Embrace the Night

by Crystal Jordan

  He looked to Alex again. “Do I want to know where the car came from?”

  “Stole it,” he replied, more cheerful than Merek had ever heard him. “I reprogrammed the onboard computer and scrambled some records so the owner will have a bitch of a time proving the car even belonged to him in order to report it stolen. We switched out the plates of six cars in a mall parking lot of similar makes and models, then drove over to a parking garage at Portland State University and did the same.”

  Smart. It would take them a while to sort that mess out. Merek wasn’t going to say it out loud. “You want to tell me what all this is for? Where are we, and where exactly are we going in this stolen vehicle?”

  He could feel the tension ratchet up in the small car, saw Alex glance in the rearview mirror to meet Chloe’s eyes. The teen swallowed. “Yeah. There’s a story for that.”

  “So.” Chloe took a deep breath. “Here’s what we figured. We can’t use the IDs or credit cards Millie gave us, and if those are blown, then any of the properties she owns are out as well. We haven’t been using them, but not using them has seriously depleted our cash fund. And now we can’t use them because we don’t know which are covered by Smith’s men and which aren’t.”

  Alex took up the thread of the explanation as he slowed the vehicle to make a turn onto a narrow two-lane road. “We need somewhere safe, somewhere I can Change, somewhere away from Magickals, somewhere not related to anyone we know.”

  “ And . . .” Back to Chloe, and Merek was already sure he wasn’t going to like where this was going any more than he liked riding in a stolen car. These two were too damn smart. “We are running low on cash, but contacting Millie for more would be a bad plan, since they probably know she helped us with the IDs.”

  He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Cut to the chase. Where have we gone?”

  “You’re going to be pissed.” The glance Alex gave him was worried, and that in itself worried Merek.

  “We stopped and picked up groceries after we . . . after we got off the ferry from . . . Seattle,” Chloe whispered the last word, as though that would somehow dampen the effect.

  He jerked around in his seat to stare at her. “No.”

  “Yes.” The stubbornly mutinous look was so familiar he wanted to shake her. He usually found it endearing, but he was usually in control of the situation. “It’s already done anyway. We’re here.”

  He snarled. “You know how far werewolf senses can stretch!”

  Rearing back against the seat, she held up a placating hand. “Well, we just passed through Seattle. We didn’t stop. We’re on Bainbridge Island.”

  As if that would reassure him. “You have to be kidding me.”

  “Tess’s aunt and uncle have a house here.” Her fingers linked together in her lap, and she began reciting calm, scientific facts as though reading a checklist. “They’re on sabbatical in Rome, and I know the security code to their place. They have no connection to me; I’ve only been here once with Tess, when the system was installed, and I never even met them. More important, no Magickal is going to expect another Magickal to be there.”

  He clenched his jaw, looking for a way around her facts. “I don’t like it.”

  “Do you have a better idea for where Alex can Change?” Her hands lifted and fell back to her lap in a helpless gesture. “We have no ID to rent a car or house or campsite and not enough cash to convince anyone to look the other way.”

  Of course he didn’t have a better plan. Damn it. “This is a bad idea.”

  “We’re already here. If anyone was going to sense us, it’s a done deal. We can take a ferry back, if you want, but we might as well stay until the full moon is over. It’s just for a few days, and it’ll buy us the time we need to figure out what to do next. We know it’s not ideal, but we don’t have that kind of option on the table, do we?” Alex spoke for the first time in several minutes.

  “No, we don’t.” Chloe reached over and patted the boy on the shoulder. “I think this is the best plan we can get in the limited time we have until full moon.”

  Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Merek rounded on the kid. “Can you control yourself surrounded by that many Normals?”

  “Yes.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, but the obstinate set of his jaw said he was serious.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. I can.” He nodded for emphasis, taking his eyes off the road for a split second to glance back at Chloe, the person who’d believed in him first, who had trusted him and reassured him when he’d had a silver bullet punched through his gut. Then he met Merek’s gaze, his green eyes clear and certain. “I won’t hurt anyone. I can control it.”

  “Shit.” Merek slumped, his face dropping into his hand for a moment. He rubbed his fingers against his eyes.

  “It’s going to be okay.” Chloe patted his shoulder, and it pissed him off more that he liked her touch, craved it.

  “This is a bad—”

  “Do you have a better one?” Her fingers tightened on his shoulder, a reassuring squeeze, an apology. He shrugged out of her grip.

  “I would have said so if I did.” He sighed and dropped his hand.

  “I know.”

  The last place he wanted them to be was Seattle, but the damnable truth was he didn’t have a better idea of where to go to keep Alex safe for the full moon. Chloe was right about all of it, and their future was as foggy to Merek as it always had been. This could be the perfect plan, or it could be utter disaster. All he could do now was mitigate any damage.

  He jerked the cell phone out of his pocket and flipped it open. He placed a secure call to Millie, got her voice mail and left her a message, then he tried Luca. Same thing. He tried to rein in a growl. “Cavalli, this is Kingston. We’re on Bainbridge Island for the full moon. Don’t send anyone over to check on us because I don’t want undue attention. I’ll call again if anything goes down, so be prepared to send in the cavalry.”

  Closing the phone, he watched a barn-like two-story house come into view. Another wave of icy, impotent fury ripped through him. He just hoped this wasn’t the mistake that got them killed. Or captured. With Smith’s track record, Merek wasn’t sure which one would be the better option. Probably death.

  “Fuck.”

  “Fuck.”

  Chloe slapped her hand against the shingled siding of the Jones’s house and glared at the keypad as if she could will it to do what she wanted.

  “What?” Alex’s quiet voice sounded behind her.

  “The security code isn’t working.” She blew out a frustrated breath, shrugging her shoulders to work out the tension. Hours of sitting cramped in the miniscule backseat while she hovered over a pale, unconscious Merek had done nothing to make this easier. She’d never forget the way her heart had literally stopped when her strong warlock had keeled over. The fact that he was obviously annoyed with the situation didn’t help either. She didn’t even want to consider his reaction when he found out she couldn’t get in the house as she’d claimed she could.

  The wolf nudged her out of the way to scrutinize the panel. “Are you sure it’s the right one?”

  “It’s Tess’s date of birth.” She lifted her hands and let them drop. “So, yes, I’m sure.”

  He rocked back on his heels, sliding his hands in his pockets. His dark brows drew together as he thought, then he gave a definitive nod. “I can get around this.”

  “What are we getting around?” Merek rumbled from the far side of the porch. He mounted the steps, a few grocery bags gripped in his hands. Alex had stayed in the car with the sleeping Merek while Chloe had stocked up with enough supplies to hole up until after full moon.

  If they could get into the house. Chloe’s muscles tightened even further as dread curdled in her belly. She hated this, hated not being on the same side as Merek. Neither of them was backing down, because they both thought they were right. She pulled in a deep breath. “They’ve changed the security code, but Alex says he can get around
it.”

  The teen glanced back at Merek. “I’m going to have to break the no gadget modification rule.”

  He snorted. “You already broke that when you hijacked the car.”

  A flashing grin answered that, and Chloe rolled her eyes. She actually thought her godson might be having the time of his life with this little day trip. Sicko. “Even if you can disable the security system, that won’t get it to unlock the door like Tess made it do. And there will be no magic used here. Nothing to make it obvious Magickals are in residence. No spells.”

  The kid cocked his head, considered the problem, offered: “I can use a little wolf strength on it. One quick push, and we’ll be in.”

  Merek gave a growl worthy of a werewolf, his gaze flinty as it slid over her. Oh, yeah. He was not happy about this little snafu. She couldn’t even blame him. She should have considered that Tess would have her uncle change the code. Probably on a regular basis. Merek slid his wallet out of his back pocket and flipped it open, pulling out a few metal tools. “We can do this with no magic of any kind.”

  Interest flickered in Alex’s eyes, and he arched an eyebrow. “You know how to pick locks? Sweet.”

  “Security system first.” Merek jerked his chin toward the keypad, and Alex’s enthusiasm slid away until he wore his most solemn expression.

  “Right.” The wolf fished his cell phone out of his pocket, then dug some tools out of his backpack. Unfastening the face of the panel, he pulled it out to reveal the maze of wires inside. He hooked his cell phone into the wires, and the screen lit with information Chloe had never seen on a phone before. He got to work, his face set in lines of fierce concentration.

  A few minutes later, the panel beeped, went black, and then flashed back to life. Alex set the keypad back in place and typed in a series of numbers. “Okay, I wiped everything and reset the code to 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0. Lame, but easy to remember.”

  Chloe finished his thought for him. “But having to wipe everything also means the keystrokes to unlock the door aren’t in the program anymore.”

  “Yep, and that would take equipment I don’t have with me.” He shrugged. “What’s a little breaking and entering after grand theft auto?” Pulling her out of the way, he motioned Merek forward. “Your turn.”

  The reminder of all the laws they were bending just made her warlock scowl more ferociously, and she sighed. He had the door opened in under forty-five seconds, which Alex clocked on his wristwatch. Chloe went in to the guest bedroom on the ground floor and put away her belongings. It stung more than she could have imagined when Merek followed Alex up the stairs to claim rooms on the second floor.

  Ophelia padded into Chloe’s room and made herself at home on the bed. Chloe took a moment to pet her, and then went to close all the curtains on the bottom floor, knowing Merek would do the same upstairs. She watched the sunlight fading on the cloudy horizon as she shut the last set of blinds.

  Turning on every light she passed on the way to the kitchen, she went searching for pots and pans to cook dinner. After a minute or two, she heard the males tromp downstairs and out the door to finish unloading the car. Neither of them was speaking, which didn’t bode well for the evening. She wondered how long Merek could hold on to a grudge. Not long, she hoped, but she didn’t know him well enough to be certain.

  They spent the next hour mostly silent, and Alex turned in early, without getting his usual self-defense lesson from Merek. The boy just escaped to his bedroom upstairs for a loud television show. She had an idea that he was hoping to drown out any arguments they might have. That he assumed they’d default to screaming made her heart ache and told her things about Jaya’s home life that she wished she didn’t know.

  Merek left her in the kitchen to do the dishes and stalked into the living room. She heard him rustling around, but couldn’t figure out what he was doing. She went to peek at him, couldn’t see anything, but could still hear him moving. Frowning, she stepped into the room and saw him kneeling near a wall, a pile of night-lights next to him on the floor while he fitted one into a socket.

  Her lips shook when she opened her mouth, and she had to press them together for a moment before she thought she could talk without tearing up. Even pissed off and not speaking to her, he was still taking care of her, plugging in night-lights to save her from the dark.

  “I love you,” she blurted. The words just fell out, shocking the shit out of her. Until they were out there, she hadn’t known she was going to say them.

  His muscles went rigid, his head turning slowly to stare at her in utter, dumbfounded shock. “You can’t.” His eyes went stormy, turbulent with too many emotions for her to decipher. The words that came from his mouth sounded rough and desperate. “We’ve been together under some extreme circumstances—”

  “Save the police psychobabble for someone else, Detective. I’m the one with the medical degree, remember? I know what love is, and I love you.” She spat the words at him, but the fury burned itself out as quickly as it flared. She felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. Again, she needed someone more than they’d ever need her, like she’d needed Millie as a child. But she wouldn’t cling or make demands. She refused to be that person ever again. Not even for him. “You don’t have to feel the same, but don’t try to tell me what I feel.”

  “I won’t.” He rose to his feet, the stunned look still glazing his eyes. His mouth opened, closed, but he just stood there staring at her until she couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Good night, Merek. Sleep well. I’ll see you in the morning.” Turning on her heel, she marched into her room and shut the door behind her.

  She collapsed on the bed and dropped her face into her trembling hands. It hurt. Gods, how it hurt. Tears burned her eyes, but she refused to cry. She had expected this. Even then, it felt like her heart was shredding into tiny pieces, and she was bleeding to death from internal wounds. It was one thing to think she was in love alone, it was another to know it.

  Yet, it was something of a relief. She had said it. It was out there. She didn’t have to hide it or worry that he’d figure it out and feel guilty or obligated. Obviously, he hadn’t felt obligated. He’d tried to talk her out of it. A laugh that was almost a sob bubbled out, and she clamped her hand over her mouth to stop it. Shoving her head between her knees, she sucked in slow, deep breaths until the need to cry—or vomit—passed.

  When she felt like she had a modicum of control back, she sighed and sat up. Pushing herself to her feet made her muscles ache, and she swayed a little. She clenched her jaw and willed her body to do what she wanted. There was nothing to do except put one foot in front of the other and get on with it. Survive. That was her specialty, wasn’t it? A painful smile flicked over her face. She shook herself and went to shower and get ready for bed. She hadn’t slept alone in almost a month, and she didn’t relish the thought of doing so tonight. It wasn’t just the sex. She wanted Merek near, wanted his arms around her in the night, the security of his embrace.

  That wasn’t going to happen.

  Scrabbling for something—anything—else to think about, her mind turned to the issue of the upcoming full moon and Alex’s forced Change. It felt like so much longer than a single month since she’d had to dig a silver bullet out of her godson’s body. Her belly tightened at the thought. She never wanted to live through another night like that for the rest of her life. An ironic grin twisted her lips. There were several nights in her life she’d rather not think about again.

  She stuffed those thoughts away and made herself come up with a new topic, like when this whole situation was over and they could go back to their lives. Alex could be his computer genius self, headed for college soon. Merek could go back to the police department. She could resume her research on lycanthropy. The potion she’d made for herself had worn off weeks ago, so she now remembered her work, but there was nothing she could do about it cut off from her lab the way she was.

  Even if they had the breakthrough she knew they wer
e on the verge of, it would still take years of testing and refining to perfect the treatment. They’d tried everything they could think of to block or regulate hormone release, inhibit magic. Synthetic chemicals, plant extracts, herbs. Everything. Some were more useful than others, but nothing had quite gotten there. The mix they had now was close. Very, very close.

  She sighed in familiar frustration, scrubbing shampoo into her hair as if she could stimulate her brain into thinking up the answer. But nothing new came to her as she rinsed off, or as she hopped out of the shower, or as she finished preparing for bed. A disgusted growl rumbled in her chest. She’d gone over and over this so many times. The only thing she’d ever seen keep a werewolf in human form on full moon was when Alex was shot with a silver bullet.

  “Silver.” She jerked as if she’d been shot herself. Holy shit. That was it. Yes! If they used the current formula they had and added trace amounts of silver, it just might work. She could keep Alex from having to Change. She could save him, just as Jaya had always dreamed. She could increase the life expectancy of an entire Magickal race. Elation bubbled up inside her, and she danced out of the bathroom, twirling in a wobbly pirouette. “Silver, silver, silver.”

  “What about silver?”

  “Gah!” She jolted, reeling back until she bounced off the doorjamb. Clapping her hand against her chest, she tried to slow her rocketing heartbeat as she stared at Merek lounging across her bed. “Gods, you scared me.”

  “Sorry.” Though he didn’t sound remorseful. “What about silver?”

  A huge smile bloomed across her face, and at that moment she didn’t care that she was on his shit list or that he didn’t want her like she wanted him. Years of her work had just clicked into place. This used to be what she lived for—she stomped down on the thought that she’d have to learn to live for it again. “I think that’s it. What’ll refine the formula we were working on. If we add trace amounts of silver, it would stop the Change.”