He glanced over at her and had started to ask a question when he realized she was asleep. Not a deep slumber, but her breathing was calm and her eyes had drifted shut. She really must be tired. Only a couple minutes had passed since he’d pulled away from the airport. Her head lolled back against the headrest and although her arms were crossed protectively against herself, her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. Even if she might not trust him, her inner wolf knew she was safe in his presence. That had to mean something.
He resisted the primal urge to reach out and trail a finger down her cheek. To run his hands through her slightly curly, chestnut-colored hair. She’d let it grow a few inches since he’d seen her last. Hell, she’d probably had a dozen different styles since then. Her café au lait skin was darker, more tanned than the last time he’d seen her. No doubt from the time she’d spent outdoors. As a nurse for an international health organization, she’d spent a lot of time in refugee camps, something he vastly admired about her even if every day he’d worried about her. He forced his gaze to the road in front of him. He’d been dreaming about this moment for years. He could wait a few more minutes. Too bad his inner wolf didn’t want to listen.
As he cruised through the quiet night streets, he spotted the same green truck that had tailed him to the airport. At first he’d thought he was being paranoid, but this was too much of a coincidence. When he neared the upcoming yellow light, instead of slowing down, he flipped a sharp U-turn into the parallel two-lane road.
Felicia jerked awake with a gasp and grabbed her armrest. A few horns blared and the spike of adrenaline that rolled off her was sharp and acidic. Thanks to the close confines of the vehicle and his extrasensory abilities, he could hear the thump of her erratic heartbeat. “What’s going on?”
“I think we’re being followed.”
She whipped her head around.
In the rearview mirror he watched the green truck jump the median and swerve into their lane. Lately both he and Knox suspected someone from the new pack they’d taken over was plotting to cause dissension among their ranks. Knox had recently mated with a vampire—something rare for a shifter to do, especially an Alpha—so all the warriors had been on edge lately. Especially since they’d had to kick out one of their own when he tried to attack Knox’s new mate. While Alaric couldn’t be sure this was related, he had no way of knowing that it wasn’t. Hell, it could just be a rogue vampire or rogue werewolf out for blood, but he didn’t think so. Alaric wasn’t easy prey and the rogue beasts from both species liked easy hunts.
As the truck gained ground, he switched lanes and pulled down a side street.
“Why would someone be following us?” Despite the tension he scented rolling off her, her voice was calm.
Before he could answer, the back window exploded in a shower of raining glass. Metallic pings ricocheted off the inside of the vehicle.
“Get down!” he shouted.
A slight trail of fear trickled off her as she unstrapped her seat belt and scooted lower in her seat but she didn’t panic. “Do you have any weapons?”
“Yes but they’re in the back—”
Without pause, she dove into the second seat with a speed that impressed him. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and swerved down another one-way side street. For a moment they lost their tail and the only sound was the whistling of the wind rushing through the blown-out window. He caught sight of her in the rearview mirror digging through his bag of weapons. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What does it look like? You want to let some crazy human hunters try to kill us? I’m going to blow out their tires.”
As a shifter, from a young age she’d have been trained like all of their kind to use weapons, but he didn’t like the thought of her hanging out the window making herself a target. “I don’t think they’re human, Felicia.”
Understanding crossed her face as she met his gaze in the mirror. If it wasn’t humans hunting them—and few even knew of their existence so he doubted it was them—it would be someone of the supernatural variety and they’d be more than capable of tracking and killing them. It was one of the reasons the tribe leaders from the six most powerful vampire covens and six of the strongest werewolf Alphas in North America would be gathering soon to discuss a treaty between their kinds. Too many rogue vampires and rogue shifters without tribe leaders or Alphas were wreaking havoc in the human world. Taking victims whenever they felt like it. Since there wasn’t a formal organization to mete out justice to offenders, if paranormal beings didn’t belong to a group and they hurt humans, there was no one to bring them to justice. If the shifters and vamps could come to an agreement and actually work together, everyone would be held accountable for their actions, especially loners.
But Alaric knew a few blown tires wouldn’t slow down either shifters or vamps. It would only enrage them. Not to mention they’d be smart enough to be packing silver-lined bullets, which could be fatal to shifters.
Under normal circumstances he’d stay and fight but he couldn’t risk it. Not with Felicia. Not when she was finally under his protection. As the headlights appeared in his mirror again, he did the only thing he could.
“Hold on,” he said through gritted teeth.
The needle on the speedometer spiked sharply as he pressed on the gas. When he’d put enough distance between them, he took his foot off the accelerator, slightly depressed the brakes and yanked the wheel.
Everything in the vehicle shifted at once.
Felicia let out a startled cry as she slammed against the door, but he didn’t glance back at her. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. Mercifully, the SUV didn’t flip when he pulled it into a one-eighty spin. The engine sputtered and growled as he hit the gas again.
“Are you playing chicken with them?” Now her voice rose, panic clear in every syllable.
He didn’t answer. They’d survive a crash. Sure, they might suffer a few broken bones and internal injuries but they’d heal quickly. It was a calculated risk but he needed to slow down their pursuers and get her to safety. Racing all over Huntsville was a surefire way to get noticed by the human cops, something they couldn’t afford.
Protect Felicia.
It was all that mattered.
The silhouettes of the driver and passenger were becoming more visible. Two males, and possibly a third person in the backseat. He couldn’t be sure. Might be a shadow.
The truck wavered and jerked back and forth, but it didn’t alter its path. Alaric braced himself for impact. If the other driver didn’t back down, this was going to be painful. He’d broken more bones than he could remember over the past five centuries, but it still hurt every time.
As he increased his speed, the truck weaved erratically.
“Strap in, Felicia,” he ground out. Hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do, but there was no other way.
All his muscles tensed. As he prepared for the impact, the truck swerved off the road at the last second. Glass and metal crunched behind them as the vehicle rammed into a telephone pole. With his extrasensory abilities he heard the pole creak dangerously as it cracked and fell onto the truck, but Alaric didn’t pause in his escape.
“What the hell is going on?” Felicia demanded as he turned back onto a main street. At least she sounded more annoyed than scared.
Even though his Alpha had recently taken a vampire as a mate, he wasn’t sure who would be coming after them right now. Some of the new pack members might not like their new female Alpha, but making a move like this against him made no sense. Alaric wasn’t on pack business at the moment. And hurting him or Felicia wouldn’t affect the upcoming formal treaty between vampires and shifters, which was barely a couple months away. It would only solidify the need for it. He didn’t have time to go into all the possibilities though. “Grab what you need from your bag. Necessities only. I’m going to find a safe place to park then we’re shifting.” It would be harder to track them that way. He could go home to the protection of his pack, but he wanted Felicia to himself for a while. He’d already run it by Knox and his Alpha had given him the okay.
She’d left Huntsville because of her former Alpha and he planned to show her that his pack was different. That she could have a different kind of life than the one she’d run from. Her grace under fire tonight had only solidified how tough she was. She might have worked overseas in a war zone but it hadn’t been in a military capacity. Her reactions tonight had been purely instinctive. Whether she realized it or not, her inner wolf had known they needed protecting and had taken over.
Unfortunately he couldn’t get a read on her. She’d left Afghanistan without telling him, completely cutting him off as if he meant nothing to her. As if their friendship wasn’t as important to her as it was to him. That cut bone deep. He might want her with a fierceness that stunned him, but it didn’t mean she felt the same. A dull throb spread across his chest at the thought that she might never feel the pull that he did. If that was true…he shook his head. He couldn’t even think about that possibility.
Chapter Two
Felicia’s heart beat an erratic tattoo against her chest. She’d been under fire in Jalalabad more than a few times before, but she’d never imagined experiencing an attack on the streets of Huntsville. That was just too surreal. It didn’t matter that she could survive almost anything— explosions and gunfire scared the crap out of her. Even though she had about a million questions for Alaric it was obvious he didn’t plan to answer any of them at the moment. Stubborn male.
She’d love nothing more than to drag the answers out of him but now wasn’t the time. She fished out her wallet, passport, a pair of pants, a sweater and one pair of sandals. Everything else was replaceable. She’d shipped most of her stuff back weeks ago to a human friend so she could travel light. At the moment she was thankful she’d made that decision.
Alaric steered into the dimly lit, nearly deserted parking lot of a closed supermarket and jumped from the vehicle. She followed him and watched as he grabbed a small backpack from the back—full of his weapons—then took her small bundle of clothes and shoved them inside. For a brief moment he trained that hot gaze on her and she could feel herself being swallowed up by his dark, soul-searching eyes. She knew his look didn’t mean anything, that it was all in her head, but for a moment she imagined what it would be like to be on the receiving end of a heated glance from him.