Page 35 of Hunted Mate
“We have to get out of here,” she says. “Or maybe we don’t. I haven’t decided yet. I assume the wolves will try to come for us, but good luck breaking in here without people noticing. This place is under all kinds of surveillance. That damn van is going to be drawing attention. I need to get rid of that.”
“I don’t think it matters,” I say. “The van, I mean. We have other things to worry about.”
She pulls out her phone. “Yep. See. There you go.”
She’s opened a gossip site. There’s a picture of the van already, and her driving it.
Who wore it best? Heiress in a hurry.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I point out.
“They’ve been waiting for me to go off the rails for years. Then the office partly burned down and I took some time off, and I guess they think I’m ripe for shaving my head,” she says.
She really is watched by a lot of people, far more than the average woman. I wonder if she even understands what it means to have a stalker given how many followers of various guises she has.
“I need you to come with me,” I say. “I’m going to New Orleans, and I want you with me. I don’t want you to be out of my sight again. I can’t trust anyone.”
“Why?” She narrows her eyes suspiciously and pulls away a little.
“The alpha there wants to see me. I spent a little too long on my assignment with you. That’s why my brother was sent to find me.”
“That guy’s your brother? He seems like an asshole.”
“He is, and yes. You get that with older brothers, especially in wolf packs. They think being born first should give them some kind of seniority. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t.”
She frowns. “I don’t think I should go to New Orleans if there’s an alpha there who sent more people after you. I don’t think much of the politics of your kind, having been incarcerated and nearly killed. They keep people like animals, like they had the right to kill us in cold blood.”
“No harm will come to you if you are with me,” I assure her. “I will not allow it.”
“You couldn’t stop me being kidnapped. I bet your brother had something to do with that too,” she says, eyes narrowed with suspicion. It’s a fair question. Not even a question. A wager.
“He did. He wanted you out of the picture.”
“Okay, well, sure, let’s go on a road trip to meet the person who sent him after me. Why not? Now I have a body count, why not expand on it? And what about Molly and Mark?”
“Who are Molly and Mark?”
“They’re the other people who were captured and waiting to die,” she says.
“What about them?”
“If I let them go without some kind of protection, the pack will find them and hurt them. They don’t deserve to die just becausethey saw something. If your kind doesn’t want to be spotted, don’t dance around in the fucking woods turning into wolves in the firelight. This happens all the fucking time as far as I can tell. Going for a hike shouldn’t be a death sentence.”
“Bring them, then, but they’ll be in just as much danger. You are special, Callie. They are not. They are absolutely expendable, and you are going to put them in danger, along with the rest of us.”
“Molly, Mark! Do you guys want to come with me to a wolf-infested New Orleans? Or do you want to stay here in wolf-infested New York?”
I don’t know what I expected to see when Molly and Mark appear, but it’s not the two people who emerge. They look like they belong in a much less palatial environment. Mark especially is dressed like he’s accustomed to brewing his own alcohol and hunting his own meat. Molly gives me an arch look, as if she’s sizing me up.
I know very well that Callie doesn’t have many friends. She has hundreds of social connections, and probably thousands of people who would do her bidding if she were to ask, but she never really gets close to people in an easy, friendly way. I don’t think these people are friends either. I think they are under her protection.
The two humans look at one another with an understandable hesitance. “Do you have any non-wolf infested places to go to?” Molly asks the question.
Callie looks at me. “Are there any non-wolf infested places to go?”
“No,” I say. “The world is full of wolves, and snakes, and more things besides. There’s no real escape from the paranormal horrors once your eyes are opened and you’re on their radar.”
“We have to do something for them,” she insists. “I’m not leaving anybody to die.”
