by Lisa Ladew
Cerise put her hand on his wrist, her face pinched and drawn. Her hot fingers grazed his skin, shooting desire for her all the way down to his core. “Don’t ask any more questions, please. Don’t make me answer those. Just help us. Like you said, we need a friend and you’re all we’ve got.”
Inside his brain, a knot of tension formed, compelling Beckett to do exactly as she asked. It grew and overlapped, and he felt his questions slip away, his memories of why the questions were important muting themselves, almost like he was drunk. He frowned and fought it. He’d felt the exact same thing a minute ago when she’d touched him. It had made him do exactly as she asked. The other times she’d touched him and told him to do something circled into his brain, like a Ferris wheel of memories. She’d touched him and told him to get her out of the handcuffs. Then touched him and asked him not to call his boss. She’d touched him and told him to leave the interim home parking lot and park down the road and not follow her.
Bits and pieces of memories fell into place, where they should have been, instead of where they been placed and cemented over by whatever she was doing to him.
Her hand was still on his wrist. He stared at it, barely able to breathe as the realizations came to him and he twisted his consciousness out of her control. The effort to do it was monumental.
She spoke, utter shame flashing in her eyes. “Forget you asked me anything.”
Beckett’s eyes flew wide and he jerked forward in the seat. She’d told him to forget something before. The first time she’d been in his house, six weeks ago. He remembered it clearly now.
He’d been dreaming. The nightmare again. But it cut off mid-sequence, his brother’s face fading in the dream landscape of his mind, and an erotic drawing slipped through him instead. He woke by degrees, his cock throbbing in a way he’d never felt before or since, and the scent of his mate filling his nose. Mine! shot through his brain, as he opened his eyes and saw the most beautiful female he’d ever set eyes on. The morning sun from the window cradled her, lighting her hair like a halo, her body like an angel.
“You here to kill me, darlin’?” he drawled, the remnants of the nightmare still on him. He could almost bare his throat to an assassin who looked and smelled like she did. If she would just let him touch her first, he might agree to anything.
“Oh no, no,” she said in a sweet velvet voice, curling her hand around his fingers that had ahold of her arm, her face awash in fear. “Go back to sleep. Forget about me, I was never here.”
And he had done exactly as she’d ordered.
Beckett’s cock throbbed mindlessly to life at the sudden realization and her nearness, and something more.
She was his one true mate, and she was just as powerful as the others.
But a thousand times more lost.
Chapter 25
“You stupid overgrown weasel,” Grey snorted, grabbing Zane by the scruff of the neck and throwing him bodily into the back of the mom-van on top of his brother. He got behind the wheel and sped off, ahead of the noise of approaching sirens. He needed to find a deserted pull-off, somewhere that Zane and Bane could shift to heal their battered heads. Both males were groaning, so he had hopes they’d make it out alive. “That redneck kicked your asses. I should fire the both of you.”
Grey grinned instead, caressing the bundle in his pocket. Cerise’s pendant. He should have known better than to send only two males after Beckett.
He would consider this a practice round. He smiled and both his lips split open. Oops. He craned forward to see his reflection in the rearview mirror. Blood trickled down his face, catching in his dark goatee. He swiped a hand over his head, his shoulder length dark hair coming out in clumps. Gonna be bald soon.
The pendant was doing that to him, like a necklace of kryptonite would harm Superman, but still he couldn’t let it go. Since he’d touched it in the field near Beckett’s house, it was all he could think about. It was destroying his body, but strengthening his mind. Colors were more vivid, his thoughts made more sense and encompassed concepts he’d never thought of before, and his entire day seemed more alive and interesting. If the pendant were a drug, he’d be hopelessly addicted.
He swung right onto an exit that his bigger, more competent brain told him would be perfect, then immediately right, and right again, following the road to an empty parking lot in front of some sort of an abandoned factory. He drove behind the dilapidated, steel-colored building, finding a perfect spot to park in, an old loading dock area that covered them on three sides. He looked out the back window, noting nothing but open land to the back of them. No humans could see them.
“Ok, Smokey and Dopey, do your thing,” he said, pressing the button that would pop the back door. The mom-van had everything.
Zane tumbled out first, landing on the ground with a grunt, then shifting, his monstrous bear letting out a bellow of frustration that made his brother jump. They were half-human, half-bearen, although Grey bet they had a bit more bearen somewhere down their line. Three-quarters, maybe. They smelled like it.
Both were essentially ostracized from the bearen community for not wanting to work as firefighters. Bearen were like that. Big, judgmental bastards. All the better for Grey to convince them to work for him. The three of them had a lot of history, and they were loyal, so even though they’d fucked up royally, he wouldn’t be firing them.
He watched Bane gingerly hoist himself out the back of the van, then growl as his body expanded to three times its size, fur sprouting, muzzle lengthening, claws sprouting.
He honestly was surprised Beckett had been able to best the two of them. Even in human form, bearen were dense, thick, stronger than wolven, carrying the mass of their animal in their human muscles. The only explanation was that Beckett had been protecting his mate, or that Cerise had helped him.
He let Zane and Bane snuffle around the loading dock area, his mind in overdrive, a plan forming already. He knew exactly where they were headed. Could get in front of them, meet them there. And then what?
He needed to know what kind of a power Cerise had. Would the pendant tell him? It pulsed in his pocket, a red-black energetic negative. Never. Not on purpose.
Grey watched the bears for a long time, his super-powered mind working, then got out of the van to corral them, grill them about what had happened. There was a good chance that he would be able to control Cerise, no matter what her power was. All he needed to do was get his hands on the little girl. He couldn’t hurt her, but Cerise didn’t know that.
Grey frowned. Maybe he would need to fly out a few of the humans he sometimes worked with. They could hurt the little girl. And Beckett wouldn’t be able to shift with them around, which would be an added bonus. He and Zane and Bane wouldn’t be able to, either, but they would have-Grey stopped midstride. He knew Kaci’s pedigree. A bigger plan bloomed in his mind. If he could pull it off, he could do whatever he wanted to Kaci, with no unfair, internal yoke stopping him. Surely Rhen would approve, if she knew he did it for her.
His plan could work if he were bold and lucky and pulled it off just right. It was risky, but so was opening your eyes in the morning, if you lived right.
Yes. Off to California they would all go.
To invite a demon over for tea and cookies.
Chapter 26
Cerise pressed against Kaci, who was pressed against the door of Beckett’s truck, her eyes glued to the video playing on the phone Beckett had given her.
They were off the highway. Beckett had taken the first possible exit, saying they would take a mix of back roads and Highway 285, in case whoever had attacked them at the rest stop was following them. He kept watching behind them, but so far seemed satisfied no one had kept pace with them.
Beckett dug around behind his seat, pulling out a water bottle he handed to Kaci, then one for her and him, then some bags of snacks. He handed the trail mix to Kaci and kept the beef jerky for himself. Cerise had shaken her head when he’d offered her anything. She was too keyed u
p to eat.
Something was wrong. Pushing him hadn’t worked. She could tell, although she had no idea why he hadn’t called the police anyway. For the first hour they’d driven after fleeing the rest area, he’d been tightly wound, staring out the windshield with his brows drawn tight over his eyes, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. Eventually, he’d calmed, but she had gone in the other direction, trying to figure out what exactly had happened back there. She was missing something vital, she knew it.
His shoulder had stopped oozing blood, although she didn’t like the ragged, bloody, inflamed look of the skin there. Likewise, her head had stopped pounding so bad she could hardly think.
Kaci popped an earbud out of her ear and elbowed her. “Listen,” she said, showing her a video, then trying to shove the earbud in her ear. Cerise did it herself. The music was good, light, fast-paced. She popped the earbud out and handed it back to Kaci.
Kaci flipped her finger across the screen to pull up a picture. “That’s Jon Bellion,” she said, her voice excited. “He’s super young, and so talented. He’s got so many songs.” Her fingers flew over a tiny keyboard she had somehow made appear, faster than Cerise could read. A page appeared and Kaci tapped the screen, then read a few sentences about Jon Bellion out loud to Cerise. Cerise grabbed her elbow. “Kaci, you can read.”
Kaci shrugged. “You taught me.”
Cerise shook her head. “I tried to teach you, but you would never pay attention to me. You always whined and said it was too hard. I thought maybe you needed glasses or something.” She could feel Beckett paying attention to them, gathering up every word like gold from a mine.
Kaci threw her a look. “It sank in. I got it. I just liked TV better and didn’t want to practice. But when you were sick, I practiced then. I read to you sometimes. Over and over again, when I thought you were going to-” Her eyes watered and she looked away. Cerise knew she was going to say, when you were going to die. Cerise had thought she was going to die, too, but she hadn’t.
The image of Kaci sitting by her bed, reading their only fiction book to her, again and again, floored her. Reading had come so hard to her, but apparently not to Kaci.
Trying to take Kaci’s mind off that horrible time in their life, Cerise pointed at a picture on the small screen. A dark haired man with a mischievous smile. “Who’s that?”
“That’s him! Jon Bellion!” Kaci held the phone up and pushed it into Cerise’s face.
“Oh, he’s cute,” Cerise said, pushing the phone back into Kaci’s lap.
A snarling growl ripped through the cab of the truck and Cerise sucked in a breath, whipping her head toward Beckett. His face was twisted in some sort of anger or irritation. The growl had come from him. As she watched, he dropped his lip, covering his canine teeth that suddenly seemed too long, and forcibly smoothed out his expression.
Kaci glanced at him, dismissed him, then shoved the earbud back in her ear and went back to what she had been doing.
Cerise, however, could barely breathe. The cab of the truck had suddenly become too small, the air in it rich and heavy with the clean, evergreen and leather scent of Beckett. She sucked some of it in through her nose, savoring it, her body completely aware of him, less than a foot away from her. He was so big. So strong. So powerful and handsome. Her fingers itched to touch him. To graze his forearm, taste-touch the skin and brown hairs there. Her eyes locked in on his lips and she licked her own. She’d kissed him once. She remembered it well. She imagined kissing him again. Would he part his lips? Touch his tongue to hers? She shivered and her eyes slipped closed. She clenched her hands into fists and shoved them into her lap to keep them from straying toward him. What was going on? She’d never felt anything like this before. Her body throbbed like a bruise, one that felt good, one that needed a touch to soothe it.
She sensed Beckett shifting in the seat next to her and she opened her eyes, trying to ignore the incredibly delicious sensation she felt between her legs. A swollen feeling, like all her blood had rushed there. A first-time sensation for her.
Beckett shifted again, then dropped his hand to the zipper of his jeans and adjusted there before returning his hand to the steering wheel. He lifted his face slightly and took a deep breath in through his nose. Cerise’s cheeks flamed and she was suddenly certain he could smell her! Smell whatever was happening to her.
He glanced at her and their eyes locked, electricity passing through them. A hot liquid filled her chest and everything blurred but his face and the sensations in her body. The truck no longer existed, nor the road outside. Only him.
He pulled his eyes back to the road, breaking the spell, but his right hand left the steering wheel, headed for her lap. Her eyes widened as she stared at it, not knowing what he was going to do. But he only took her left hand and twined his fingers in it, then rubbed his thumb lightly over her thumb. Cerise almost groaned at the sensation, unable to believe how right it felt, and how every lingering stroke shot through her body straight to her core.
Like a flash, she knew. She was turned on. Sexually excited. Something she’d never experienced before, but of course witnessed in several movies. She’d never understood the shuttered glances, the gasping and panting, the seeming inability of the man and woman to do anything but come together in plaintive kisses and desperate touches.
Now she did. She understood it all. Her breasts were heavy and achy, her nipples hardening like they were screaming for Beckett’s touch. She imagined him palming her there, his touch hard and gentle and insistent. She bit her lower lip, wondering if a touch could be both hard and gentle at the same time.
Between her legs throbbed and she shifted, trying to ease it, instead almost groaning as her clothes rubbed against skin that had suddenly become too sensitive.
She curled her fingers around Beckett’s, meeting his probing thumb with her own, wanting to stroke him back, even in this tiny way. There was nothing more available to them.
His eyes met hers again, sending another current of awareness through her. A grin curled his mouth and she bit her lip harder, trying to yank back the current of desire that whipped through her, caring about nothing but what it wanted. She couldn’t smile, could only stare and try not to moan, alerting the innocent girl next to her that some new twist had entered the relationship between Beckett and Cerise.
Even the attack seemed unimportant at that moment, her mind and body unable to be worried and excited at the same time.
She stared out at the road ahead, not able to imagine how she could make it through the day like this.
***
Beckett untwined his finger’s from Cerise’s and downshifted, glad his right arm was still obeying him. He bore right on a lonely exit that would lead them to a field that looked perfect for what he had in mind. He needed to stretch his legs, and he thought it was time for some answers.
He glanced at Cerise, who had stared out the window for hours after their moment, stiff and unyielding, her eyes wide, a look of nervous tension on her face. She hadn’t been able to sustain it forever, though, and had relaxed fifty or sixty miles later, leaning against Kaci and falling asleep. She looked young, fresh, innocent with her eyes closed, her bowed lips parted slightly, the worry stripped from her by sleep.
He laughed to himself. He’d been worried his uncontrollable snarl when she’d pronounced an unknown male cute would scare her, make her look at him with fear in her eyes again. But her scent had said she’d liked it. More than liked it. The sweet licorice smell of her had flared, heavy and candied in the small cab, almost dripping from the ceiling, driving him crazy with barely controllable lust to touch her, explore her, know her.
And now he’d discovered she felt the same way about him.
He glanced up at the ceiling of the truck and the sky beyond, giving thanks for such a gorgeous, sweet, shy female, wondering why he’d ever wanted anything different, had ever thought he wanted to be forever paired to a female like the raucous and rowdy ones he always met at the ba
r.
Anticipation filled him. Eagerness to get his female home and safe, to learn her and teach her, an inch at a time, savoring every touch and sigh between them. His cock, which had softened after her scent had finally waned and her fingers had stopped probing his, sprang to life again, thick and rod-like behind his zipper.
He swore at its inopportune and dimwitted readying for something that could not happen. Not now. Not for days, probably. Too much going on, too much at stake, to try to bed her out here. Beckett frowned, realizing he hadn’t even considered Khain. Were they in danger from him? That was why Crew and Graeme had both moved onto Trevor’s property, huddling together to keep their mates safe.
No, he decided. Khain didn’t have any ability to find the one true mates out of thin air. He couldn’t hone in on them wherever they were, or he’d have found Cerise already.
The exit dumped them out onto a country road. Beckett drove fast, swinging his head left and right, watching for tails, and the perfect place for what he had in mind.
No tails, flat fields stretching for miles. Perfect.
Chapter 27
Cerise woke up all at once as the truck bounced unsteadily, throwing her head to the side. She straightened in her seat. “Why are we driving into a field?” She whipped her head around. “Are we being chased?” Kaci popped her earbuds out and looked at Beckett nervously.
“No, we’re not. I need to stretch my legs. I thought we could take a break here and I’ve got something I want to show li’l bit.”
He drove on, the truck’s big wheels chewing up dirt and old snow and the occasional dried cornstalk that stuck up from the ground at odd angles. The sun was close to dropping behind the horizon, and she wondered how warm it would be outside, grateful for the jackets Beckett had bought them.
