Hunting Human (23 page)

Chase’s eyes cut through him, slicing away his frustration like talons through flesh. “Someone’s outside Lucy’s studio. I’m on my way now.”

“Shit. She say who it was?”

“No, she couldn’t tell.” Chase grabbed the keys off the hook by the door. “I’m going to go pick her up. You need to stay here with Beth. Call your parents. Caleb, too.”

“Caleb’s still in Portland.” Braden followed Chase out the door and down the front steps to his car.

“Call him anyway.” Chase swung into his car, slamming the door behind him. The engine revved and he rolled down the window. “Stay here, I’ll be back.”

Braden grabbed the steering wheel, keeping Chase from peeling out. “She’s at the studio Chase, in the middle of the afternoon. It’s bound to be packed. Don’t cause a scene.”

“I’m going.” He put the car in reverse and hit the accelerator at the same time Braden snatched his hand back. Chase gunned the engine, spewing gravel and fishtailing as he made a hard right on the main road.

“What’s happened?” Beth stood on the porch, clutching her robe around her.

“Lucy thinks someone’s outside the studio. Chase has gone to see what’s going on.”

“Is she okay?” Beth strode rapidly off the porch, concern tightening her face. “Does she know who it is?”

“She’s fine. And no, we don’t know who it is.” Braden propelled her back into the house. “Come on. I’ve got to make some phone calls.”

“Will he be all right by himself?” Beth asked.

Braden locked the door behind them. “Should I be jealous?” When Beth didn’t rise to the bait he continued, “He’ll be fine. He’s likely to have a harder time with Lucy than anything else.” Braden took the stairs two at a time, heading for the office.

“What? Why? He’s just going to bring her home, right?”

“I’m sure that’s what he thinks he’s going to do.” Moving into the study, Braden searched his desk for his cell phone. “But it’s the middle of the afternoon—Lucy’s ballet studio is probably full of kids. Unless she thinks the kids are in danger, she’ll make Chase stick out the afternoon with her. She won’t be done with classes until after seven, so he ought to be in a really good mood when they get back.”

Pulling his phone from beneath a stack of reports, Braden unlocked the key guard and scrolled through his contacts list.

“How can you make light of this?” Beth demanded. “You’re acting like this is no big deal.”

Braden glanced up. Beth stood before him, feet shoulder width apart, hands balled into fists and her entire body charged with defensive energy. Except her eyes—her eyes showed the wild terror she was trying to reign in.

“Beth…” Braden moved around the desk, taking hold of her arm and pulling her toward him. “We’ve been expecting this.” He smiled and used his thumb to smooth the line that creased her forehead. “We’ve dealt with this before. The Bolveks enjoy the game as much as the hunt and the kill. They’re toying with us. Toying with you,” Braden growled. “It’s what they do. Markko wants you terrified, jumping at shadows. He revels in the control it gives him. He’ll draw this out for as long as he can or until he gets bored.” He ran a hand along the side of her face, tilting her chin up to look at him. “You can’t let his scare tactics work. The less you react, the less
we
react, the more likely he’ll grow bored and frustrated. The more likely he’ll make a fatal mistake.”

“You knew he’d do this?” Suspicious accusation laced her words.

“From the moment he didn’t kill you in the dressing room.” Beth bristled in his arms and pulled away.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Anger burned across her face.

Better anger than terror.

Braden braced himself for the heat of her temper. “What difference would it have made? Would your decision to stay have changed?”

“No.”

“How about your decision to put yourself through learning how to control the shift, would that have changed?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.” He reached for her again, relieved when she didn’t pull her hand away. “You had enough on your mind. You didn’t need any more.”

She tilted her chin up, jaw setting stubbornly. “You want me to trust you? Don’t leave me in the dark. I need to know what’s going on.”

“Okay.” He pulled her to him, kissing the top of her head. “Now,” he said, pulling away from her and picking up his phone, “I’m going to call my parents, alright?”

“Yeah. Fine. First, give me Lucy’s number at the studio. I want to call her, see if I can talk her into coming home early.”

Braden laughed, but scrolled through his phone book, jotting down Lucy’s office and cell numbers on a sticky note. “Be my guest, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. She’s as stubborn as you are.” He handed the note over and dialed his father. “You can use the landline on the desk. Good luck.”

She gave him a challenging look as she picked up the phone.

Braden shrugged. “You’re gonna need it.”

***

Beth checked her watch again. Twenty past seven. Where the hell were Lucy and Chase? She resumed her pacing by the living room window, trying to reach out with her hearing. Was that a car approaching?

No.

Nothing. Just a faint buzzing noise and a headache. She couldn’t calm down enough to concentrate. Braden had been right, of course. Lucy had adamantly refused to leave the ballet studio, insisting that she had a job to do and that Chase could hang out with her for the afternoon. Beth still didn’t understand why Lucy had sounded positively gleeful about it.

“You keep that up and I’m going to have to replace those floorboards.” Anna appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Come on, you can come help me put dinner together.”

Beth pulled herself away from the window and followed Anna into the kitchen. “What can I do?”

“I’ve mostly got dinner handled, but I was going to try my hand at some apple turnovers. you could give me a hand with those.” She gestured to where a sheet of phyllo dough was warming on the counter. “Can you cut those out for me?”

“Sure.” Beth pushed her sleeves up and then set to work rolling the dough out onto wax paper, comfortable in a task she’d done many times in Angie’s kitchen. But the distraction didn’t last long. By the time Beth was laying neatly cut pieces of dough out, she was glancing out the window every thirty seconds.

“They’ll be fine,” Anna said, an amused smile softening her expression.

“I don’t know how you do this, how you stay so calm.” Beth brushed her arm against her forehead, trying to push her sleeve back up her arm. “It’s so stressful.”

“It’s not always like this. In fact, more often than not, I forget there’s anything different about our family. Conflict like this is pretty rare.”

“I’m sorry.” Not for the first time, Beth wondered if she wasn’t being unconscionably selfish staying with Braden and his family. This wasn’t their problem.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Anna waved her off with a hand. “We were probably due. It’s been years since the last confrontation with the Bolveks. And, well, in a family with three sons, and a husband who tends to get pulled into their
adventures—”
Anna replied as she made quotation marks with her fingers and rolled her eyes, “—you learn to expect these sorts of things.”

“So it doesn’t bother you that I brought Markko to your doorstep? That he threatened Lucy, probably just because she was with me?” Beth asked incredulously.

Anna stuck out a finger and leveled her with a glare. “First, you didn’t bring Markko here. I promise you, he’d have shown up sooner or later.” She held up a warning hand when Beth started to argue. “You didn’t. Braden brought you here and, while I’m not endorsing his method of transportation, the bottom line is you are important to my son. Therefore, you are important to us. It’s that simple.” Anna considered her quietly for a long moment. “I hope someday that won’t bother you so much.”

“I hope so, too,” Beth said, feeling Anna gazing shrewdly at her, looking for the lie in her words. “It’s hard sometimes. You’ve been so accommodating. So welcoming. You and your family make everything seem so normal…I never thought I’d feel that way again.” Words and emotions tangled in her throat, making her voice thick and heavy. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’m falling into your lives, into your family because it’s easy…”

“Oh, honey…”

“Hey, hey. What’s for dinner?” Lucy interrupted, bounding into the kitchen. “I’m starving.”

“Don’t leave your bag in the doorway where anyone can trip over it. And we’re having pork loin. You’ve got about fifteen minutes if you want to go upstairs and freshen up.”

“Nah. What are you making, Beth?”

“Apple turnovers,” Beth answered, bewildered by Lucy’s nonchalant attitude. “Are you okay?”

“What?” Lucy looked confused at first, then waved her hand dismissively, the exact same way her mother had. “Oh, you mean whoever was outside the studio? No big deal. He was gone by the time Chase got there. Probably just wanted to try and rattle us. I wouldn’t have even called, except he showed up where I work and kids come in and out all day.”

“I’m not sure you should go to work anymore, Lucy, at least not by yourself.” Beth plowed ahead before Lucy could argue. “Look, I know you have more experience with this sort of thing, that you aren’t as concerned by it. But it bothers me. I’m worried about you. I don’t think you understand what he’d do to you, Lucy. I couldn’t bear it.” Beth pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “I know you can take care of yourself, but promise me,
promise me
you won’t take any risks.”

Lucy opened her mouth, her face set for an argument and then snapped it shut. “I promise.” She slid onto a barstool. “Besides, Chase agrees with you, he’s not going to be satisfied with taking me to work and dropping me off, anymore.”

Beth breathed a sigh of relief. No matter how many times they tried to reassure her, she would never understand how the Edwardses seemed to take everything in stride.

***

“What are you doing out here?” Braden asked, stepping out on the porch and letting the screen door slam shut behind him.

“Just thinking.” Beth made room for him on the swing. “It’s quiet out here.”

“Yeah.” Braden relaxed into the seat next to her, pushing the bench back and forth with his foot. “Thinking about anything in particular? Or do I even need to ask.”

“I hate the waiting. I hate not knowing what’s coming.” Warm fingers slid against her own. She let her head rest against his shoulder. “Sometimes I forget Markko’s out there. Your family makes everything so easy.” She was coming to rely on their support to the point that she wondered if she could manage on her own anymore. She didn’t like the feeling that left her with.

“I understand. Forgetting what’s out there, even for a little while, makes it that much harder to deal with when you’re abruptly reminded. Like today.” Braden pulled her toward him and wrapped an arm around her, his hand lightly massaging her shoulder.

“Like today,” she agreed

“Enjoying the time you spend out here isn’t a crime, Beth. Neither is forgetting that we’re different.” He sounded relieved by the thought. “Besides, look how much you’ve accomplished,” he pointed out, pride coloring his voice.

“Yeah, but it took weeks to get this far. If you hadn’t intervened, I’d probably still be out in the woods listening to Chase tell me to focus while I contemplated ways to kill him.”

Braden laughed and squeezed her. “Chase knows how to control his wolf better than anyone I’ve ever met, including my father. But he isn’t always the best at communicating the principles. You accomplished in less than two weeks what took me more than three months.”

“I was motivated.”

“Yeah, you were,” Braden quietly acknowledged. “But you aren’t alone. You don’t have to bear the weight of this by yourself anymore.”

“I don’t want your family hurt, not because of me.” The thought ate at her like a poisoned wound.

“They know how to look out for themselves, and even if something were to happen, it wouldn’t be your fault.” Braden caught her face with a warm palm, coaxing her to look at him. “It wouldn’t be, Beth.”

Beth nodded, her cheek caressing his palm as she did so. They sat in silence for a long time after that, Braden idly pushing them back and forth on the swing.

Movement along the tree line caught Beth’s attention. Chase walked along the trees, his father a few steps behind him.

“Where are they going?”

“Hmm?”

Beth gestured toward the two men entering the forest. “Chase and your dad, where are they going?”

“Oh. Just to check the woods around the property. Two of us have been going out every night. We’ll know if Markko or anyone else enters our property. It’s just a precaution. Something we do routinely, anyway. You don’t need to worry about it,” he said, toying with a strand of her hair.

Beth sighed and balled her fists. “I wish I knew what he was waiting for.”

“Would it really help? Or would it just make you worry more as time began to slip by faster and faster?”

“I don’t like not knowing. I can’t be prepared for what I don’t expect.”

“Chase and I have been discussing it.”

“And?”

“There’s a full moon coming up.” Braden paused, but what he was waiting for, Beth couldn’t tell. “It’s the second full moon this month.”

“Oh.”
Oh.
It suddenly made sense. The last time she and Markko had encountered each other had been during the last blue moon. “He’d like the symmetry.”

“Feel better?” Braden asked.

“Not really,” Beth admitted. “But I don’t feel any worse, either.” She stretched her legs and took one last look at the forest not a hundred yards from the house.

Is that where it will end, one way or another?

“I think I’m going to head up to bed.” She rose from the swing and turned toward the door.

“You’re upset.” He caught her hand as she passed him. “What can I do?”

Beth turned, caught Braden’s gaze and squeezed his fingers. “Nothing. Not right now.” She watched fascinated as his eyes dilated and his fingers flexed in her own. He released her hand and leaned back into the swing.

“Whatever you need. Whatever you want, I’m here,” he said as he pushed himself up and went inside.