by Godiva Glenn
He still had to get into the hotel, but he’d get to that when he got there. If things went the way he hoped, he’d be able to get a trace of Sky and find her again. If not, he supposed their story was over. Reluctant though he may have been at moments, he wasn’t ready for their story to be over.
* * * *
The air felt damp and cold by the time Kalle made it to the hotel’s parking lot. He’d had to circle around and now understood what people in movies meant when they complained about the interstate and traffic. The roads here were insane.
He leaned against a light post and scanned the building, trying to figure out where their room had been, while also pondering if he could scale the balconies somehow. He could jump damn high.
A flicker of light caught the corner of his eye and he turned. A maroon SUV flashed its lights, and once the brightness faded, he recognized Sky in the driver’s seat.
He swore and his brain readied a lecture because he’d told her to run but his heart and wolf bounded with excitement he didn’t recognize. Or rather, that he recognized but was afraid to acknowledge. He could have doubts when she wasn’t around, but the second he saw her he couldn’t see her as anything but his mate.
Not just because she was gorgeous and tough and held the traits he wanted in a lupine female, and not because sex with her had profoundly blown his mind. Somehow, he’d come to love her.
He opened the passenger door and slid in. “What are you doing here? I told you to run.”
“Run where?” She looked him over. “And why? I wake up alone and get a weird call that for all I know is a trap.”
“You’re being tracked.”
“Doubtful. I told you I already ditched the phones and this laptop isn’t tracked because Dr. Gregor is too paranoid to allow such a thing. What happened, exactly?”
“Dr. Gregor happened.” Kalle grabbed her elbow and lifted it. “And the tracker is in here.”
Sky’s mouth fell open. “In me?” She stared at her arm. “Are you fucking serious?”
“We can remove it—”
“Damn right we will!” She flew out of the front seat, scrambling into the back.
Kalle watched her, or rather, watched her ass wiggling side to side as she messed with something out of sight. After a few second, she turned and opened a small bag.
“Emergency med kit, complete with scalpel and sutures. Compliments of the doctor himself.” She sighed. “I grabbed this expecting less dire circumstances, you know. There’s also a ton of bandages in here.”
Kalle nodded slowly, impressed by her determination but not as enthusiastic about what she was suggesting. “I’m not a surgeon. I can’t cut you.”
“This knife is cleaner than your claws, and you seem to like cutting with those,” she said pointedly while she climbed back into the front seat.
“Different, and you know it. He said it’s behind your right arm above the elbow. That’s a small patch of skin unless we’re looking for something microscopic. I’m not digging around in there!”
Sky lowered her arm and stared into Kalle’s eyes. “Wait. If you were taken, how are you back?”
“I escaped.”
“And…” Her eyes drifted and her fingertips swept his shoulder. “This isn’t your blood. What happened? Is he…”
“It’s complicated but I—” Kalle ran a hand through his hair and shut his eyes. “I was going to leave him alone. I promise.”
“But he gave you no choice?” Her voice was empty.
Shaking his head, Kalle glanced down at himself, looking anywhere but at her. “Did you know Roman was out hunting another lupine?”
“Yeah. I’d heard.”
“Well, I guess things went South because that lupine ended up dead.” Kalle stared forward. “The lupine had a mate and she tracked him down while Roman was with me and the doc. She killed him.”
Sky slumped beside him. “Just like that?”
“I tried to stop her. I did, I swear. I tried to reason with her, but her pack was coming and if I had stayed any longer, they would’ve killed me too. I couldn’t save the doctor.” He slid his gaze towards her, but she stared forward. “I know he was like a dad to you.”
She scoffed. A tear ran down her cheek and she swiped it away angrily. “No. I always felt more like an annoying pet. A nuisance. But he was always around. Roman too, that ass.”
“Like a brother?”
Her brow wrinkled. “No. I mean, I guess when we were younger. But as we got older, we tried dating, and that fell through and… damnit.” She buried her face in her hands. “I shouldn’t cry for them. They used me. They lied to me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why does it hurt?” she asked, voice muffled and thick with emotion.
He leaned over and kissed her temple, cradling her face even as she hid it behind her hands. “There’s a lot to talk about, but we need to move. You still have that tracker and I’m not cutting into you while we sit in a car, okay?”
She looked up at him with red eyes. “They haven’t come in all this time. If Dr. Gregor could find me, where are they?”
“I assume he gave orders to leave you alone while he dealt with me. He used them tracking you to attempt to get me to comply.”
“Maybe no one else knows about it. I’ve never heard of agents getting trackers.”
Kalle doubted that. “He said you’re special.”
She sniffled and wiped at her eyes. “Yeah. He said that a lot. Almost as much as he spoke of my potential or said I was being a disappointment.” She frowned and fresh tears sprang to his eyes. “I want to know everything that happened. Everything that was said. What was he planning on doing to you?”
Kalle brushed through her wild hair. He was more concerned with what they’d planned on doing to her. What could still happen if she were caught. He was trying his hardest not to focus on the details of it because it infuriated him enough to return back to his earlier idea of revenge. What had she called it? A rampage?
It seemed well earned.
“Can you think of a place we can go where we can try to remove your tracer? Someplace sterile?” he asked.
She looked forward as she thought. “Sterile? No. It’s not like we can borrow a hospital room. Another hotel?”
“I don’t think we should lead them anywhere we want to stay.”
“Then do it here.”
He gave her a flustered look. “You’re crying and we’re in a cramped space and I’m not slicing into you looking for something that I don’t even know what it looks like.”
“If it’s what we tag vamps with, which it likely is, it’s basically a thin, flat strip.” She held her fingers about an inch apart. “This long. It’ll probably be centered, and it won’t be too deep.”
“You tag vampires?”
“To find groups,” she said quietly. “Let’s focus on this, okay? I trust you.”
“That makes one of us.”
She took a deep breath and exhaled it shakily. “On the bright side, I’m already all emotional. What’s a little physical pain?”
FIFTEEN
After Kalle had removed Sky’s tracker, she’d tossed it into a storm drain and they drove until the sun was gone and the crescent moon was high. As they traveled through the bright city, he’d tried to talk to her, but she couldn’t stop tearing up and resolved that she’d be better once they were inside again, safe. Until then, the radio was on low, filling the vehicle with white noise.
Kalle didn’t feel that hotels were the safest place, but he lacked the energy to argue. He’d felt fine most of the day but now, exhausted and on an empty stomach, he felt dizzy. The uneasy sensation reminded him that everything that had been pumped into his system over the last few months was still working through him. Wolfsbane didn’t linger too much, but that was only one component he was aware of. There were more he didn’t know the names of, but he could remember countless injections, and with his memory of the lost three months gradually returning, so came
moments that left him feeling probably as emotional as Sky.
On a scale from one to ten, how he felt was landing at about three. It wasn’t pleasant to suddenly recall things his brain had worked hard to suppress. The pain. The humiliation. Three months at the hands of psychotic bastards.
His eyes scanned the city as they drove. He was officially past his comfort level. His pack was settled beside a town that was the epitome of simple living. People brought their dogs into the general store with them and lingered in the streets to simply chat. There were chickens that roamed free, and traffic stopped for crossing ducks.
Wherever they were now, this was a real human city, complete with tall buildings to block the stars and more cars than he’d ever seen in one setting. Strangely, even as his discomfort grew, so did his curiosity. The neon lights of various places to eat appealed to him most.
“Do we have money for food?” he asked, breaking the silence.
Sky reached out and lowered the radio completely without taking her eyes off the road as if the nearly muted music would interfere with conversation. “Yeah. What would you like?”
“Anything. You should eat too.”
She leaned forward as they came to a red light and glanced around. “I wish I could get you something other than fast food.”
“I’m happy with anything. But please tell me you’ll have more than a smoothie.”
A strange look crossed her face. “I’m hungry enough to eat a horse.”
“What?”
Her lips twitched into a crooked smile. “It’s an expression. I won’t eat a horse.”
“I don’t even know where you’d find one here,” he replied seriously. “Where I’m from, I’m told that sometimes the humans rode their horses to the store. I don’t imagine that happening here.”
“No. You’re a long way from Kansas.”
“I’m not from Kansas.”
She sighed. “It’s a… thing. But then, where are you from?”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“I understand how you feel.” She turned off the main road and pulled them into a line of waiting cars. “Lupine usually live in groups, and you’ve hinted rather steadily that you don’t have one anymore. I guess we’re in the same boat—I mean, situation.”
“Except that you can easily pick up and start a new life here, or anywhere. This world is yours. It’s not for my kind.”
She glanced at him; her eyes still soft with lingering sadness. “Have you changed your mind?”
“About what?”
“Us.”
He took a deep breath. “No. But ‘us’ is a complicated matter. It’s hard to imagine settling down while we’re on the run with a million unknowns floating in the air.”
“Then we take one step at a time.” The car edged forward. “Food, first.”
* * * *
The new hotel wasn’t as fancy as the previous one. There was no mountain view or no spacious interior, and they could hear the larger trucks barreling down the interstate. Still, it was nice to no longer be on the move.
Sky walked back into the room, having just washed her face to remove the dried salty trails of tears. Kalle abandoned the bags of food and pulled her into his arms. Food could wait another minute.
“I’m sorry,” he promised.
She nuzzled against his chest. “Don’t be.” She peered up at him. “Everything inside me is jumbled. I don’t think my emotions are even tied to Roman and Dr. Gregor… it’s more than that. I had to slip back into a life I knew wasn’t me in order to finally escape it. I’m just…”
“Overwhelmed?”
“Extremely.” She ran her hands down his shirt. “Where did this come from?”
“Random stranger on the street.”
Her brows scrunched. “Of course.”
“Talk to me.”
Her fingers toyed with the buttons while emotions ran across her face, too quick to capture and spanning a spectrum. “Every single day I wondered what I would do if I couldn’t get you out. How long could I play along? How long could I pretend? What would I do if I was sent back into the field on a mission?”
“You could have left.”
“I couldn’t leave you.” She pursed her lips and used his shirt to pull him down towards her. She pressed her forehead against his. “But now that we’re out, I honestly have no fucking clue what to do.”
“Food, first.” He hadn’t forgotten the password, and maybe she’d be pissed that he hadn’t mentioned it yet, but she shook against him and he suspected it to be weakness from hunger. “Though that salad isn’t much better than a smoothie.”
She gave him a peck on the cheek then brushed her lips over his. “Don’t lecture me. I don’t live on lettuce and fruit, but I haven’t exactly been prioritizing my meal planning lately.”
“Sure.”
They ate on the bed in mostly silence while Kalle attempted to place the day’s events in an order he could discuss. He didn’t want to keep secrets, but just how much truth did she need in the end?
“Something came out of me being taken earlier,” he said carefully. “I got the password for you.”
Her eyes widened and she put aside the soda she’d been sipping on. “You got it? But how?”
“A convincing threat. A threat I didn’t follow through,” he clarified.
She stood and retrieved the laptop from her bag. Sitting beside him, she opened the lid and looked at him expectantly. He reached into his pocket and dropped the USB drive into her hand.
“I should’ve known,” she muttered. She plugged it into the laptop then went back to her bag to retrieve several notebooks, including the doctor’s encrypted journal. “I’m hoping this will give us some information that will help protect us.”
“How?”
She sat on the bed and pulled the laptop close. “Something you should know about humans. We respond predictably to blackmail. If I threaten to release these files to the authority, along with any identities I know within the Warden’s, they’re likely to leave us alone.”
He shoveled the last of his french fries into his mouth, eyes rolling. “Or you could do that anyhow because they’re a bunch of violent lunatics?”
Her nose scrunched. “Yeah, but while the police and government could tighten the noose around the Warden’s, it would also risk exposing you. Sure, most people will think the Wardens are crazy, but what about the ones who dig in?”
If he participated in exposing the lupine and vampire communities, the target on his back would quickly become a gaping bloody hole. “Yeah, let’s not start a human versus non-human war. But then why use the threat?”
“Because if I did what I said, it would hinder them more than if they simply let us go.”
“But would they believe the threat? If you won’t do it, it won’t work, in my experience.”
“Then whatever you said to get the password, you would have done?” She straightened and her dark eyes drilled into him. “Which was?”
His mind flickered back to earlier in the day. Something about feeding the doctor his son’s intestines. “I don’t remember,” he lied. “But it was probably some form of violence, though not death.”
She arched a brow. “I can’t tell if I should believe you or not. You wanted to kill them both just hours earlier.”
“But I didn’t kill them.”
Her eyes searched his. “I guess I’m just wondering what I can hope for, then. What will keep us safe?”
“We’ve tossed your tracker. That’s a good start. Now we just have to split our efforts. On one side, we focus on how to be safe today. On the other side, what we need to do to be safe tomorrow.”
“Sounds like the same thing.”
If only. “They aren’t the same, because we can’t run forever. That’s not the life I wanted for you.”
“It’s not what I want either. Maybe they’ll give up now, though. We’re pretty far away. There’s no reason for them to chase us down. I’m not the
first agent to leave the organization.”
“But you aren’t just any agent, and you’re on the run with me.” Somehow, we will have to stop them completely, or we’ll never be safe.”
“Stop them? You mean bring down an entire shadow organization?” she scoffed. “That’s not possible.”
“Then we’ll be hiding forever.” He motioned to the laptop, which now showed something other than the usual password screen. “If you think your threat is viable, do it, but you have to realize that someone in the Wardens won’t stop for a threat. They’ll just get pissed and be all that more determined to drag you back into that world. People like that don’t stop at anything. They rise to a challenge.”
Her shoulders slumped.
“But hey, you rise to challenges too. If you didn’t, we wouldn’t be here.”
“That’s different. That was one base, filled with scientists and trainees who couldn’t even shoot straight. Dr. Gregor was supposed to be accompanied by some of the top agents, but something happened, and he came alone. Their lack of presence enabled our escape. Do you see how much luck I needed?”
“Nah. Once I was out of that cell, everyone in my way was out of luck.” Bullets didn’t scare him much. If they’d encountered danger, he would’ve handled it, easy as that. “And we don’t have to bring it all down. We just have to do something to make them think twice.”
A sound of annoyance left her throat. The blue reflection of the monitor glowed in her eyes as she searched the screen and typed away. “Easier said than done.”
“I’ll think of something, then.” He thought back to what the doctor had said about the information she’d find. Did he mean his intentions for her? Or something else? It couldn’t be that obvious.
No one would have a to-do list like that, right? Kidnap male lupine. Steal his spunk. Impregnate the agent you refer to as your daughter with said spunk. Marry off now knocked-up agent to piece-of-shit son.
Kalle had no plans on telling Sky any part of that revelation and prayed it wasn’t on the computer. But if that wasn’t what the doctor was worried about, Kalle suspected it had to do with her silver eyes, unusual endurance, and mysterious strength. How that would hurt her, he wasn’t sure. It would come as a surprise, certainly, but she’d get over it.
