My loyalty is to my love,” Wes countered. Landon didn’t speak for a long moment.
“How could you sit back and watch her with that scum and do nothing?” he demanded. Wes’ jaw tightened at the question. It was one he’d asked himself hundreds of times.
“I did what I thought was best to protect Danica.”
“A lot of good that did you. Look at her now. Back in the arms of that waste of skin.”
In that moment, Wes realized that Landon’s vendetta against Gabriel was deeper than his anger toward him. He needed all the help he could get to find his mate, and they would deal with the aftermath when he knew Danica and her baby were safe.
“I was trying to protect her. That’s what you tasked me with doing,” Wes muttered defensively, knowing that his explanation would not serve him well. “She is still as much a victim as the others.”
“She’s not, and you know it.” Landon’s tone was flat, uncaring, and Wes knew he’d made a mistake in confessing to his crimes.
“Maybe she wasn’t then,” he insisted. “But she is now. Wherever Gabriel has taken her, she is there against her will. She wouldn’t leave me.”
“Even to be with the father of her child?” Landon demanded coldly.
“I will be the father of that child.” Wes’ words left no room for denial, given that he actually believed them. In his heart, he knew he could be a good father to the baby—if the Council would ever let him.
“You will face the Council for your treason,” Landon retorted, reading his thoughts. “You will not be raising anyone’s child.”
“I will go anywhere you want after we ensure Danica’s safety.”
Their eyes locked in a silent battle of the wills.
“She’s being held captive,” Wes growled. “You need to work with me, and I swear, I’ll turn myself in to the Council of Seven. Your duty is to keep us all safe from harm. Danica is one of us, whether by choice or by force. She is still a part of our fold and demands your security.”
“The Council won’t be kind,” Landon told him. “To you or to Danica.”
“We’ll have our day before them,” Wes said firmly, even though his heart was thumping furiously. “All that matters is that she is safe.”
Landon looked away first, shaking his head in disbelief.
“You had Gabriel at your fingertips this entire time,” he rasped. “We wasted endless resources to find him, and you…” He inhaled, as if to contain his mounting temper.
“I couldn’t sell her out,” Wes said softly. “She’s my mate.”
“She’s going to be the literal death of you.”
Landon spun and sauntered away, leaving Wes to stare after him, wondering where to go next. There was a heaviness in his chest that made it difficult to breathe.
It was only a matter of time before this happened, he reminded himself. It was true that he had nothing to tell the Council but the truth, that he had purposely hidden Danica’s involvement with Gabriel and his pack from Landon. But none of that seemed to matter anymore. All that mattered was finding her before Gabriel took her away from his reach.
Would that be such a bad thing, though? If Gabriel managed to escape with Danica, she might be safe from the punishment of the Council.
What are you saying? a voice in his head demanded. Gabriel is a lunatic, unbalanced and violent!
Yet given the circumstances, Danica might be better off forever on the run than executed by the Council. At least that way, she had a fighting chance to live with her child.
The idea made Wes’ stomach churn, but in his desperation to
save her, he knew he had to make a choice. Let her go or sign her death warrant.
12
Amy continued to watch her with skeptical eyes, but Danica ignored her. Her attention was fixed on Gabriel, who seemed to have a difficult time finding a doctor to come to their remote location.
“I can’t believe this,” Aiden grumbled as he paced around the living room of the compound. “Why didn’t you say anything to us? We wouldn’t have let you stay in San Francisco if we’d known.”
“I think that’s the entire point,” Gabriel snapped at his second-in-command. “The little whore was trying to sneak off with my child and raise him with some macho Alpha before I could find out about it.”
“Gabriel, you don’t understand how bad things have gotten now,” Danica told him, trying to keep her tone reasonable. “It’s not just the usual suspects looking for you. The police, the Council, half of the free Lycans—”
“Would you shut up while I find you a doctor?” Gabriel barked back, his brow knit as he peered at the cell phone in his hand.
“Who are you even going to find? You’re not listening, Gabe. You need to give up or get out of town.”
“We are out of town,” Boone said. She ignored him. She didn’t need to be reminded that Gabriel had hurried her out of state with Amy driving at a maniacal rate of speed.
“If anything happened to that baby…” Gabriel told her threateningly.
“If anything happened, it will be your damned fault!” Danica shouted, unable to keep her composure. “You’re the moron who set off a car bomb!”
“I had to make sure you were taken unseen. I know you’re enshrouded yourself in a new pack. How’s that for loyalty after everything I’ve done for you?” Gabriel snarled. “I gave you the gift of eternal life! I am going to make you a mother! And what do you do but turn around and betray me with another Alpha!”
You’re no Alpha, Danica thought contemptuously. You’re a bottom-feeder who was cast aside like the trash he is. The only way you could hope to form a pack is this way, and now you’re struggling for survival.
“Yelling at each other isn’t going to help matters at all,” Amy said, speaking for what felt like the first time since they had arrived at the compound. “Let me see if I can find a doctor for her.”
