“It’s okay,” he said finally.
Calmly.
Gently.
Full of confidence, empty of worry or anxiety.
And I wondered who the heck this Wes was and what he’d done with mine.
The dog’s barking grew louder. Another light came on at the farmhouse down the lane.
“We need to get moving,” Mr. Lexington said.
Always the herder.
Wes pulled back and nodded at him. “You’re helping us,” Wes said. It wasn’t a question. If anything, it was a warning.
Mr. Lexington lifted his chin. “I’m committed to protecting my daughter, no matter what,” he said.
Wes looked at Victoria and his hand tightened in mine. “He hurt you,” he said to her.
She lifted her chin, much like her dad had done. “He hurt you too,” she said, managing to sound compassionate and haughty at the same time. She was recovering. I might’ve smiled if her words hadn’t frozen Wes.
“Steppe is in the van?” Derek echoed, finally catching up. “That van?” he asked, pointing. He didn’t wait for my answer before striding to the van and yanking the door open.
My throat closed. I opened my mouth to call out and stop him but no sound came. I wasn’t sure whether I was scared he would hurt Steppe—or scared he wouldn’t.
“Tara’s bonded to him, Derek,” Wes warned, reading my thoughts.
Derek disappeared inside the van. The barking, a background annoyance until now, suddenly reached full volume as the dog escaped whatever restraint had been holding it and it raced toward us at the edge of the road. Even in the darkness, I could see it wasn’t a puppy.
I reached a hand out, caught between the threat of Derek and the threat of the dog, my words of warning becoming tongue-twisted in my mouth. But Cambria turned just as the dog leaped at her calf and slammed her fist into the mutt’s nose. It went down with a yelp and then turned away, whining as it retreated.
I stared at her.
She shrugged. “Despite what you people think, I am not a dog person,” she said.
Mr. Lexington rolled his eyes. “We need to go,” he said again, this time more urgently.
Derek reappeared from the depths of the van, dragging Steppe by the back of his collar. Steppe’s foot caught on something just inside the van door, so instead of following Derek out on his feet, he landed on his stomach with a grunt, half in, half out of the vehicle. Derek heaved and Steppe tumbled onto the pavement.
Derek wasted no time landing a hard kick to Steppe’s gut. “That’s for taking my friends prisoner,” he said.
I felt the pain like a sucker punch but held it in, steeling my muscles and my face. At the second kick, I gripped Wes tighter in silent support. None of the others moved to stop him.
Astor threw a nervous glance my way. He was the only one here who knew even this was agony for me and I intended to keep it that way. If nothing else, I didn’t want Steppe knowing how harm to one caused harm to both. I wanted to keep as much as possible from his awareness. It might be the only advantage we had when the time came.
Wes suddenly swiveled to stare at me and I sighed. Stupid full moon. His eyes narrowed in response and his mouth tightened.
Several yards away, Derek kicked Steppe again. “And that’s for making my other friends sick from the Unbinilium,” he said.
This time, the pain almost doubled me over. Wes pulled at our joined hands, stepping forward, and I knew he was about to intervene. I tugged on his hand to get his attention, looked right at him, and thought, Don’t.
Derek planted a final kick, his mouth grim, his forearm muscles working as his hands fisted at his sides. “And that,” he said, wiping the back of his hand across his face, “is for getting my friend arrested and almost convicted of a murder you committed.”
This time, my physical reaction had nothing to do with the pain radiating from Steppe’s gut to the very ends of his hair. I watched in grim satisfaction as Steppe gasped and rolled sideways to escape Derek’s wrath.
With a hollow click, across the field, a door opened at the farm house and the darkened silhouette of a man in a cowboy hat walked out onto the porch. The dog disappeared inside and, a second later, the man stepped out. Even from here, I could see the outline of a rifle clutched in his hand.
“Like I said before,” Mr. Lexington said.
“Time to go,” Logan said, already pulling Victoria toward the waiting car. Astor scrambled for his seat in the van and Cambria took Derek’s hand, gently pulling him away as well. Derek took a step back, met my eyes, and I saw the apology written there.
“You good?” he asked me.
I nodded. “I’m good,” I assured him. I slid a glance toward the farmer. “Can you put him back now?”
Derek bent down and heaved Steppe up over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He walked him back to the van and tossed him inside. Steppe landed with a relieved grunt that was nothing after the rib-cracking kicks from before. I sighed.
“Come on,” Wes said, leading me toward the Aston Martin.
I hesitated, but Mr. Lexington was already seated in the van. His window rolled down and he called out, “Go. We’ll follow you.”
I nodded and followed Wes to the car. In the distance, I heard the distinct click of a rifle being cocked and broke into a run. Wes and I dove into the car, he shoved it into gear, and we sped off. Gravel kicked up behind us and I held my breath, my eyes locked on the side mirror. My lips moved in silent prayer.
A second later, two sets of headlights appeared through the dust and I relaxed against the soft leather of the seat. Wes reached over and wrapped his hands around mine. “He didn’t fire,” Wes said after another moment. “Everyone’s fine.”
I exhaled.
The cold leather of the seats seeped into the back of my thighs. Wes reached over and switched on the seat warmers. “Better?”
“Yes, thanks,” I said.
Silence fell and I realized Wes was reading me. “There’s a lot to catch up on,” I warned. “Not all of it is pleasant.”
“None of it is pleasant,” he said, voice grim. His left hand tightened where it gripped the steering wheel.
“What happened to you?” I asked, my voice breaking on the last word. It was as if weeks’ worth of worry had been bottled and the container poured over my head in this moment. I couldn’t contain a single drop of my panic any longer. Tears brimmed along the edges of my lids, but I didn’t care if they fell. Not when Wes stared back at me through them, so completely and beautifully in one piece.
“We can talk about it later,” Wes said gently, glancing over. He lifted his hand to swipe away a tear, but I shook my head and grabbed his hand, wrapping both of mine around it.
“No. I want to talk about it now. You get to know everything you want just from pulling it all from my head. I need to know what happened to you too,” I said.
His chest rose and fell with a heavy sigh and I knew he was weighing how much it would upset me. “It’ll upset me more if you don’t tell me,” I said quietly. His smile was soft and slick, disappearing even before I fully saw it.
“All right,” he said finally.
“You were arrested,” I said. It wasn’t a question, but he nodded.
“They took me into custody that night. Dumped me in a community cell and didn’t come back for almost twenty hours. I think they thought I was drunk.”
“Because of the way you acted from the Unbinilium,” I guessed, remembering the way he’d swayed and become so out of it.
“When they finally brought me in for questioning, it was obviously only a formality. They had photos, doctored surveillance footage, everything needed to put me away and throw away the key for killing that girl, Mal,” he said. Hot fury lit his irises. His hand tightened on the wheel again.
“I’m sorry. She didn’t deserve that ... Neither did you.” Mal had tried warning us of Steppe’s intentions to bring down The Cause—and everyone in it. Her only crime had been speak
ing the truth. And Steppe had killed her and framed Wes.
I took a mental stab at Steppe but Wes called me back. “I know what you’re thinking. Leave him alone,” he said. “Soon, we’ll be there and everyone will descend, wanting to know what happened to you. Until then, I want you and me in this car. No one else.”
He was right, but it wasn’t easy putting aside my anger and refocusing. “How did you get away?” I asked to distract myself from all the things I wanted done to Steppe the moment we were able to undo this mental connection.
“I waited it out for a few days, hoping Edie or someone would figure out another way but ...” He hesitated. “Steppe used civilian police because he knew it would be harder for anyone to help me. And he knew ... If I used my gifts, anything supernatural, well, that’s another strike against me in our world. Using my gifts on humans is against the law.” He shot me a glance and then added, “I didn’t hurt anyone. I removed their memory of the crime so that they’d have to let me go.”
“Why is that so bad?” I asked. “You didn’t deserve to be framed in the first place.”
“Because, Tara. If the crime doesn’t exist then the guilty party can never be brought to justice.”
“Oh.” I stared out the windshield at the winding road, watching as it was eaten up by our tires. I’d forgotten how quiet this car was, how smooth. I glanced at the dashboard and saw that we were going much faster than it felt. “You did the right thing,” I said. “I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here.”
“I would’ve lost my mind being trapped in a cell while you were ... I had no idea where you were or if you alive and it was killing me.” The raw pain in his expression was enough to make my chest ache. “I looked for you every day from the moment I walked out of that station.”
“You rented an apartment in the city,” I said.
He glanced sideways at me, a strange look on his face. “How do you know that?”
“I ... Victoria told me,” I said, my brows wrinkling. “Why?”
“Nothing,” he muttered, his attention snapping back to the road.
I caught a faint blush creeping into his cheeks before the GPS on the dashboard beeped. “Take this right,” I said, pointing.
We slowed and made the turn, and I watched as the others followed, falling in behind us again. “I can’t believe we found each other,” I said quietly, relief and desperation melting into an adrenaline rush that left me dizzy.
Wes squeezed my hand. “It’s all right now,” he said quietly. “We’re together. And we’re safe.”
I smiled over at him, but even with my mouth tipped up, the expression felt sad on my face. “I was so worried you wouldn’t find me,” I said.
He squeezed my hand. “I’ll always find you, Tara. Always.”
My smile tipped up a little higher at the edges and I squeezed back, warm fuzzies settling in the depths of my fear-stained gut. I had no idea how we were going to figure things out, but I knew we’d find a way. We’d found each other. We were together. We were safe. And, right now, that was all that mattered.
Chapter Eleven
“Tara? Time to wake up.”
“Hmm?” I muttered, disoriented as I woke. I blinked, the shadowy interior of the car jarring me until everything came flooding back: the rest stop, Derek and the others, Wes tracking us down. I looked over and he gave me a small smile of reassurance.
“We’re close. Maybe twenty minutes,” he said.
I stirred, sitting higher in my seat and wiping the corner of my mouth with my sweatshirt. Outside, the friendly glow of street lights lined the four-lane road. An elementary school, deserted and shiny with its bright white trim, sprawled opposite a public park.
“Suburbia,” I said, adjusting myself in my chair. “Feels weird.”
“The whole world feels pretty weird these days,” Wes said.
Guitar strains leaked softly from the radio and the warmth seeped in from all directions. Wes reached over and flicked the seat warmer off. I glanced up at the low-hanging moon and my mouth curved. “Thanks,” I said.
“For you, anything,” he returned with an almost-smile of his own.
“Did you get anything interesting while I was asleep?” I asked, pointing to my temple.
“Tara ...” And just like that, the lightness vanished and the fading horror returned. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered and the tears that filled his eyes shocked me.
“For what?” I asked.
“I should’ve found you. I should’ve known. Your mother and Edie, they went to that building several times but they didn’t know ... Laws be damned, I should’ve gone there myself.”
I laid my hand on his. “You couldn’t have known. Steppe made sure of it. None of this is your fault.”
“I saw your ... confinement. In your memories. You were so alone.” His jaw tightened. “And I saw all of the blood draws, the sedatives, the mind games. He’s going to pay.”
“That was nothing compared to—” I stopped but he looked over at me, full of understanding.
“Not knowing if you were all right,” he finished. “That was the hardest for me too.” He hesitated, but I stayed silent, knowing that for every detail he’d already shared, there was so much more he hadn’t told me. When he spoke again, the words were slow and soft and I knew he was reliving it all as he called it up. “I knew he wouldn’t take you far. I don’t know how but I just knew. Ego, maybe. Anyway, I was sure it was DC or somewhere near it, so I rented that place. Besides that, Frederick Falls wasn’t safe anymore.” He shot me a worried glance but I let it pass. I wanted to hear this more. “Coming home to an empty house. Searching for you every day. Not knowing where to look. Every lead a dead end. That was far worse than any physical pain.”
He glanced over and the emotion reflected back at me was more intense than anything he’d shared yet. Raw and broken and desperate—and I knew it was a glimpse of everything he’d felt during our weeks apart. “Steppe knew I was looking. I realize now he used Victoria to track me and have me followed, watched. He sent men one night when I’d had a few too many. Drowning out the reality ... Anyway, I didn’t see it coming. One of them slipped me something so I couldn’t shift and they took me home, tied me up. They told me if I kept looking for you, they’d kill you.”
“What was it?” I asked, leaning toward him. “What did they give you?”
“No idea,” he said and then added, “But it wore off in time. We’ll figure out how to get your wolf back.”
I sighed, still frustrated over that one. At least Wes could read my frustration, share in it. “Victoria said you weren’t the only one,” I said. “He followed everyone. Had everyone watched.”
He nodded. “Your mom and your grandma. Jack and Fee. Derek. All of us. He threatened to hurt you if we kept searching. Edie wouldn’t stop, though. She hired people to do it instead.” His pained expressed lightened, took on one of awe. “That woman is far more resourceful than any of us know.”
“So, they’re all scattered because they’re running from Steppe’s people?” I asked.
“Not people,” he said grimly and I remembered the mangy wolves doubling as guards. “But it’s not just them. The Werewolf packs, a lot of them our old allies, they’re angry. They blame us. Me and Jack, mostly. They started coming after us. And Fee ... well, you know how she worries over him since he was shot. They decided to disappear for a while.”
I did know. All too well. And more than knowing it, I felt responsible for it. “And The Cause? Are you still in charge?”
“Nothing left to be in charge of,” he said with a sad snort. “The allies are finished with us. They all want blood. Retribution for what they see as our betrayal. They want Steppe and until they get to him, they want us.”
“I know about the videos Steppe released. They make me look like the villain instead of him,” I said. “How do we stop them from coming after us? How do we show them it’s not our fault, it’s his?”
“They won’t stop
unless we can get Steppe out of power and change things back. Maybe not even then. They’re scared and angry, not a good combination.”
His voice was hoarse by the end and we both fell silent. My fingertips grew cold as I pictured the reality of what he was saying. Werewolves everywhere out for blood—our blood. Steppe sending those men to Wes’s place. Being forced to give up. To let it go and just move on. Is this what Steppe meant when he’d tried to make me believe Wes had moved on? Because Steppe had forced him to give up the search?
An image rose, unbidden in my mind, of Wes bloodied and battered on a hardwood floor I didn’t recognize. Steppe’s twisted tone coated it and I knew it was sent by him, a nastygram to remind me exactly how much it had taken for Wes to be convinced to stop searching for me. Wes growled and glared at me—or through me. His furious gaze all but burned a hole in the center of my forehead.
“Leave her alone,” Wes yelled.
Steppe skittered away.
Hot anger rose in me and spilled over into whatever corner Steppe had slipped into. I shoved at him until I was sure he was no longer eavesdropping. It felt unfair to Wes, to the vulnerability he wore like an open book as he looked back at me.
“He won’t get away with this,” I promised Wes.
Wes hung his head, shaking it slowly. “He already has,” he said.
I opened my mouth to argue, but he beat me to it. “His bond with you assures his safety. No one’s going to hurt him or let anything happen to him as long as it means you’ll feel it too. Especially me. In fact, I’m suddenly his biggest protector.” His laugh was sharp and humorless. “He probably wanted this all along.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, the idea a sharp sting of possibility. One I’d failed to see before now. Alex’s words rang in my ears, but I dismissed it before Wes could read it in my thoughts. Alex was the last person I wanted clogging up the shared emotional head space in this car. “You think Steppe wanted me to escape? To bring him with us?”
Broken Blood Page 11
