by Honor James
Even in her sleep she whispered, “And you are mine.” Nestling in even closer to him she breathed easier as soon as she knew that he was there and closer to her. “I love you, Zaidu,” Bethany whispered before she allowed sleep to tug her fully under.
Chapter Fourteen
Sighing, he looked to where his mate sat reading a book. She was looking particularly fine in her silky undergarments and one of his button-down shirts hanging open around her. Pushing back he turned the computer off and waited for the system to signal it was locked before he walked toward her. “I have to fly out tonight,” he told her quietly as he sat at her hip facing her. “I need to go to Texas for backup to another Hunter. We have a couple options,” Zaidu told her softly.
“You can come with and hang out in the truck we’ll have for our use. You can go to the base and stay there. You could stay with one of the others or, if you wanted to, you can stay here on your own,” he told her. The last option was not the one he wanted for her. He’d be too worried about her being there alone with her brother still loose and wreaking havoc around the city.
“If you wouldn’t mind I would really rather come with you,” she whispered. “I promise you that I will stay out of the way and even keep a weapon handy in case someone is brave enough to approach the vehicle that you will have me stashed in. I don’t want to be without you.” She knew how silly that sounded, but there it was, the truth.
“Good,” he murmured quietly to her. Leaning in, he kissed her, cupping her soft cheek in his hand. “I don’t want you to be left behind either. I will need you there just to stay partially sane.” The thought of leaving her behind had driven the Wolf nuts. Zaidu knew it was because they were mates, tied together tightly. He just hadn’t realized how powerful it turned out to be. “We need to leave at six tonight to make the flight. You won’t need to bring much but bring winter gear. They have a storm blowing through right now.”
“Then I need to hit the shops because I don’t have winter clothes, well not that would keep me warm enough,” she offered. “So yeah, as long as you are good with it, love, I’m totally down with shopping and then coming with you. That way”—she moved from where she was sitting and pressed up against him—“you can keep me nice and warm.”
“I do like keeping you warm,” he said, sliding his arm around her waist, his skin gliding over her silky-smooth flesh. He loved when she wore practically nothing, leaving her flesh bare for his gaze or his touch. “We will hit the stores on our way out. We’ll give ourselves added time,” he said softly.
“Sounds good to me.” She couldn’t help but curl in closer to him. It felt as if she had been doing it for her entire life instead of just a few days. “I really rather love the way that you keep me warm, too.” Zaidu was naturally far hotter than a human, and she loved it.
Stroking his hand up and down her back slowly, he tipped his head down to press a kiss to her neck. “You know, if you are always getting chilled, you really should consider wearing more clothes,” he whispered quietly. Not that he’d be happy if she did.
“But I enjoy how you warm me up so very much better than I enjoy the clothes,” she admitted bluntly. “I think you are the best heater in the entire world and I really, really never am giving you up.” Pouting as she looked up at him she added, “Why? Do you not enjoy warming me?” The question was asked even though she knew the answer loud and clear.
Growling he bit her shoulder just hard enough to make her pay attention. “Silly question that you know the answer to, female of mine,” he said. Licking lightly at the faint marks that would vanish in moments, Zaidu nibbled up her neck to her ear. “I could get you a lot warmer except for the fact I have to finish prepping and I need to pack.”
“Damn. True.” She growled at him and looked up at him with a smile. “I happen to really love the way that you warm me, honey. I would really and truly like to be able to get warmer on the plane. Think that Talon will loan you the private plane once again so that we can join the Mile-High Club?”
“We’re taking one of them,” he told her quietly. “It was arranged as soon as the alert was put out.” He brushed his lips to hers lightly. “We can join the Mile-High Club however many times you would like.”
“Oh I love the way that sounds,” she told him with a grin. “I want to join it over and over again, darling. I also very much want to see just how well insulated the pilots’ cabin is to make sure they don’t hear me screaming.”
“It’s supposed to be very well insulated and soundproofed,” he told her quietly. “But that’s merely because they often fly injured Team members into bases. And an injured Changer can be loud and vicious. There’s no exterior handle or even a crack that claws could get into to haul it open.”
“Well, let’s hope that you never have to be flown home injured.” She shivered at the thought of him hurt. “I never want you hurt,” she whispered. “So do everything that you absolutely can to make sure that you never get hurt because I don’t think I could survive it.”
“Other than assholes trying to take me out while I’m on my bike, I try desperately not to ever be injured. It hurts, a lot,” he muttered quietly against her cheek. “And I tend to be overly dramatic, cranky, and a general pain in the ass when I’m hurt. Or so the doctors tell me. Personally I think they are the overly dramatic ones.”
Bethany found herself grinning and she said, “You did growl at me a lot. I understood why you were because you were hurt and all that, honey, but yeah, you growled. A lot. It’s okay of course because I think I kinda understood it but I would rather you not get hurt because I don’t like you being all growly with me.”
“You kept moving, that’s why I was growling,” he told her softly. “But when you stayed still I was very happy and very silent if you recall. Probably the only time that it will ever be that way. I much prefer you wiggling around and active.”
“I happen to really like being wiggly in your arms, darling.” There was a slight purr to her voice as she spoke. “I really, really love being able to have you close, having you loving on me the way that you do and having you touching me and making me move.”
Staring into her eyes when he lifted his head Zaidu kissed her gently. “I like you all wiggly, too,” he smiled slightly. “You can practice all your moves later on the flight. It will be a couple of hours so you’ll have lots of time.”
“Good.” Patting his chest, Bethany turned from him. “Come on, big boy. Your bags aren’t going to pack themselves. Plus we have to go shopping for me for some winter boots and a coat, so come on, honey-bunny. Time is wasting.”
Wincing at the nickname he didn’t say anything as he followed after her. “I did tell you to buy these things when we were shopping you may recall,” he commented when they reached the bedroom. “But you were too busy eyeing up the fancy heels and the pretty coat.”
Stopping Bethany turned to look at him and with a saucy grin simply said, “And you love it when I wear nothing but that pretty coat and those fancy heels. Try to tell me otherwise.” Her Wolf loved her dressing up in nothing but the fancy heels.
“You really should stop using what I say while sporting an erection against me in later conversations. You know I only have enough blood for one organ at a time and it’s not my brain in such situations,” he muttered.
“Yeah, I know.” Bethany’s wink was saucy and happy when she shot it to him. “But you are the one who brought up the coat and heels so I just had to remind you why you love them as much as I do, darling.”
Growling at her he moved closer and caught the tail of the shirt to pull her to a stop. “No more teasing me,” he warned softly, the Wolf agitated. He had a limited patience for teasing. His mate got away with more than any other ever could. But that didn’t mean he’d allow it nonstop.
“Good. I like it when he gets worked up.” She turned and wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him close. “Just keep growling, darling, and remember how agitated you are right now for as soon as we g
et in the air. That’s when I want you to pounce on me, because I will be more than ready for you then, too.”
“Pissing off a Wolf right before you lock him in a small space that he can’t get out of is just not smart,” he said to her. “I have a shorter fuse than most, darling, which you know, so stop messing with me and the Wolf.” He hoped he’d never hurt her like that but honestly, if the Wolf was that agitated and then confined, Zaidu honestly didn’t know what the beast would do. Especially since both he and the Wolf fucking hated to fly.
“I love you, Zaidu, and I know that you love me as well. I just want your mind to be on me and only me when we get onto that flight, honey. That’s what I want more than anything in the world. I know that you typically focus on me and only me but even more that’s what I want because I know you don’t like flying.”
“No, many people don’t like flying. I hate flying,” he said, wrapping his arms around her tightly. Walking her backward slowly toward their bedroom, he let out a breath. “The Wolf hates the confinement and motion. The man hates not having control over my own demise.”
“That’s why I really think that you should only focus on me. If you are only focusing on me, love, then you will hopefully not think about flying as much as I know you will anyway,” she smiled.
“I am always focused on you, Bethany,” Zaidu told her, backing her to the middle of the room. Stopping, he leaned in to kiss her softly. “Get dressed while I start to pack and then you need to grab a few things before we go beef up your winter wear.”
“Sounds good.” She moved to her closet and began to pull on clothes, layering as she did so. She then began to grab a couple of things from her closet that she wanted. Taking them to his suitcase she placed them beside it. “I think I should take an empty case with me as well so that we can just put my new things in the case. Thoughts?”
Nodding, he moved to collect a second case and set it by the door. “Not a bad plan.” So much for one bag. Traveling with a woman always made things interesting. “Grab your toothbrush and whatever other goo you need.” He didn’t ask and he prayed she’d never tell, though the trip to the drug store had been scarily enlightening.
Grabbing all that she needed, Bethany tossed the toiletries into a baggie and then into Zaidu’s bag. “All right, love, I’m as ready to go as I possibly can be at the moment. We should go and get the winter things for me from a place without any distractions like exceptionally hot high heels and sexy-as-hell coats.”
Shutting the case he lifted it off the bed and carried it to the door, grabbing the empty one as he passed. “Can you set the internal heat down five degrees?” he asked over his shoulder just as he passed the control on the wall. Taking the stairs quickly he set the bags by the front door and grabbed his boots. He didn’t worry about weapons. They would be supplied on site by the Hunter there. They all kept a cache of their own personal weapons in all the major cities the Hunters frequented. Only when they had to travel to odd spots did they carry their own gear.
Stopping to turn down the internal heat, Bethany looked around the home and smiled. “It’s going to be good to come back home,” she whispered with a grin. “But I’m going to enjoy being able to be here with you as well, darling. I really and truly think that it’s going to be a great deal of fun to be able to spend time on the road with you.” As long as he didn’t get hurt. That would be bad. Very bad.
“I don’t intend to get hurt,” he said, grabbing his jacket to shrug into. “Getting sideswiped by some drunk hick was not part of the plan.” A drunk hick Zaidu still had to find. He’d remembered more of the accident, or what he believed wasn’t an accident, but Quincy was only able to run the facial recognition on off hours since it wasn’t an active case, so it was taking time to narrow down who it might have been.
Bethany frowned. Stepping up at his side she linked her arm with his after taking the empty case from him and looked up at him. “What was that?” She had only been able to find a glimpse of what he had been thinking and it bugged her. A lot. “Why isn’t it an active case? If someone tried to hurt you, Zaidu, that to me is definitely something that needs to be active.”
“Because everyone else seems to think that it was an accident,” he told her as they walked out to the truck. Tossing everything into the backseat he opened her door for her. “It was the middle of a blizzard, I was on a bike, road conditions were beyond horrible, and they figure he didn’t see me. I saw the look on his face. It wasn’t shock or surprise or even horror at knowing what was going to happen, it was determination. Besides, if it was an accident, why didn’t he stop? Even if he had been drunk I’m betting he would have stopped to assist because of the blizzard. On top of that, I was nearly a hundred feet off the highway. He was moving hard and fast and plowed me off the road. My bike was in tiny pieces, Bethany. That spells intent to me, but until I have something, I can’t get it as an active case.”
“Damn,” she muttered. “Well, then I think that we will just simply have to gain the information that you need and I will do whatever I need to in order to help you,” she told him softly. “So you can tell me what it is that I can do in order to help you, darling.”
“At this moment and time, nothing,” he told her with a sigh. “Right now we have a Rogue to go and find and ensure is stopped. I don’t want anyone else hurt by a Rogue while I’m trying to figure out my own shit.”
“Can you tell me just what a Rogue is? Are Rogues like the ones who had chased me up the tree?” Yeah, she still wasn’t proud of that, but it had been what brought her and Z together so she was all right with it.
Getting behind the wheel, he got them moving. “Those were Rogues, but in actuality, there are three kinds. There are born Rogues, traumatic Rogues, and sadistic Rogues. Born Rogues are those that are born with something out of place, but until they hit puberty, which for most Changers is in the late teens or early twenties, it doesn’t manifest. And then, after puberty, it’s like they go off the rails. Traumatic Rogues are those that suffered some devastation in their lives like the loss of a loved one, their mate, a child, and so forth. Something inside of them snaps, like in humans, and they kill to dull the pain of their own loss. Sadistic Rogues are ones that, like human serial killers, started early with small animals, pets, neighborhood kids, and then, when they got older, continued to hurt others to feel the euphoria of it. For the sadistics, they get off on the high of the kill and are the most dangerous of them all because they have absolutely no morals at all.”
“But there was a whole group of them, Zaidu. They all wanted to tear me apart and kill me and from the way they worked they have done it before, often.” Which scared the hell out of her. What if they decided to come looking for her again as the “one that got away”?
“They were all contained and detained.” Those he hadn’t killed on the spot. “Their leader was a sadistic Rogue and, like any good little cult leader, found those not completely abhorrent to the idea of showing the little humans who was boss. He likely had a great little spiel about how they are the superior race and yet we live in secrecy to ensure the humans never feel threatened and so forth. Gets them all amped up, juices them, and then they find a victim. In that case it was you.” Z looked over at her. “Climbing the tree was a smart move. The Wolf Changer is like wild wolves. Trees aren’t our friends.”
“I just kinda went with my gut,” she admitted to him. “And my gut told me to climb. Funny thing though.” Chewing her lip, it was clear that she was hesitating in telling him what she was about to tell him. “I’ve never climbed a tree in all my life but as soon as the thought hit me it was like instinct. I climbed that tree as if I had been climbing them for years and years, all my life, but I’ve never once climbed one.”
“Fear and adrenaline,” he told her as he did a shoulder check as he sped up to get onto one of the main roads leading to the city. “We all have the same basic knowledge deep inside from the days man first crawled out of the swamp. When we are chased we instinctively
run. When we are threatened we either fight or retreat.” Zaidu glanced over. “You assessed the situation, saw your options, and your primitive brain, no insult intended, told you what to do. I still wish it had been a smaller tree though, for the record.”
She laughed and nodded. “Yeah me, too. Have I mentioned that I’m terrified of heights?” she asked with a grin. “But once I started to climb I didn’t stop until the top swayed. I had to be as far from them as possible and I didn’t care if I had to stay up there until I lost consciousness and fell to my death. There was no way in hell I was going to come down when that idiot tried to make me come down.” She rolled her eyes. “And he was a moron, by the way.”
“I think that may be the nicest thing Gordon’s been called in a very long time,” he told her honestly. “He’s definitely never been the brightest of lads from the background we had on him, but nobody saw him actually snatching someone up coming. We were all a little surprised it was him to be frank. He was always more a follower than a leader.” Zaidu fell silent and frowned in thought. “He’s always been a follower,” he muttered to himself.
She frowned and tilted her head. “There was another man.” She only just remembered that in that moment in time. “He didn’t chase after me. Instead he was the one who was there, in the shadows. It was like he was watching what was happening. I know how weird that sounds but it was like he was sizing Gordon up for a job, if that makes sense.” She had shadowed prospective employees before, knew what it looked like, and that’s how it felt to her now.
“Gordon’s puppet master,” he said, knowing the truth already. “Son of a—” He growled and dug around in the console to find his earpiece. Tucking it into place he activated his phone. “Quincy, I need you to let Talon know that Gordon wasn’t the ringleader. We missed someone at the site. He obviously bailed right before or as soon as he saw me. Slipped right through the damned net.” He paused and listened for a time. “No, he won’t tell you anything, but get one of his lackeys. They’ll sell him out faster than you can say ‘mother.’”
