- -
- 100%
- +
Though she still appeared unconvinced, she finally dipped her chin in answer. “I don’t trust you,” she said. “But I’m going to go with you. At least until I can get reinforcements, like the sheriff’s department. Let’s go.”
He liked the way she made decisions quickly, without wasting precious time agonizing over the pros and cons.
Climbing on his bike, he motioned for her to get on behind him. Once she had, he tried like hell not to think about how she was naked underneath his T-shirt, and that the heat of her body pressing against him was only separated by cloth.
He turned the ignition and the Harley roared to life. The vibration against his already-aroused body made him clench his teeth.
“Hold on,” he told her, the wind carrying his words away. Once she’d wrapped her arms around his middle, he took off, heading for his motel and hoping like hell no one had seen them.
* * *
While they rode, Blythe tried to calm her rising panic. Not for herself, but for Hailey. She still didn’t understand why Jacob Gideon’s people had locked her in a room to begin with. And then stolen her daughter. Why take Hailey like that? He’d promised to heal her, not hurt her. And he’d done so publicly, which also made no sense.
On top of that, with her arms wrapped around the muscular chest of a large and dangerously handsome man, she had to wonder. Where had he come from? She had to consider the possibility that he worked for Jacob and had been sent to keep her away from her daughter.
Her companion drove the big motorcycle competently, but then he had the look of a man who knew how to do most everything well. Tall and well built, he moved with a grace that told her he was at home in his own body.
Still, for him to appear out of nowhere, just when she was making her escape... She had to wonder. Could he be trusted? Since she’d already made one huge error in judgment by trusting Jacob Gideon, she wasn’t sure she hadn’t just made another.
Reminding herself that he was Pack, like her, and therefore most likely on her side, helped slightly. With all the craziness that was going on, she might need the help of more of her own kind. The Pack had a group of people called the Pack Protectors. She might have to call on them to help save Hailey. After all, who knew what the faith healer had planned? She was certain whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
Her panic began to build. Hailey needed certain medications. Would Jacob’s people remember to give them to her? She knew if she kept thinking along those lines, she’d be reduced to an ineffectual, panicked mess. She needed to try and remain as calm and clearheaded as possible if she wanted to succeed in rescuing her baby.
Finally, they coasted to a stop in front of an L-shaped, wooden motel that had seen better days. She took a deep breath. Hopping down from the bike, she pulled the large cotton T-shirt down and eyed him. “I asked you to take me to the sheriff’s office and you bring me to a motel. You’d better give me a damn good reason not to start screaming for help.”
Her passionate speech didn’t seem to faze him.
“I’m Lucas Kenyon,” he told her, the rumble of his deep voice oddly reassuring and dangerous at the same time. “Formerly Luke Gideon. And I promise I’ll explain everything.”
Stunned, she gaped at him. “But he said he had no children.”
“He would.” He grimaced.
“You’re his...son?”
“Not anymore.” Crossing to a room, he used his key and opened the door. “Come inside, please. I’ll tell you everything.”
She hesitated. She no longer trusted anyone with any connection whatsoever to Jacob Gideon, Pack or human. Especially his son.
“There’s a phone inside that you can use. I promise I won’t hurt you,” Lucas said, clearly misinterpreting the reason she wavered.
“I didn’t think you would,” she told him, pushing past him. “But I’m calling the sheriff before I listen to anything you have to say. I want my daughter back.”
Once she was inside, he closed the door behind her. “Go ahead and call,” he said. When she reached for the telephone on the nightstand, he grabbed a cell phone off the dresser. “Use this instead. He can’t trace you that way,” he told her, by way of explanation. “It’s disposable. I’ve got several others just like it.”
Accepting his phone, she eyed him and then she punched in 911. When a woman answered, Blythe tried to speak calmly, so she’d be clearly understood. “I need help. Jacob Gideon over at Sanctuary has taken my daughter. She’s only five. He took her without my permission.”
To her shock and disbelief, the operator chuckled. “You know, he just called in. He said you’d say something like that.”
Confused, Blythe looked at her companion. Although he couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, his expression appeared resigned. “I’m saying it because it’s true.”
“Oh, I know Jacob. He’d never do something like that. He told us there’d been a little misunderstanding.”
“This is not a misunderstanding,” Blythe interrupted. “He took my daughter. I need you people to help me get her back.”
The woman continued on as though Blythe hadn’t spoken.
“I know who you are. You’re the lady we saw on TV the other day. You brought your little girl here so Jacob could heal her. You just need to calm down and let him do his work.”
“Calm down?” Blythe could hear her voice rising as it began to dawn on her that she really was on her own. This Lucas was right. No one else was going to help her save Hailey. Still, she had to try. “Let me talk to your supervisor.”
She swore she could almost hear the woman shaking her head. “He won’t be in until later this morning. Around nine. You’ll have to call back then. Why don’t you just phone Jacob and give him a chance to explain? He told me to tell you it’s a big misunderstanding and that you should come back right away.”
“He told you?”
“Of course.” The woman sounded smug. “Everyone around these parts is on very good terms with Jacob Gideon. Go back. Talk to him.”
Go back? Give Jacob a call... This was surreal. Blythe looked up and saw from Lucas’s glum expression that this was exactly as he’d expected. Which meant...what? That he was in on it? Or that he was a really good judge of what Jacob Gideon would do.
Gripping the cell phone, her hand sweaty, she said the only thing she could think of. “I don’t have his phone number.”
“Let me give it to you.” Suddenly solicitous, the dispatcher rattled it off, which Blythe repeated out loud so Lucas could write it down on a small pad of paper beside the hotel phone.
Once she was certain he’d gotten it, stunned and feeling as if she’d been run over by a semitruck, Blythe ended the call.
She stared at the cell phone, suppressing the urge to fling it against the wall. “Hailey is dangerously ill.” Biting down on her fury, she spun to face him.
“I’m not sure what just happened,” she began, seething.
“I told you he has them all in his pocket,” Lucas said, his voice sounding both resigned and angry. “You’ll have to get help from far away from this area to find someone he hasn’t corrupted.”
As she continued to eye him, she couldn’t find even the slightest resemblance between this man and the preacher. Where Jacob was slender and average height, Lucas stood well over six feet with a muscular build. Even their facial structures were different. Jacob had meaty features, with a bulbous nose. Lucas’s were patrician, as if they’d been carved from marble.
“You say you’re his son,” she said, in a tone that was not quite believing. “Yet not only do you not resemble him in the slightest, but you sound like you don’t like him, either.”
He shook his head, his ruggedly handsome features impassive. “As I said, I’m not his son any longer. As far as I’m concerned, that part of me died fifteen years ago, when I escaped Sanctuary roughly the same way you did.”
Crud. Suddenly dizzy, Blythe sat on the edge of the bed. “I don’t give a damn about you or your father, but you’d better tell me anything that will help me find a way to rescue my daughter.”
Chapter 4
Lucas began to talk. He told her an abbreviated version of the truth, though he said nothing about Lilly and how Jacob had killed her right in front of him. That part of his past was his own private shame, which he would always bear alone. As he spoke, choosing his words with care, he watched her closely. While he didn’t want to send her into shock, she needed to know what she faced.
“My mother must have been a Shifter, because Jacob is human. I don’t actually know what happened to her, because I remember absolutely nothing about her. Long story short, Jacob caught me changing into a wolf. He viewed this as a sign from his God that I was a demon, and he set about trying to purge my body and—as he said—make me holy again.”
Swallowing, he pushed away the image of his vibrant sister, beaten and lifeless. “His methods were horrific. I believe he would eventually have killed me. I managed to escape, and I ran. I haven’t seen him since. It’s been fifteen years now.”
Watching him, her eyes, a shocking shade of green, went soft with sympathy. “You must have been very young.”
“Fifteen.” While he tried to factually relay his horrific past without growing emotional, his wolf reacted with hers on another, more primal level. Though he knew she had to be aware of this, externally she showed no reaction.
Was this how it was normally between Shifters, he wondered? At the thought, a wild sense of longing possessed him, something unwanted and unwarranted, and which he promptly pushed away.
“That’s it. When I saw you and your little girl on the news, with him promising he could heal her, I knew I had to come and stop him. I drove from Seattle.”
She nodded.
Watching the emotions trace across her beautiful face—shock and horror and revulsion—he stopped talking. There were no more words he could say without revealing the most important part of all. His sister’s death.
Silence. He waited, almost defiantly, for her reaction. Half of him expected condemnation, as if all of what had happened had been his fault, as if he’d somehow deserved the actions of the so-called pious man of God.
He also feared she would panic, because in revealing his past, he’d also revealed what Jacob had in mind for her little girl.
* * *
As Lucas talked, Blythe found herself listening in a sort of horrified fugue state. Disbelief, shock and terror for Hailey mingled with revulsion that a so-called man of God could do such things to his own son.
And what about her daughter? If Lucas was right, she’d delivered her baby girl into the clutches of a madman.
When he finally finished, the silence rang with a thousand questions, none of which she expected him to be able to answer.
“Why?” she finally asked. “Even if you being able to shift was—is—out of the ordinary, you’re his son. Throughout history, other parents have learned to deal with that. What would drive him to...recoil from you like that? Why would any father do such a thing to his own child?”
“I’ve asked myself that very same question a hundred times. I don’t know that I can explain the unexplainable. But as far as I can tell, it’s because of his belief system. In his narrow-minded view, such a thing as a Shape-shifter cannot exist. I’m a werewolf, he said. He honestly believed—believes—that I have a demon inside me.”
“That you come from hell,” she said, still unable to entirely wrap her mind around the idea.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“But since he’s human, that means your mother...”
“She must have been a full-blood. But she died when I was born and he destroyed everything of hers. I’ve never even seen a picture.”
“Seriously?” Again, such a thing was beyond her comprehension.
He shrugged once more, as if it didn’t matter. “Yes. I know nothing about her.”
“Then you had no one to teach you to...”
A shadow crossed his face. She got a sense that there was more, that he hadn’t told her everything. But she didn’t press him, not now. Hellhounds, he’d already revealed so much horror, the thought that there might be more was staggering.
“The first time I felt the urge to shift, I freaked out.” He sounded rueful, speaking of something that broke every Pack law she could think of regarding children. The first change should be a special thing, guided with a loving hand. Like Hailey’s would be, if she lived that long.
Blythe clenched her fists. Though she felt sorry for this man, listening to him talk about the past wasn’t going to help save Hailey.
He cocked his head. “You must be wondering how all this relates to your daughter,” he said, as if he’d read her mind.
Masking her inner turmoil with what she hoped passed for calmness, she nodded. “Yes. Yes, I am. Tell me. What do you think your father—”
“Jacob.”
She acknowledged the difference with a dip of her chin. “What does Jacob want with my daughter?”
Instead of answering, he asked another question. “Does he know you’re a Shape-shifter?”
“No, of course not.” Puzzled, she frowned. “Why would I tell him something like that? He’s human. You know the law.”
“Since I’m not actually part of your Pack, no, I don’t. But no matter. I think Jacob has somehow learned that you and your child are like me—Shape-shifters. Since he believes these powers came from a demon, he’s on a holy mission to wipe out the evil. He intends to cure your daughter—not of her physical ailment, but her spiritual one. Even if it kills her.”
For a split second, she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t even swallow. “Then we’ve got to go help her,” she finally managed. “Now.”
Expression grim, he shook his head. “You heard what happened when you tried to call the police. He’s got the entire area in his pocket.”
“Then we’ll go out farther.” Desperate now, she began to pace. “The FBI will help.”
“Not if they talk to the local police and are told you’re a crackpot.”
Stunned, she stared at him. “Are you serious?” she asked. “You really think that’s what will happen?”
He nodded.
This was like something out of a nightmare.
“These people really are crazy,” she said, trying to keep her hands from trembling. “How is that possible? An entire town...”
“He’s a very hypnotic speaker.”
She stared at him, letting him see her disbelief. “Are you saying he hypnotizes people?” Then, before he could even answer, she inhaled sharply. “Hellhounds. Are you saying he hypnotized me?” That explanation would certainly clear up a lot of things.
Lucas grimaced. “To be honest with you, I don’t know. It’s entirely possible.”
She took a deep breath and released it. “It sounds like you think no one is going to help me.”
The wry grimace he made didn’t make her feel any better. “At least no humans will. What about your Pack?”
“I don’t know. I’ll call them.” She grabbed the cell phone and then stared at it in frustration. “I’m not sure I know the number. It’s stored in my cell, which he took from me.”
“So it appears you’re on your own,” he said, without inflection.
His lack of emotion was beginning to get to her. She glared at him, determination and ferocity coursing through her. “Then I’ll do it by myself. I have to get my daughter out. I don’t care if I need to rip out some throats to do it.”
As another Shifter, no matter what his upbringing, she believed Lucas would understand. When in their wolf form, they all retained their human intellect. This made them deadly fighters when they needed to be.
His face a stony mask, he shook his head. “You’re not alone,” he said. “I’ll help you.”
“Look,” she said. “I’m grateful, but you have to understand I don’t trust anyone involved in any way with Jacob Gideon and his Sanctuary.”
“I’m not involved with them.” He glared at her. “I told you, I drove all the way here from Seattle to help you.”
“Assuming I believe you, I have to ask you why. We’re total strangers. Why do you care what happens to us?”
“It’s more than just you. What that man did to me and mine should never be done to anyone else.”
She opened her mouth to respond, and then closed it. The cold fury shimmering in his dark blue eyes made her shiver.
“And to answer your question as to why, it’s time he was stopped. For good. No matter what the cost, I will help you save your daughter. And then, I’ll make sure Jacob Gideon doesn’t hurt any other Shifters. Ever again.”
Oddly enough, this fierce resolve decided her. “All right. Thank you. I accept your offer of help.”
“Good.” Something in his grim tone told her he hadn’t actually given her a choice. “They won’t be expecting two of us. You need to get ready.”
“Get ready?” Incredulous, she could only stare. “I’m chomping at the bit. The sooner I can get Hailey away from that monster, the better.”
“Good. Because we’re going to go in and get her out. No matter what.”
She nodded. “When?”
He glanced at her, his jaw set. “Tonight.”
* * *
As a slow, fierce smile broke out over Blythe’s expressive face, something intense flared inside Lucas. What the hell? Pushing it away, he dragged his gaze away from the hope shining in her emerald-green eyes and forced himself to focus. He wondered if she understood the risks she’d be taking. If caught, and especially if Jacob learned she was also a Shape-shifter, she’d be subjecting not only her daughter, but herself to unspeakable acts of torture.
By the end, she’d be longing for death.
He considered telling her more than the bare bones, but in the end, decided not to. The knowledge would change nothing. Like him, she had no choice.
“What time?” she asked, raising her chin in a way that told him she was a woman of courage, a mother willing to fight tooth and nail for her child.
“We’ll use the darkness to provide cover. Until then, you’re going to have to stay hidden. If I know Jacob, he will have told the locals some preposterous story about you, and they’ll be on the lookout to have you arrested and brought in.”
Her eyes widened in fresh shock, making him inwardly wince. Every truth he had to throw out to her was like feeding a wolf a poisoned bone. But she needed to understand just how much of a monster they were dealing with.
“Arrest me for what?”
Grimly, he ticked the possibilities off on his fingers. “Child abuse, child molestation, attempting to sell your daughter, trying to prostitute her to pedophiles—he’ll come up with the worst possible story and make them believe it.”
She swallowed hard. “But none of that is true. He’d have no proof.”
“It doesn’t make any difference. What does matter is that he will have convinced everyone that he took your daughter away for her own good. That you are a danger to her. I promise you, they will believe him.”
Crossing her arms, her expression radiating darkness, she dropped into the dingy motel chair. “I’ll kill him.”
“No, you won’t.” Though if the truth were to be told, he’d been aching to take the man out himself ever since the news story had aired. But the repercussions would be tremendous. “Making him pay will have to wait. First, we’re going to rescue your kid and get away. After that, I’ll figure out a way to expose him, so he can’t do this to anyone else.”
“Hailey,” she said. “Her name is Hailey.” There was both strength and delicacy in her face. “Inside there, in Sanctuary, they kept trying to depersonalize her and I instinctively kept insisting on giving them her name. At the time, I didn’t understand why. Unfortunately, I do now.”
Eyeing her, he felt it again: the rush of attraction that was not only inappropriate, but dangerous. He wondered if Blythe even realized how beautiful she was. On the heels of that thought came another, one he’d considered earlier and had forgotten.
For as long as Lucas had known him, Jacob had always had a weakness for the ladies. If worst came to worst, there was the possibility that they could use that against him. Lucas decided not to mention it to Blythe yet. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.
Her stomach growled, making him smile, even as she gave him an apologetic look. “Sorry,” she said. “I should have gone hunting earlier.”
“When was the last time you ate?”
She thought for a moment. “On the drive down here yesterday.”
“Yesterday? I saw the story on the news a few days ago. I would have thought you’d have been here longer.”
“Nope. Jacob had a few more appearances scheduled, so Hailey and I spent the day shopping, eating out, and we saw a movie,” she said. “I had a few misgivings, and apparently for good reason. I so badly wanted to have hope. Instead, I should have trusted my instincts.” Sighing, she glanced away. “Look what happened. I haven’t even been here twenty-four hours and already my baby is in danger.”
“Don’t worry,” he spoke with more confidence than he felt. “We’ll get her out. In the meantime, I’ll go fetch us something to eat.”
She nodded listlessly, so he left her there.
Later, he returned with a couple of breakfast burritos and coffees, as well as a change of clothes for her that he grabbed at the local big box store. She ate with a mechanical precision that told him she was already working on a rudimentary plan.
“Maybe you should tell me,” she said, blotting her mouth with a napkin. She’d missed a crumb, and he found himself aching to lick it off her lips, which shocked him.
What the hell was wrong with him? With difficulty, he tried to focus on her words. “Tell you what?”
“What I should expect to find when we get into Sanctuary.” Mouth a thin line, she leaned forward. “I need to be prepared.”
“No,” he said, as gently as he could. “You don’t. Let’s leave it at that.”
Her gaze locked with his, the determination in her expression twisting his gut. But finally she nodded. “You’re right. I need to concentrate on getting Hailey out.”
“Yes.”
“But after...”
“One day at a time,” he told her. “That’s how we’re going to get through this. One day at a time.”
Though she nodded, she got up and began to pace the confines of the small hotel room, her lithe grace reminding him more of a trapped panther than a wolf. Even in the artificial light, her hair gleamed like strands of luxurious silk.
Watching her, he tried to throttle the dizzying current of desire racing through him. This both infuriated and intrigued him, because despite his instinctive reaction to her when he’d seen her on the television, he hadn’t expected to want her. More than that, actually. He hadn’t thought he’d crave her the way he did.
He needed to get a grip. For someone who always prided himself on being in control, he felt perilously close to completely losing it.
“I wonder, have you always known?” he asked her, more to distract them both than anything else.
She stopped pacing, swiveling her head around to look at him, sending her long hair whipping around her shoulders. “Have I always known what?”
Feeling foolish, now he regretted asking. Almost. “What you were. A Shape-shifter. When was the first time you changed into a wolf? How old were you?”
As distractions went, it worked. Head cocked, she stared at him, the expression in her vivid green eyes making it clear she was trying to decide if he was messing with her or telling the truth.
“I really want to know,” he added, his voice a bit huskier than he’d have preferred, but sincere all the same.
“I was ten,” she said. “Most of us are ten or eleven when we shift for the first time. Once in a while it happens to someone much younger, but that’s the general age.”
“I see.” Truthfully, he hadn’t known.
“You had no one to guide you at all, did you?” she finally asked. “Because your mother died and you were all alone, except for that crazy man who raised you.”
He doubted his careless shrug fooled her. “I had no idea. The first few times I had the urge to shift, I panicked. I was eleven and I didn’t know what was wrong with me.” He and Lilly had shared that sense of fear. But of course, he didn’t mention that to Blythe.