Like get the hell out of Dodge before she had a complete mental breakdown.
She turned away from the line of live oaks that separated the river from the church and hobbled up the hill on the other side, nodding and smiling at friends and acquaintances she passed. Not that they noticed, she reflected darkly. They were too busy vacationing in Loony Land, thanks to Rafe and his demonic buddy.
Rafe
.
Oh, God,
Rafe.
She walked faster. She needed time alone to decide what to do, and that meant time away from Rafe. She couldn’t think when he was around. One look in his green eyes and her brain shut down and another part of her anatomy took control.
How many times had she heard her daddy tell Cam and Coop to stop thinking with their little head and use their big one?
Daddy should have given her the girl version of the same lecture. She and her brothers had different equipment, but her hootie had been driving the Bunny Mobile for the last six weeks.
It was high time she took back the wheel.
She reached the long, gravel driveway at the top of the rise that led to the church some two hundred yards in the distance, and broke into a run.
There, parked in front of the church, was her wedding chariot and means of escape: Her sister-in-law Audrey’s pink Mary Kay car, on loan to the happy couple for the honeymoon.
Happy couple, hah!
The big sedan was festooned fender to fender with shaving cream, ribbons, bows and flowers. A large, heart-shaped sign attached to the front bumper said
Just Married,
and tin cans, aluminum plates, old shoes and a string of cowbells trailed from the back.
She flung open the driver’s side door. Good grief, someone had rolled the inside of the car from top to bottom. She couldn’t see the seats.
Wadding up the voluminous skirts of her wedding gown, she shoved aside the mountain of toilet paper and climbed in. The keys were in the ignition, thank goodness.
The windows had been left down so the interior of the car wouldn’t overheat. Bunny stripped off her torn stockings and her remaining shoe and tossed them out the window. She cranked the car and roared off down the drive in a clatter of tin cans and cowbells, toilet paper streaming like parade confetti from the open windows of the pink pearl Cadillac.
Chapter Four
R
afe strode down the hill and through the trees to the gathering by the river. A grimy cloud of demon dust lingered above the white tents. It had the expected effect upon the humans, though he paid little attention to their antics. He needed to find Bunny. They would discuss matters in a sensible manner. She would understand, and things would return to their former state.
He pushed his way through the crowd looking for her, but did not see her. The gnawing ache in his chest grew worse. Where was she? What if the djegrali had taken her? He had the sudden inexplicable urge to smash something.
Brand stood near one of the tents on the riverbank talking to Addy Corwin, the leggy, blond sorceress who’d bewitched him. Not an unusual occurrence, Rafe reflected sourly. Brand was seldom far from Addy’s side. He hovered near her now, his gaze hot and possessive as he looked at her. By the sword, Rafe pitied him. Brand had been a fearsome warrior, the scourge of the djegrali, until he was enslaved by his
feelings
for the female.
He shrugged aside his distaste. Addy and Bunny were good friends. Perhaps she knew where to find Bunny. The need to find her grew stronger with each passing moment.
Rafe stalked up to them. “Where is Bunny?”
Addy scowled. “You’re in deep doo doo, jerk wad. You lied. You promised to tell Bunny what you are
before
you married her.”
The female Addy’s speech was frequently incomprehensible to Rafe, but his brother warrior seemed to understand her.
Brand slid a protective arm around Addy. “Adara’s acerbic manner belies a tender heart. She is troubled for her friend.”
“Don’t try to sugarcoat it, dude,” Addy said. “I call ’em like I see ’em. And I say this guy’s a jerk wad for playing Bunny like a fool.”
Rafe frowned, trying to sort through her words. The Dalvahni gift of languages had its limits. It did not account for accent, local expressions or speech patterns. The humans in this locale were particularly fond of euphemisms, exaggerated speech and random odd terms called ‘Southern-isms,’ that made the language hard to follow. He grasped onto the one word he thought he understood.
“You think I have made Bunny appear foolish?”
“I think you’ve made her
feel
foolish! How would you like to find out the man you married is an immortal demon hunter from another dimension?”
“I would not marry a man, so such a supposition is pointless.”
Addy rolled her eyes. “Can you
try
to have a little imagination here, Mr. Literal? Put yourself in Bunny’s shoes and think how you’d feel.”
“Why would I put myself in Bunny’s shoes? They would not fit.”
Addy threw up her hands. “He’s worse than you, Brand. You explain it to the meathead. I give up.” She stomped off muttering to herself.
“She is a most volatile female.” Rafe scanned the crowd again, searching for Bunny. “I find her difficult.”
Brand crossed his arms on his chest. “Adara is concerned for her friend and so am I.”
“Bunny is my concern. I will protect her.”
“Ah, but who will protect Bunny from you?”
Rafe stiffened. “I would never hurt Bunny.”
“I fear you may already have. I see the way Bunny looks at you. She loves you. Yet, you were not truthful with her before you bound her to you in the human ritual of marriage. You gave her no choice. That was not well done of you.”
The back of Rafe’s neck burned at the censor in Brand’s voice. “There was no time,” he said through his teeth.
“No time?” Brand’s tone held a hint of steel. “I think not. A Dalvahni warrior does not lie, especially to himself. You care for Bunny. You were afraid of losing her. That is why you did not tell her the truth.”
“Do not think to lecture
me
. You no longer know what it means to be a warrior thanks to this . . . this
affliction
of yours.”
“Affliction?”
Rafe made an impatient gesture. “Your emotional involvement with the female Addy Corwin. She is responsible for your deteriorated state.”
To Rafe’s surprise, Brand grinned. “Deteriorated, am I? What about you, brother? I assumed you suffer from a similar condition.”
“You assumed wrong.”
“Then why did you marry Bunny?”
“To protect her from the djegrali, of course.”
“I see. You do not love her?”
“Of course not.” He shrugged. “Love is a human emotion
.
”
Addy sauntered back up. “You ’bout done trying to talk some sense into this guy, babe?” she asked Brand. “I’m ready to blow this Popsicle stand. The cake’s history, thanks to Meredith and Trey. Billy James has sucked up all the champagne, and most of the town’s nekked and in the river. It’s like Field Day at a nudist colony around here.” She shuddered. “You know, if I’ve heard Mama say it once, I’ve heard her say it a thousand times. Most people look better with their clothes on. Hate to admit it, but she’s right.” She gave Rafe a curious glance. “What’s the matter with Red? He looks like he ate something that disagreed with him.”
Rafe felt a prickle of annoyance. “My name is not Red.”
“To the contrary,
cara,
” Brand said. “Rafe thinks I am unwell. He fears I am in a decline and you are the source of my illness.”
Addy’s eyes narrowed. “Is that so? Look, bub, I’ll have you know—”
“—but fear not that he suffers from the same dread disease,” Brand continued.
“Disease, is it?” Addy said. She narrowed her eyes at Rafe. “Why I ought to—”
“—because he married Bunny out of a sense of duty and nothing more. Or so he assures me. He does not love her. Such a thing is beneath a Dalvahni warrior.” Brand shook his head. “I fear I am a disgrace to the brotherhood. Fortunately, Rafe is made of sterner stuff and will not succumb to my . . . er . . . abominable weakness.”
“Well, big whoopee doo deal. Let’s hear it for Rafe, the Dalvahni dickhead.” Addy propped her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Personally, I think you’re full of it, Red.”
“You seem to think I have done Bunny a disservice by marrying her,” Rafe said. Someone at the top of the hill was ringing a bell—several bells, in fact. Angrily, he pushed the irritating sound to the back of his mind. “I assure you it is my intent to—”
Addy held up her hand. “I know, I know. You’re
concerned
for Bunny, but you don’t love her. You’ll keep her safe from the nasty old demon that tried to kill her, but all you feel for her is a sense of responsibility. Honor. Duty. The Dalvahni Way. I get it.” She turned to Brand. “So, babe, since Red here isn’t emotionally involved, I suggest
you
go after Bunny. He can stay here and clean up this mess. It’s his wedding after all.”
“Go after Bunny?” Rafe demanded sharply. “What do you mean?”
Addy shrugged. “See the big, pink Caddy leaving in a cloud of dust, the one with the long, white cloth streaming out the driver’s side window? That’s a wedding veil, Red. Since Bunny’s the only bride here today, I’m guessing she’s behind the wheel. Looks like she decided to start the honeymoon without you.”
Bunny drove blindly. It wasn’t until she wheeled onto Highway 31 and turned south that she realized she was headed for the beach house where she and Rafe were supposed to spend their honeymoon.
The beach house had always been her special place, her refuge in any moment of crisis. Marrying a demon slayer from another dimension certainly qualified.
This wasn’t about running from Rafe. No, not at all.
Okay, maybe it was the
teensiest
bit about running from Rafe. But it was also about having the time and space to think things over. She probably didn’t have much time. If Rafe saw her leave, he’d be right behind her. And if he couldn’t figure out where she was going, her family would tell him once they sobered up.
The beach wasn’t far from Hannah, seventy miles or so, little more than an hour’s drive in the early sixties when her grandparents bought the cinderblock cottage by the ocean. That same seventy miles took considerably longer to drive now, what with the real estate boom in Gulf Shores and Baldwin County in the eighties and the influx of tourists and snowbirds.
Her parents were married in 1968 and had honeymooned in that little cottage. Growing up, Cam and Coop spent summers there. Bunny loved the old family photos of her brothers, stick thin and berry brown, posing in their bathing trunks on the sugary sand with the Gulf of Mexico shimmering behind them. But that was before September of 1979 and Hurricane Frederick, the storm that took out the dunes and most of Gulf Shores, including the little house by the sea.
Her parents’ plumbing business was doing well by then, and they bought the lot from her daddy’s parents and rebuilt. The “new” beach house was bigger and nicer. A raised foundation, four bedrooms and two and a half baths, a wraparound porch, dormer windows and a boardwalk leading down to the beach. It was completed in 1983, the year Bunny was born. She spent every spring and summer vacation there as a girl and a few Christmases and Thanksgivings, too. As an adult, it was her home away from home. She loved sitting on the porch, feeling the kiss of the sea wind on her skin and in her hair, inhaling the briny scent of the ocean and listening to the shrill cries of the circling gulls.
Honeymooning at the beach had seemed like the perfect way to start her new life with Rafe. Serendipitous, the circle completed from her parents’ honeymoon.
Rafe seemed fine with the idea when she suggested it.
“I do not care where we go, as long as I am with you,
cara,
” he told her in that dark, smoky voice of his. “I am not from here, so I will leave the decision to you.”
Not from here? Yeah, you think? Talk about your understatements. He’d been vague about his past and she’d been too smitten to ask questions.
Her grip tightened on the wheel.
No, not too smitten. Too afraid.
Deep down, she knew it was too good to be true. Rafe was sexy, gorgeous and attentive. With him, she became someone else, someone daring and wild, a tigress, not a bunny. He made her feel beautiful. He made her shiver and weep with joy and desire. Guys like him didn’t fall from trees, especially in Hannah.
She was crazy mad in love with him and he was a
demon slayer,
for Pete’s sake
.
And she was having his baby.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
Bunny drove faster.
Chapter Five
“B
unny,” Rafe shouted, running after her.
The pink vehicle sped down the dirt road and disappeared in a cloud of red dust.
She was gone. She left him.
She
left
him.
With a bellow of frustration, he hurled a lightning bolt at a nearby pine tree. It exploded in a shower of wood.
“Way to go, genius.” Addy walked up the hill with Brand. “If this is you being unemotional, I’d hate to see you riled up.”
“She’s gone.”
“A master of the obvious, aren’t you? Well, don’t just stand there murdering innocent trees. Go after her.”
“How?” Rafe snarled.
“
Hel-lo,
you’re a Dalvahni super dude
.
Use your woo woo.”
Rafe’s head began to pound. Bunny was gone. His gut burned, his chest ached like he’d been gored by a threeheaded Gorthian bull, and this irritating female was speaking nonsense.
“I do not understand,” he said through his teeth. “What is ‘woo woo?’ ”
“Your super powers, Red. You know,
pfft
you’re here.
Pfft
you’re there.
Pfft pfft
, you’re everywhere.”
“It is not so simple, Adara,” Brand said. “Rafe cannot teleport to Bunny if he does not know where she is going.”
“I bet I know where she’s headed,” someone said behind them.
“Yep, me too.”
“Oh, goody, man boobs,” Addy muttered as Bunny’s brothers, Cameron and Cooper Raines, huffed up the grassy hill from the river. “At least they’re wearing pants.” Addy raised her eyes skyward. “Thank you, Lord Jesus.”
Rafe eyed both men with disapproval. They had, indeed, donned their breeches. But they were shirtless, leaving their distended bellies and hairy chests exposed. He liked Bunny’s brothers well enough. But he could not understand how they allowed their bodies to deteriorate in such a manner. Cam and Coop were fleshy and unfit from too much food and ale and too little exercise.
The Dalvahni stayed in peak physical condition. Anything less was unacceptable. Anything less would get them killed.
Addy gave them a bright smile. “Have a nice swim?”
Cam looked perplexed. “You know, it was the damndest thing. I don’t remember getting in the river, but I looked down and the old anaconda was out of the cage and going for a swim, if you know what I mean.”
Addy’s smile faded. “Unfortunately, I do. Thank you for that image. So, you know where Bunny might have gone?”
“Sure,” Cam said. “Ten to one, she’s gone to the beach house. She loves that place, has since she was a little bitty thing. She calls it her happy place.”
Rafe felt a surge of adrenaline. His hunter’s instincts sharpened. The Raines’ second home on the ocean, the place where he and Bunny were supposed to engage in the post-marital ritualistic period of harmony referred to by humans as the “honeymoon.” She had run from him, but she had not run far. Viewing the circumstances in the best possible light, she had, in reality, run
to
him. A little of the tightness in his chest eased.
“I will find her.” He took a deep breath. “Much as it pains me to admit it, you are correct in one aspect, Addy. I did not explain things to Bunny as I should have. I nailed up.”
Addy’s eyes twinkled. “You
screwed
up, Red.”
“Whatever.” He waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal.
“I will rectify my mistake. I will find Bunny and make her understand. She is mine now.”
“Ooh, possessive,” Addy said. “Boy, for an ‘I’m-incontrol’ kind of guy who would
never
do something as humanly pathetic as fall in love, you seem mighty interested in our Bunny.”
Rafe ignored her. She was not a warrior. She could not understand the warrior way. His desire to shield Bunny had everything to do with duty and honor, and nothing to do with
love.
He turned to the brothers. “You have some means of transport here?”
“I rode with the wife,” Cam said. “But Coop’s got his truck.”
Rafe held out his hand. “You will give me the keys to this vehicle.”
Coop eyed him with uncertainty. “Do you know how to drive a five-speed?”
“No, but that will not be a problem.”
Coop shook his head. “Damn straight it won’t be a problem, ’cause I ain’t giving you my truck.”
Something inside of Rafe snapped. He snarled and seized Coop by the throat, much to Cam’s apparent delight.
“But I’ll take you wherever you want to go,” Coop wheezed.
Rafe released him. “That is good. Where is this truck of yours?”
Rubbing his throat and glaring at his chortling brother, Coop pointed to the grassy field where the guests had parked their cars. “Over there, the red Ford with the big toolbox on the back.”
Coop gave a startled yelp as Rafe grabbed him by the arm and teleported them across the lot.
Coop swayed and grabbed the side of the truck for support. “Whoa, musta had more to drink than I thought. Thing is, I don’t remember drinking anything. Last thing I remember is leaving the church for the reception and the next thing I know I’m standing in the river naked as a jaybird.” He shook his head. “Man, I’m gonna catch hell from Audrey when she hears about this. Good thing she’s in Mobile at the hospital with her mama. I wouldn’t wish a heart attack on anyone, but if Audrey was here and caught me with my Johnson hanging out at my sister’s wedding,
I’d
be the one in the ICU.”
Rafe opened the door and climbed into the passenger side of the truck. “Do not trouble yourself. Your wife will not hear of this. Take me to your sister.”
“
Take me to your sister.
” Coop slid into the driver’s seat and turned the key. The truck engine rumbled to life. “You sound like a little green man from one of those cheesy science fiction movies.” He made a wide circle on the grass and pulled onto the narrow, winding dirt road that led from the church, through the woods to the highway beyond. “ ’Cept they say ‘take me to your leader,’ not ‘your sister.’ ”
“I am not green or little,” Rafe said.
“You can say that again. You and that brother of yours are big sonsabitches.” Coop’s belly jiggled as the truck bumped down the tree-lined road. “So are you, or aren’t you?”
“Am I what?”
“An alien.”
Rafe sighed mentally. He knew Cooper was joking, but he was in no mood for levity. He would tell him the truth and erase his memory later.
“I am not from Earth.”
Cooper slammed his palm on the steering wheel. “Not from Earth, that’s a good one. Do you lie to your mama out of that same mouth?”
“The Dalvahni do not have mothers. We are an immortal warrior race created some ten millennia ago by the god Kehvahn to keep the djegrali in check.”
“The what?”
“Demons, you humans call them.”
Coop chuckled. “Demons and a god named Kevin. Hoo boy, you’re a strange one. You know that?”
Rafe remained silent, his thoughts on Bunny. He stared out the windshield at the road, willing the truck to go faster. Bunny was somewhere up ahead. What if the djegrali had followed her?
He clenched his fists. No. He would find her first and slay the djegrali.
She would be safe.
He would destroy anyone or anything that tried to harm her.
Brand’s words floated through his mind.
But who will protect Bunny from you?
What would Bunny do when he left her? She loved him. She had told him so many times in words and in a thousand other ways. It was in her beautiful eyes every time she looked at him, and in the way she came apart in his arms. In truth, his empty soul drank in the sweet words like a rainparched flower. She was so open and gentle and loving, so generous and giving. After he left, would she turn to another for comfort?
A tortuous image formed in his mind of Bunny in someone else’s arms, her white limbs wrapped around another man’s waist as he moved in and out of her . . .
A red haze seized his brain and his mind slammed shut. No, he would not think about that. Bunny was his . . . at least for now.
Emptiness loomed ahead of him at the thought of living without her. Absently, he rubbed his aching chest but the pain did not subside. The Dalvahni were immune to sickness and healed quickly. This hurt, whatever it was, would soon be gone.
He would not think about leaving Bunny. He would think about the hunt and keeping her safe.
What she did after he returned to the Hall of Warriors . . .
He would not think about that either.
The two-lane highway cut through the gently rolling farmland of Behr County. Cattle grazed in open fields, and pines and hardwoods jostled with one another to reach the side of the road. Bunny usually enjoyed this drive but today she saw none of the pastoral beauty of South Alabama. Her beautiful wedding and her beautiful husband were the shattered dreams of a naïve fool. She alternated between tears and anger. All she could think about was getting away, driving faster. Drive fast enough and Audrey’s pink Cadillac would abandon the highway and soar into the clouds like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, taking her away from her life and her problems.
She was going eighty miles per hour when she crossed the line into Baldwin County. She barely noticed the gray trooper car parked at an abandoned gas station. The wail of the siren jerked her out of her misery. She looked in the rearview mirror and saw the blue light.
“Shoot, oh shoot,” she said, pulling onto the grassy berm.
The state trooper got out of his vehicle and walked up to her window.
“I clocked you doing 85 in a 55 mile per hour zone, ma’am. What’s the big hurry?”
Bunny dropped her head onto the steering wheel. “I—I’m a little upset, officer. I didn’t realize how fast I was going.”
“Uh huh. That’s no excuse to break the law. I’m going to have to write you a ticket.”
“Great,” Bunny mumbled.
“Just got married, huh?” The officer chuckled. “Most people take their husband along for the honeymoon. But I don’t see yours. Course, he could be buried under all that Charmin in the backseat.”
Oh, brother. Of all the troopers in Alabama, she got the funny guy. Bunny sighed and lifted her head.
“Darn.” Wiping her eyes, she looked up at the officer through the open window. “I knew I forgot something.”
He was younger than she expected, maybe in his mid-thirties, with warm brown skin, strong features and a wide, pleasant smile.
His friendly smile faded and his mouth fell open. What was the matter with him? She’d been crying but, jeez, she couldn’t look that bad. She felt a spasm of alarm. Oh good God, surely he wouldn’t arrest her?
“Is there a problem, Officer?”
“Duuuh,” he said.
She took a quick peek in the rearview mirror. Nope, her mascara was fine, though she did have a few spots of icing here and there.
“Pretty,” the trooper said, giving her a goofy grin.
“Look, Officer, I know I was speeding and I’m sorry. I promise to slow down. So if you’ll just write me a ticket, I’ll be on my way and—”
“Pretty,” he said again.
She waved her hand in his face. He looked back at her without blinking.
“Uh, thanks. Can I please have my ticket now? I’m kind of in a hurry.”
He shredded the ticket and handed it to her. “Wedding present. Pretty.”
Bunny felt certain he wasn’t supposed to do that, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Gee, that’s awfully nice of you, Officer. Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll be going.” Giving him a bright smile and a wave, Bunny eased her car back onto the road. “Bye now,” she called out the open window. “I’ll watch my speed, I promise.”
As she drove off, she checked him in her rearview mirror. He stood by the side of the road gazing after her with a hangdog look on his face, his shoulders slumped in a mournful fashion.
“Like a kid at Christmas with a broken toy.” She shook her head. “Weird.”
Not so weird if you think about it, dummy
, a voice inside her head said.
Bunny groaned aloud. She knew that voice, although she hadn’t listened to it much lately.
It was Smart Bunny. Smart Bunny kept her out of trouble. Smart Bunny was . . . well . . .
smart.
Dumb Bunny . . . ? Eh, not so much. And Dumb Bunny had been running the show since she met Rafe.
Remember the gaggle of teenage boys that have been hanging around the library for the past few weeks?
Smart Bunny asked.
You wrote it off as boredom and interest in that cute little Betsy Phillips who’s been volunteering in the afternoons.