“Perhaps not left field, but
Mary
Fields is the reason for your disruption.” Jake said the words to the air in front of him as he kept walking. I glared angry holes in the man’s back.
“I can control myself, Jake. I understand she needs to be protected. Amber won’t exactly let me forget I didn’t keep my promise to keep her away from the fight that night.”
Jake stopped in his tracks. He turned and gripped my shoulders—his eyes flashed as his wolf pressed forward. “You should never apologize for saving the life of my mate. Amber may be the most stubborn woman in all of eternity, but she is my mate and the woman I love. No matter what she says, or what vulgarity might come from her mouth, know that deep down she is grateful for her life. I, even more so.”
“Don’t go getting all mushy, Hart. I get it. And…thanks.”
“I still find myself unable to stop smiling at sharing a Clan name with my mate.”
“You are such a girl.”
He socked me in the gut. Any buzz was long gone at that point. Mixing a vampire and a werewolf resulted in some serious power behind a punch.
“You should show respect. Just because you are in a mood does not give you the right to insult me.” Then he bent down over me and let his eyes flash like a wicked grey strobe light. I closed my lids to prevent from being dazzled. His chuckle chafed.
“Now who looks to be the female?”
Dammit.
Being the Beta wasn’t easy. My male leader could dazzle me if he wanted to, my female leader was crazy, and although I believed in them both, neither one seemed above putting me in my place. I opened one eye and chanced a look up. Just like I had come to expect, Jake was there holding out his hand to help me up.
“I respect you, and I understand you are adjusting as we all are, but do not push without expecting a shove in return.” With that Jake left me standing holding my last bottle of liquor. He kept walking as he talked.
“I erased the memory of the store clerk, before she called the tabloids. She was babbling about seeing a bigfoot, and the last thing we need is to end up on a reality show with those humans who are trying their hand at mythical creature hunting.”
At least I wasn’t the one being dazzled. I popped the twist off lid and downed more booze. Looked like Mary wasn’t the only one screwing up anymore.
Chapter Five
Mary
As always our stop involved food. Well, at least for Amber, our stops always involved food. I had to watch myself because if I tried to eat all the times she did, I would be involved in one of those rescues where the fire department had to break down the walls to get your lard butt out of your house.
Right now, I was watching my best friend inhale her fattening feast. I must’ve stressed her out. She was eating a lot. Even for her.
“I can’t turn you, Mary.” Amber mumbled around the bite in her mouth.
“That’s bull. You exist as you are because of something that couldn’t be done. I don’t understand why you are so unwilling to give it a shot with me.” Amber and I were camped out at the little chocolate shop across the street from the liquor store. For Amber, chocolate covered pretzels and chocolate milkshakes were great. I had a chocolate Diet Coke because unlike my best friend, I would put on five pounds with what she was eating.
“It’s not that simple, Mary. If I screw up, you die. Hell, I already had increased healing ability, and the change still almost killed me. You’re just human.” Amber looked just as pained as she always did when we talked about this.
“Don’t remind me.” Personally I was over being
just
a human.
“Turning you into a werewolf…now there’s a more realistic option. And we happen to have such a wolf along with us.” She waggled her brows with the last part.
“Craig? He’d turn me? I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that.”
“If you are looking for comfortable, you shouldn’t change at all. You think this is some sort of happy shindig you get after you sip a bit of blood? Let me tell you something. Changing into a wolf hurts. The magic coursing through our bodies during a change is freeing and wonderful, but our bones break and reform every time we do it.” Amber emphasized her point by making horrible snapping and cracking sounds with a breaking motion. Subtle. “We heal fast, sure, but the crunch can still make my eyes cross if I’m not ready.”
“You said it’s easier after you do it a few times.” My voice wasn’t as strong after the sound effects. The eye-crossing pain wasn’t the route I had expected her to go.
I had my arguments in place for the karma bit, and the self-preservation angle to combat my possible loss of witchy powers. No one had seen a spell-casting wolf before, and they weren’t sure where that would leave me. Apparently, the pain was guaranteed. Damn her knowing me so well. I wasn’t real good with pain.
The night of her change Amber had needed my blood. I had just found out that vampires weren’t only on my paranormal romance shelf in my bookcase, and then I was told I had to let my best friend chew on me. Amber hadn’t even been conscious when Jake’s sister grabbed the back of my neck and cut me open with her fingernail. She pushed me over the top of a shriveled corpse and held me thereby the back of my neck. I opened my mouth to scream, but then Amber’s fangs bit me. I was running on adrenaline and it still hurt like crazy. Amber just poked a couple holes in my neck and arm. Broken bones? Um, ouch.
“Does it get easier? Yeah. But it’s more about getting used to the pain, not of it hurting less. You cried when you stubbed your toe on a chair post in stats class.” Amber shoveled a handful of those delicious chocolate pretzels into her mouth. She looked at me sideways as she licked her fingers. “Since you were listening anyway, you know the guys think your psychic gift is the key to us figuring this whole mess out. Shelly thought so too. At this point in my life I am a firm believer of fate. Didn’t you ever wonder why you were drawn to me in the first place?”
Amber kept popping the pretzels like they were popcorn. She probably didn’t even taste them. I had to take one, just to savor it with my human taste buds for her. It was out of respect for the chocolate.
“It wasn’t fate. You were purple. I just thought it was really cool.” I was just going to leave it at that, but she did the creepy stock-still thing again.
“What do you mean I was purple?”
“Oh…right. We haven’t really talked about the colors thing yet. I think Craig mentioned it, but you had your tongue down Jake’s throat at the time. Never mind. Are you going to eat those?” Well it wasn’t like I was keeping it from her. In the midst of running from blood-thirsty vampires, pun totally intended, it never came up in conversation. I felt like I was at the kid table most of the time, and the grownups were always talking about more important things.
“What the hell are you talking about? You know you should be telling me everything that’s going on. We are in this together and…okay.” My eyes must have betrayed my annoyance, because Amber backpedaled. “Don’t give me that look. I get it. Flow of info should go both ways.”
I popped another pretzel in my mouth and nodded. This was one of those conversations that had been a while coming. Maybe I was a bit at fault too. I bury myself in my notebook when I can’t figure out what to say. I wasn’t afraid of Amber, but knowing your friend is probably immortal makes her a bit more intimidating when you are trying to brow-beat her.
“It’s not like we’ve had a lot of time to sit and chat lately. You’ve been too busy pawning me off to local witches to even have a conversation with me. That and having happy sexy time with Jake.” I mumbled the last part, but it’s seriously hard to have a convo when your buddy is in full-on afterglow.
Amber wiped her hands on her pants and pushed the bag with the crumbs in it aside. “Let’s get back to the purple thing.”
“If you two are talking about a penis, I am going back for another drink.” Craig’s voice was jarring, and the only thing that stopped me from grabbing the pretzel bag and licking the crumbs. With his comment my mind went to thoughts of licking something else entirely.
Craig looked a bit ruffled. His shirt was wrinkled around his stomach and his dirty blond hair flowed through his fingers as he brushed it off his face. He looked buzzed. How much did he have to drink to deal with the thought of me becoming a vampire or werewolf? Was my becoming a full member of the Clan that horrible to think about?
I pushed myself up and tossed our trash. I couldn’t even pay for anything. The least I could do was be the maid. “I’m done talking about it right now. Don’t we have someplace we have to get to?” I tried to hold my head high as I walked towards the van. It was getting harder and harder to do. “Isn’t there someone else you have to hand me over to? I’m tired, guys. Let’s just hit the road.”
I went back to the van and sat inside. Jake joined Amber and Craig, and the supernatural trio stood outside talking. I twisted the key in the ignition and blasted some music. If I was going to sit at the kid table I was at least going to have some tunes.
Amber complained, often and loudly, about how much Jake kept from her at the beginning of their relationship. I don’t know what kept me from calling her out on the irony of that statement. But when she was kept in the dark, she was still able to take care of herself and walk away. It made me feel even more useless as I realized there was nowhere for me to go.
I dug underneath my seat and grabbed the zippered pouch that held the sad remnants of my pencils. I needed replacements in a serious way. I propped my feet up on the middle bench seat where I was sitting, and leaned against the solid metal door.
I was looking at a blank wall with a door handle. Not a whole lot of inspiration there, but suddenly images started to flood my brain. Thank goodness I had paper.
The image came together so easily. The more I drew the more the abstract images started to take shape, but not ones I really wanted to see. It was fire. Seemingly my new nemesis was buddy-buddy with my muse. Amidst the flames were two bodies clinging to each other. There was so much passion between them I could feel it. Now
that
I could get behind. My hand kept flying.
Despite the static nature of a drawing I saw them moving with each other. No, it wasn’t fire. It was a pulsing red aura. A man and a woman were naked among the swirls. I drew small details along the edges. My hand was taking its own path. There were trees around the red lines. Pine trees. A small tent propped up in their shade, and a book tossed to the ground at their feet. I didn’t have the title but it was a picture of a woman with a corset being unlaced.
The man’s face was the last bit of information that flew from my fingers. It was Craig. And it was me with him. Sure I had thought about it before. But sex wasn’t the reason I crumpled up the page and tossed it beneath the seat.
The red aura. It couldn’t be the same one. I looked up to the hood of the van and counted the burn marks, and tried to think of anything else. That damn picture wasn’t just on paper. The image seared in my brain and I couldn’t deny what the red was. I had seen that aura only one other time. It surrounded Amber and Jake when they were together. It was the deep red I had come to understand as the color that flowed between mates.
The door to the van slid open.
“I wasn’t doing anything. I swear. Are we going? I’m ready to go. Shotgun!” I hopped into the front seat and buckled my seatbelt.
I was done being a witch. Totally over it.
I knew there was no napping for me. I’d just had my first psychic episode outside of my dreams. I’ll be dammed if I was going to sleep right now. With my luck, I would end up moaning Craig’s name in this van. I was also a little freaked out by the vision. Was I Craig’s mate? If I was, wouldn’t I know it? Amber told me stories about how she met Jake, and both of them had known right away. Another thing I was doing wrong. Great.
Chapter Six
Craig
Hunger is something I dealt with on a daily basis. Werewolf metabolism had me constantly hungry for something. There is a hunger for food—basic and primal. We need sustenance for our bodies to survive. I should have had food instead of alcohol. Any calories I drank at that stop were pissed out before we took off. My stomach growled louder than the noise the bald tires made when we got too close to the side of the road. Amber danced a bit too exuberantly behind the wheel for my taste.
There is also hunger for power. The struggle between people to rule over others seems to be at the heart of a lot of bloodshed. And it probably played a big part in us being stuck in this foul smelling hunk of metal. We were missing something important. We all knew this road trip wasn’t a permanent solution. Matheo Meyers wanted control. For some reason he saw Amber as a threat. Until we figured out why, this dirty, slightly ripped upholstery was what we had to live with.
Now I understood Mary’s annoyance at being stuck in the back seat. I swear it smelled worse back here. There was something black and gelatinous in one of the cup holders. So I slid away from it and looked out the other window.
I took a deep breath from the wind whistling through the cracked glass. Even that little bit of fresh air was welcome. I tried to wash my lungs of the heaviness in the van. Instead my chest constricted when I realized I was in the spot Mary had pretended to sleep. Her scent was everywhere, and yet another hunger sprang to life. Sexual hunger. Lust. My hunger wasn’t the only thing springing to life.