Page 22 of Twice Bitten
The smoke had the benefit of drowning out all the other scents in the car, too, and that alone made my headache recede a bit. The mix of Jack’s fresh, warm, alpha earthiness with Brent’s sharp, cheap-cologne-infused werewolf smell, not to mention the overlay of Hendler’s faint reek, had me nearly crawling out of my own skin.
I opened my eyes at the sound of a loud, growly engine. A Harley pulled up by the curb, not turning into the Starbucks lot, but simply idling there. The rider had a full-face helmet on with a tinted visor, and his head had turned our way.
Something—in fact, everything—about it pinged all my instincts.
“Harley dudes don’t usually wear helmets like that,” Jack said, putting part of my misgivings into words perfectly. “Actually. Hang on. That’s one of the bikes that was parked outside the bar last night.”
“Are you sure?” Motorcycles were motorcycles to me. I could tell a Harley from a sports bike, but my expertise, and interest, ended there. “He could be stopping to look at us just because the car’s bouncing like a funhouse ride.”
Brent chose that moment to start shouting again, and Jack’s eyes flashed. “Brent, shut the hell up,” he said in a tone that made me want to cringe down into my seat.
Brent shut the hell up and stopped thrashing like someone had hit his off switch, and I gaped at Jack in mingled appreciation and rage.
“Any particular fucking reason why you couldn’t have done that an hour ago?” I demanded.
Jack gave me a sheepish look from under his eyelashes that shouldn’t have been so cute on his harsh, alpha-werewolf face. “I don’t really like playing the dominant mate card. It makes me feel like an asshole.”
Even though Brent deserved as much assholery as Jack could possibly dish out, that made me go all…soft and squishy inside.
Fuck, fuck,fuck.
“Yeah, well,” I grumbled, turning away to look out the window.
The Harley still sat there. As I watched, another pulled up across the street. Obviously Hendler had friends in the neighborhood, and they were onto us. My mind raced. Okay, so maybe they’d been meant to rendezvous with him later in the morning when Jack called. It’d make sense; an alpha in full rage-mode wouldn’t be easy to take down. Hendler might be an idiot, but even so, he’d have realized he’d need backup. So maybe he’d missed a phone call, they’d gone to the cabin, they’d put the pieces together…and shit. They could’ve reviewed the footage from those security cameras. They’d have known what car to look for.
“We need to go, now,” Jack said, right as I said, “I think Nate’s going to have to go without his mocha and sprinkles.”
I turned the engine back on and eased out of my parking spot. I’d have liked to cruise through the drive-through lane and out the other side where the building would screen our exit from the parking lot and maybe throw off the two bikers for a minute, but the lane still had a line of cones and a sign blocking it off. Running it all over and gunning for it would be a sure sign we’d made our stalkers.
Instead, I went around the building the other way and took the exit on the other side, still in view of one of the guys but at least not having to drive directly past either of them on my way out.
I glanced in the rearview mirror. They were moving.
Well, shit. Even if they were normal humans, they could cause us a lot of grief. This situation was nothing like being hand-to-hand where our strength and speed would have given us the advantage. If we got run off the road, we could be knocked unconscious, nearly as vulnerable as anyone else given the weight of the vehicles and the speed and forces involved. At least temporarily. We’d recover inhumanly fast, but that little window would be enough to finish us off.
“Call Nate back,” I told Jack as I sped off toward the highway, heading for the Armitage territory and the potential for reinforcements. I briefly considered calling Esther, but we were a lot closer to the Armitages than we were to Lancaster. “Tell him we’re coming in hot.”
Jack picked up my phone. “How long have you been waiting for a reason to say that, Angelo?”
My face went hotter than the sun and probably looked like a tomato, not a great contrast with my lavender hair. So I maybe had a slight obsession with military sci-fi shows. Maybe.
“Shut up,” I said.
Jack shut up and dialed Nate. I listened with half an ear while keeping an eye out and driving as fast as the rural road would safely allow, plus a few miles per hour. The bikers had dropped back enough that I only caught glimpses around curves and through trees, but at least dawn had broken sufficiently to give me that much. Besides, I could hear them. No way to be sneaky on a pair of Harleys.
Nate said they’d be heading to the territory boundary to “help with our exfil,” a totally misused expression that made me think he watched the same shows I did but paid less attention, and then spared a moment to complain about not getting his coffee.
Gods, I hoped he had more skill with magic than with customer service. If Nate was the charismatic face of the business, Arik had to be something special.
Redwood trees whipped past as we roared—as much as a Subaru hatchback could roar—down the narrow highway, taking the curves at speeds that would’ve been a problem if anyone else had been on the road. But the sun had barely come up, and there was no one around. Brent had started moaning, and I hoped he’d throw up under the duct tape. Serve him right.
Hendler kicked and thumped, his motions making the car harder to control.
We almost made it to the Armitage territory.
Almost.
Jack had pulled up some GPS on my phone, and it showed we only had another mile or so to go before the turnoff into their land.
