Page 68 of Hunted Mate
“Don’t worry. I’ll buy an island and just hide out there. Enya lives in a castle with cats and a couple of people and she’s doing fine.”
“Are you saying Enya is a werewolf?”
“No, because that would be libelous. Enya is one of the most talented artists of this, or any other time, and if she was awerewolf, she’d be the best werewolf,” I say, careful not to attract legal attention.
“We don’t have time to talk about Enya.”
“There’s always time to talk about Enya,” I disagree.
Gray sighs, and I know I am pushing him to his limit, but in a fun sort of way. He’s got to relax. He’s been through so much stress lately.
I slide off him, nudge him over onto his stomach and start rubbing his shoulders and neck. My fingers feel stronger now, even as a human being. That’s going to be fun. I’m going to be able to move furniture on my own now.
In spite of everything, the ‘bad news,’ so to speak, I am in a very good mood. I feel a lot more settled now that the moon is in her waning phase, and the worst of the whole ‘turning into a wild animal, or actually a creature of legend and lore’ part is over.
He makes a low, happy groaning sound and I feel him relax a little. That’s good.
“You don’t have to worry about everything all the time,” I tell him. “Sometimes everything works out fine, even though you don’t think it’s going to. Sometimes you think you’re gonna be a stock standard wolf, and you turn out to be a werewolf. Stuff happens.”
“Yeah,” Gray agrees with a muffled voice. “Stuff happens.”
CHAPTER 14
Gray
We fall asleep together and wake up mid-afternoon. I make pancakes in a kitchen big enough to concoct a banquet, and we eat them out on the covered porch as light gray clouds skate across the sky and the world fills with the pleasant hum of insects living their myriad little lives. In one of the corners of the verandah, a spider weaves her web with great alacrity.
I get a full hour of peace, quiet, and simply getting to be with my mate. It feels like a small form of heaven.
Then, all hell breaks loose.
The sound of an engine, followed by another engine, followed by… hell, it’s a convoy of black trucks, and they’re all turning up the long white stone drive to the house.
Callie and I look at one another. She half-smiles and gives me a slight shrug. She’s wearing another white dress. They look good on her. Brings out the blonde in her hair and the blue in her eyes,along with her complete lack of concern for moments like these that make my nervous system throb with concern.
There’s not enough time to run, if I could convince her to, and I don’t think I could. Her expression is serene as the lead car pulls up in front of the house, and my father and his henchmen step out.
I knew this wouldn’t be entirely simple. I knew my father wouldn’t be able to take the insult of having had Calista break out of his facility and then talk shit to him on the phone. I knew he’d come after her. He’s come hard, too. There have to be at least a hundred wolves with him, ranged down the drive, all bristling with weapons and desire for the hunt.
Karl is standing to his left with a smirk on his face, his arms folded over his chest. They’re all dressed up like discount commandos, gun belts on their waists, thighs, and anywhere else they can fit them. It makes them look like a pack of…
“You look like a bunch of accountants heading out to a fake Marine induction weekend where you’ll get yelled at by some guy who got a dishonorable discharge from the army and gets off on pushing people into ice baths,” Callie calls out before I can so much as finish the thought.
Christ. She is not going to make this easy. She is going to make it funny. We both get up and move toward my father and his army.
“Why are you here?” I follow her comment with a question, reaching for her arm and drawing her back behind me gently. I want to look worried about her. I don’t want to give away any hint of her true nature.
“We’ve come for her,” Orion says, looking at me as if I am barely anything worth considering. “She belongs to us. Legally. We own the patent on her DNA.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“We own her DNA,” Orion repeats, as if saying something twice makes it more acceptable.
“She’s a person, you can’t own someone’s DNA.”
“Actually there is some precedent for it,” Calista mumbles. “But only a sociopath would try to make it stand up in court. A sociopath who likes losing. Like a loser.”
She seems to take particular glee in taunting my father. I don’t know where she got the hostility from, but it has been there from the beginning, though she tried to keep it quiet to begin with. Now no holds are barred.
