Chapter Fourteen
Addie
My Uber driver appears to be on a mission to ensure I throw up in the backseat of his car. Why else would he break with a heavy foot and whip around every single curve? Thankfully, though, the ride is short, and I survive. He pulls up to my door, and it’s blessed relief to know I will soon be alone, next to my very own toilet that is sparkling clean. Better yet, a trash bag in hand as I go fetal in my bed will serve me much better.
Whatever the case, I don’t regret the ride.
I’d climbed into my little beetle and had a flashback of a few deadly military operations I’ve been privy to where assassination happened by vehicle. Better a rough ride than risking my last drive.
Once I’ve exited the Uber and my bags are in tow, I nervously head toward my door, with a sudden realization that going inside might not be smart—the second place that people got killed was in their homes. Where is Creed, damn it? Insecurity washes over me. My first fear is that he’s deserted me again, and that is doused immediately by worry. He was hurt last night. They tried to kill him. What if they went after him again?
Why haven’t I just tried to call him on that phone he gave me? I step into the covered enclosure in front of my door and start digging for it. About the time I find it, the door opens, and I’m pulled inside.
The mark on my neck is tingling, the scent of Creed insinuating into my nostrils even as he grabs my bags, deposits them inside, and shuts and locks the door. And then he’s leaning against the wall and folding me against his hard body, his powerful thighs molded to mine, branding me. He slides his hands up my back.
“Creed,” I whisper, relief vibrating through me, my hand pressing to his face. His hair is pulled back, his eyes a brilliant sky blue. “I was worried about you.”
“I’m the one who doesn’t die, remember?”
“You might be hard to kill,” I scold, “but you are not immortal, and you need to remember that.”
He laughs low and rough, and oh, so Creed. “Yes, honey.”
“Don’t mock me,” I bristle.
“I’m not,” he promises softly and roughly.
“Did you know ,” he replies tightly, “that once a female has had sex with a GTECH, there is a psychic residue that can be tracked? Unless that female is lifebonded or underground, a skilled GTECH Tracker with the right motivation can find you anywhere. Even Germany.”
Shock rolls through me. I’d never been safe. Julian’s Trackers could have found me. “You knew I was in Germany?”
“I’ve always known where you were. And I knew you were far enough away to stay out of sight, out of mind—off Julian’s radar. I was furious when your father lured you back to the States, back onto Julian’s radar.”
A knot forms in my throat. “I…you knew I was there, but you never once came to see me.” In this moment, I realize quite painfully that I used my time in Germany as his excuse for why he hadn’t contacted me. He couldn’t find me. He couldn’t come to me. But he’d found me all right.
His hands slide into my hair. “I came to see you,” he confesses softly. “I had to stay far enough away to not waken your mark. You just never knew I was there. You were safer that way. And I’ve kicked myself a million times for not intervening when you were returning home. I should have made you stay there. But I also knew any contact with me put you at risk—and not just from Julian, Addie. I knew if I touched you again, there was no way I would ever let you go.”
I suck in a breath at his confession. He’s touching me now.
His hand slides up my back, splaying wide between my shoulder blades and molding me closer. “Do you know how damn worried I was about you when you were on that plane?”
“No,” I say, accusation in my voice, leaning back to search his face. “No, I don’t. I don’t know anything about what you feel, Creed. Because you never tell me.”
“Well, I’m telling you now,” he says hoarsely. “I was going insane, coming out of my own skin. Barely able to stop myself from yanking you out of that airport and back into my arms.” His mouth closes down over mine, hot, passionate, and fiery, like a man starving. I cling to him, desperate for the strength in him and the safety of his strong arms. He is what I need, and I can feel that same need in him for me. He needs me. He has always needed me. He’s always known where I was, always guarded me.
But never with me.
I hate this thought. I hate the way it interrupts all that feels right and good, and I tear my mouth from his, still clinging to him, unable to make myself let go. “What happened to not touching me, to being afraid we’ll lifebond without a blood exchange?”
“The knowledge that in one instant you could be taken from me forever.” Emotion cuts deep in his tone.
It’s what I want to hear from him, so why is there an empty, gnawing feeling inside me? Confused, so confused. My hands settle on the hard wall of his chest, self-preservation kicking in. “But you’re going to leave me again?” Then stronger. “No.” I shake my head. “No, don’t answer. I don’t want to know the answer.”
“Addie,” he breathes heavily. “I want you. I want you so damn much. But there are things about me you don’t know.”
Those words are blades cutting right to my soul. “So, you’ll just leave me again so I never find out?”
“Things…I don’t want you to know.”
“I can’t do this, Creed. I can’t. So, I’m to be dumped in Sunrise City, and you just leave again?”
“This isn’t the time for this conversation. Julian doesn’t even need a Tracker to find you here. We need to leave.”
“Are you not even going to ask if I got the hard drive?”
“I know you got the hard drive. You did good, baby.”
The endearment is another blade, this one stabbing me in the heart. It’s all fake. It’s all temporary. And truly, I’m so angry, I’m about to explode. I want to shout at him to stop playing tug of war with my emotions.
I’m about to say as much when a sudden rush of nausea seems to merge with my emotions in a punishing collision, and my knees wobble with the impact.
Instantly, Creed is there, his arm wrapping around my waist. “Addie.” He scoops me up, carries me to my oversized, comfy blue couch, and lays me down. He’s on a knee beside me, studying me, his attention probing. “The lifebond illness.”
“Don’t read into it. I’ve been sick, but sometimes sick is just sick.”
The look on his face is shaken, and he pulls me close, pressing his forehead to mine. “Addie—”
My hand presses to his face. “It’s not that. I’m stressed and exhausted.”
“I never meant to hurt you, Addie.”
He never meant to hurt me. He thinks bonding to me is hurting me. I keep forgetting his distance is about self-hate, not me. And that’s kind of selfish of me. “You’re not hurting me, Creed.” I ease back to meet his stare. “You save me over and over. You know that, right?”
“I think it’s the opposite.”
“Maybe we save each other,” I suggest, trailing my fingers over his lips. I love his lips. Love kissing him. So, I do. I press my lips to his and then ease back and slide the hard drive from my pocket.
He arches a brow, and I smile. “I knew if he tried to get it from my person, you’d kill him. I was kind of hoping he’d try. Care to do the honors while I pack?”
He accepts the hard drive from me. “Pack light. We’ll be traveling by motorcycle through Sunrise Canyon. You’ll be able to get anything you need there.”
Fifteen minutes later, with a small bag packed, I’ve changed into jeans and sneakers and returned to the living room to find Creed sitting on my couch with my laptop open. “Any luck?”
“Encrypted,” he says with frustration, shutting the lid on the computer. “We need Jensen’s hacking skills. He’s meeting us on our way out of town to pick up the drive. He’ll have it decoded by the time we get to Sunrise City.”
A moment of trepidation flutters through me at the lack of control that offers me. I know Julian is after Red Dart. I know the Renegades doubt my father, but they won’t be once I prove he was not against them. That hard drive might be the answer to doing that.
Either way, he’s right. We need Jensen. The sooner that data is decoded, the sooner we can all work together.