CHAPTER 8
Islept like shit that night, which is why I was already half awake when Michael snuck into my room at three a.m. He wore dark jeans, a black T-shirt, and a look of determination.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“We need to leave.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t have time to explain. I know I’ve asked so much of you already, but I hope you can trust me in this right now.”
Fear prickled through the bond. What the hell was going on?
I scooted out of the bed. “I trust you.”
“Change into dark clothes and meet me in the living room when you’re ready. And hurry. We don’t have much time.”
I changed in record time and snagged my phone and wallet. For some reason, I didn’t think we’d be back here in time for breakfast.
Michael was waiting by the doors to the balcony when I emerged from my room. “We’re going to jump,” he told me.
He didn’t have to explain why. If we were sneaking out, this was the best way to go. Someone might pick up on us moving through the house, despite the fact that for shifters, they seemed a little hard of hearing.
“Lead the way,” I said.
He strode out into the night, his compact frame moving with lupine grace. Moonlight hit his face at a hard angle, casting it half in shadow. It made him look dangerous. Like someone you would cross the street to get away from. I liked it.
We reached the railing at the same time and vaulted it, landing quietly beside each other on the grass thirty feet below.
He turned to move to the right, but I grabbed his shirt and stopped him.
Footfalls came from that way. The creak of leather.
Sounds of a guard, moving closer. Michael arched a brow at me in question, and I shook my head, pointing in the other direction. He nodded. We went left.
The extensive grounds looked different from the way they had during the day, shrouded now in a gray world of shadows and filled with the chorus of a summer night.
Crickets chirped in the grass. From overhead came the soft flapping of bat wings.
Some small rodent rooted through the mulch in a nearby flower bed, and off in the distance, car engines revved.
The guards were out in force. Between avoiding them and the cameras Michael pointed out, a journey that would have been a two-minute stroll in the daylight turned into a twenty-minute adrenaline-filled expedition.
For a city wolf, Michael still had good instincts.
He moved in a low crouch, rolling his feet from heel to toe to soften the sound of his steps.
Where light spilled from the house to cut across our path, he paused, waiting until I assured him that no one was close by before sprinting through.
We reached pavement, and his footfalls were barely perceptible on it, quieter even than my own.
My surprise didn’t last long before my competitive nature kicked in.
I spent the rest of our escape trying to be stealthier than him.
I didn’t succeed. It was a crushing blow to my ego.
Michael slipped into the garage through a side door, and I followed him in.
We stayed crouched until we reached his SUV.
He unlocked it quickly, jammed the garage door button before my butt was even in the seat, then cranked the engine over and roared out of there the second we had enough clearance.
I scrambled to get my seat belt on, Mom’s warning about not being immortal blaring through my mind.
People in black camo and face paint poured out of the woods, toting a small armory of weapons, everything from machine guns to—what the hell? Was that a battle-ax?
“What are you even going to do with that thing?” I yelled as we sped past the man who wielded it.
Several people went so far as to try to get in front of the Range Rover, but they either saw the hard look on Michael’s face or heeded my frantic arm waving to get out of the way, because they wisely dove aside instead of being crushed beneath the tires.
Michael reached up and pushed a button clipped to his sun visor. I assumed it worked the front gate, and I clenched up when it came into view, lumbering slowly open.
We’re not going to make it, I realized, bracing for impact.
Michael slowed just enough to squeeze past, both of us shuddering as we broke through the protective ward.
I sighed in relief and looked over at him. “You wanna tell me what this is all a—”
The shrill tone of a phone cut me off, blaring through the SUV’s speakers. I glanced at the fancy dashboard screen and saw “Mother” on the caller ID.
Michael hit Accept.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded.
“We’ll be staying in the Back Bay for the next several days,” he said.
“The hell you will. Turn the car around, Michael.”
“Good night, Mother.”
He hung up on her. For good measure, he turned his phone off, and I felt his savage sense of triumph.
I stared at his profile, frowning, and he glanced over at me.
“You’re wondering why I’m absconding with you like a thief in the night?”
I nodded. Sure, dinner had started as a disaster, but it smoothed out after I’d been officially welcomed into the fold.
Michael had returned to his extremely polite self.
Conversation flowed. The servers cleared the cold and uneaten first course from the table and delivered a hearty stew for the second.
His mother had even been damn near civil. So what was this about?
“If I had been aware of your history, I never would have brought you there,” Michael said.
“I’m sor—”
He held up a hand. “No, don’t. I’m not saying this to gain another apology from you. We really should desist with them. I’m simply telling you because we won’t be going back there.”
“But my stuff is back there.”
He turned the SUV onto the wider avenue that led away from his parents’ street and slowed to the speed limit. “I’ll send someone for it. In the interim, I’ll give you my credit card, and you can replenish your essentials.”
I rubbed a hand over my face. “Why, Michael?”
He glanced down at his phone, like he was double-checking that it was off. “My mother was going to use you.”
“Use me how?”
“In the same way she uses all of us. To further whatever plans she has.” He gripped the steering wheel, the muscles of his forearms flexing. “She manipulated both of us at dinner, and we played right into it.”
“How so?”
“In a thousand minute ways, half of which I probably missed or misinterpreted,” he said.
“For instance, she placed all of my male relatives around you less as a shield and more to antagonize you. She immediately confronted us to throw me off balance. Both her insinuation concerning your well-being and her calling me an idiot were meant to test our bond, to discover just how protective we are of each other. And the way she outed you was designed to turn the family against you, so that if she did order your execution, they wouldn’t put up much of a fuss afterward. ”
I really didn’t like that woman. “Wonderful.”
The smell of Michael’s anger permeated the air, a clear sign of just how upset he was.
“And don’t believe for even a second that her welcoming you to the family assures your safety.
My mother manipulates everyone around her almost without thought.
It’s as natural as breathing to her. No doubt she saw your mastery over the shift less as a confirmation of your control and more as an ability to exploit.
That, paired with your bloodline, would be seen as a great threat to our enemies.
One she’ll try to use to her advantage.”
I let out a shaky breath. “What made her like this?”
“Her parents,” he said. “At least that’s my assumption, based on the way she attempted to raise me in her own image.
As her heir, I know her better than perhaps anyone, even my father.
I know the way her mind works. Just who she would casually mention your heritage to for the news to have the biggest impact.
I can see it now, the way the rumor would build.
The parties she would invite you to in order to show you off and let the others know she wasn’t bluffing.
All with the aim of you acting as a distraction while she worked toward her true goal in the background.
And if one of the other factions in the city happened to lash out and preemptively kill you before you could cause them trouble, well, then no one would be able to directly pin your death on her. ”
It was a struggle not to growl. “Then we don’t play her game.”
He shook his head. “Even knowing her as I do, I still find myself carefully placed on her political chessboard. I don’t rise to her bait, and I realize later that I was caught in a double blind, and that was what she had planned for me to do.
Or I overreact in a way I’m sure she won’t anticipate, only to find out days or even weeks later that she did. ”
What a piece of work that woman was. I needed to call my parents and reiterate how much I loved them. “Why do you put up with her?”
“For everyone else,” Michael said. “And to attempt to curtail the worst of her nature. She may do terrible things, but there’s a purpose behind them. Our enemies are ruthless, so she must be, too. To her, it doesn’t matter who she hurts so long as our family remains safe and her territory intact.”
“So, we beat her by taking away her chess pieces? Is that what this is about?”
“That’s the hope.”
“What’s to stop her from telling everyone about me anyway? Out here in the city, I’ll be an easier target.”
His teeth flashed in the darkness. “Ah, but I’m out here alone with you now.
She’s seen how protective the bond has made me over you.
I have never challenged her like I did tonight.
And now she knows that there’s a possibility I could get caught in the crossfire if she exposes you. She won’t risk that.”
I really hoped he was right. “What if this was somehow her plan all along?”