Chapter 6
Chapter Six
D eclan
The trouble with sleeping outside is you wake at dawn. Unfortunately, Fiona woke first and is nowhere to be found. Her scent leads into the cabin, so I expect she wandered off somewhere warmer.
Too bad. My dick is ready for another round.
Only one night.
It’s better that she didn’t stay close. My fangs are sharp, ready to give a mating bite, and my animal is confused. He wants to know why I didn’t mark her while I had a chance.
The cabin door creaks open, and Parker walks out.
He makes a big show of sniffing the air and spots me in the treehouse above. “Someone got lucky last night.”
I scowl at him.
“You're not in a good mood? You got laid.”
“Shout it a little louder. They didn’t hear you on the other side of the mountain.” I rise and shake out the blanket. The fabric holds mine and Fiona’s combined scent, and the blend almost sends me to my knees. I want to fold in two and bury my face in this blanket. I want to run to Fiona, sink my fangs into her neck, and mark her properly as my mate.
Instead, I make myself fold the blanket neatly.
“Relax, man,” Parker says. “I’m congratulating you.”
“For what? We were just blowing off steam.” I climb down the tree trunk and drop to the snowy floor.
Parker meets me. “Don’t you…like her?” He’s lowered his voice, but a shifter could still hear him, if they were listening. I hope they’re not listening.
“Aye, I like her. But what does it matter? She only wanted one night.”
“But you want more? Did you tell her that?”
“No. Why would I? What do I have to offer her? When this is done, we’ll go back to our shabby existence and drink ourselves into a stupor until the vampire king takes pity on us and throws us another job.”
“What about the holiday? You were all excited about getting some Christmas cheer.”
“I was wrong. You were right. No use pretending ta be happy. Just shows ya what ya really are.” I kick a pinecone. “Depressed and alone.”
Parker’s silent. I feel him wanting to contradict me, but how can he? He feels the same way.
I shake myself. My wolfhound is whining, and he’ll lounge around and mope all day if I let him. “Gonna get our car then some breakfast. Then finish this damn mission, so we can go home.”
Parker
By midmorning, we’re all up and gathered around the newly fixed VW bus. The triplet’s brother Axel did a great patch job. Someone even soaked the burlap wrapped rootball, and the tree strapped to the roof looks perkier.
Allison, Laurie and Declan hop in the back, and Bern slides the door shut.
“Are you sure you don’t need backup?” Hutch asks, leaning on the driver’s side. “We’re supposed to take a chemistry test today, but we can escort you instead…”
“You’ve done enough.” I wave a hand to the dash where the gas gauge now reads FULL. “More than enough. Go take your test.”
“Positive? We can phone a friend.” Canyon holds up his phone. “I got a skunk on speed dial, and let me tell ya, he’s been eating beans for days.”
“Very generous,” I say. “But we must decline. I doubt we’ll run into any trouble today.”
“Why would the vampires be after you, anyway?” Bern asks.
“There’s no real reason for them to be hunting us,” Fiona says. “Unless they just want to make trouble.”
“Maybe they don’t want Mr. F to give his mate her gift,” Allison says.
“Do they think she’d leave him over that?” Fiona asks.
“Who knows how a vampire thinks?” I say. “Vampire politics. Just trying to understand it will give you a headache.”
“All right then. If you’re sure you’re fine.” Hutch steps back, and I start the bus. A half an hour later, we’re back on the highway winding up to Taos.
“It’s only another ninety minutes to get to Taos and the rendezvous spot,” Fiona reports.
“How does the Vampire King even know where to send us?” Declan grumbles. He’s been a bundle of joy since he woke up this morning.
“There’s a tracker embedded in the gift,” Allison says. “And when we get closer, I’ll be able to sense it.”
“What is it anyway? This gift?” I wonder aloud.
Allison’s smile makes her whole face glow. “You’ll see.”
“Better be worth it,” Declan says.
“It is to Mr. F.” Fiona says. “And he’s paying.”
“I t-t-think it’s s-sweet,” Laurie says.
“It is. Mr. F would do anything to make his mate happy,” Allison agrees. She leans on Laurie, and he flushes but no feathers fly out, and he looks more at ease than I’ve ever seen him.
We all fall silent, staring out at the pink flanks of the Sandia mountains, the adobe houses, the buffalo murals under the overpasses. The miles pass easily, like golden sand falling in an hourglass. It’s not a bad drive, and whatever Axel did to the bus last night gave it new life. But the closer we get to our destination, the more tense my animal gets. When we enter the canyon, we’ll lose cell service, and it makes me nervous. If there was ever a time for an ambush, it’d be here.
Fiona seems to share my unease. She clutches her weapon close. “Pretty stupid to risk stealing from a vampire king. Are we sure the vampires are behind this?” she asks me quietly.
“I’m not sure of anything. But who else would it be?” The thought makes me jittery. We’ll get to our destination near Taos with plenty of daylight to spare. But can we pick up the package and return before the sun sets and the vampires roam free?
A souped-up hearse, black but jacked up on rims, zooms by.
“What the feck?” Declan points it out.
“That’s a vampire vehicle if I ever saw one,” Fiona snorts.
“Ya sure?”
“Tinted windows to block out the sun.”
“The SUVs last night had tinted windows, too,” Declan retorts. “Those guys were human.”
“Vampires can hire humans,” I say. “And pay for mods. They’re all rich.”
“Yeah, how is that anyway?” Fiona asks. “You don’t see shifters running around with that sort of money. Not unless they’re one of the old pack dynasties or Jackson King. Or the old money packs in New York City.”
I raise my brows. She knows more about other shifters than I’d have thought, given that she’s living secluded in the desert. “Compound interest. Put some money in an investment and wait a few decades. Then move it to a modern investment and do it again. Century over century, even a little bit of interest compounds the original investment into the millions or billions.”
“Huh?” Fiona and Declan say at the same time, but Allison nods. “It’s math,” she says to explain.
“Oh,” Fiona mutters.
I tighten my grip on the wheel. My animal hates talking about vampires.
We’re halfway through the canyon when black SUVs with tinted windows appear behind us, and it’s almost a relief.
I hit the gas, but they gain on us, and with the rocky walls around us, there’s nowhere else to go. To my left, the sun flashes on the river.
We round a corner, and the black hearse is waiting for us with two more black SUVs, barring the road. We’re trapped between it and the SUVs behind us, with nowhere to go.
I jerk the wheel. The tires hit the gravel, and everyone flies a few inches off their seat.
Muttered cursing from Declan, and Laurie’s cradling his head in his hands with Allison comforting him
“Hang on!”
“W-where are we going?” Fiona’s voice rattles out of her as the bus bounces wildly over the rocks. I’m undoing all of Axel’s hard work. Even if we do escape, we might not be able to drive much farther.
And then we reach a summit and an overlook, and that’s it. A few yards ahead of us is the cliff edge against the backdrop of soaring blue sky. No more road—paved or unpaved. Nothing but air.
We’ve got nowhere to run.
In the backseat, Allison and Laurie cling to each other. Both Declan and Fiona have a death grip on the oh shit handle above the door. Everyone’s already braced as best they can.
I glance at Fiona, and she nods, her eyes black with a red sheen.
“Do it.”
Nothing for it. I mash the gas pedal to the floor. The speedometer revs into the red zone. Full speed ahead, we smash through the barrier and sail into the blue.