You better stop, I sent Grey.
“How much longer until we get where we’re going?” she asked, looking at me.
We need to put in some more distance, Grey sent me.
“A few more hours,” I said, answering her.
She made a sound of annoyed disgust, a noise that Charlene often used when dealing with Jim, and let her head fall back onto the seat. She remained quiet until we pulled into a hotel parking lot several hours later.
As soon as I parked, she bolted for the hotel.
“That went well,” Grey said as I slowly got out.
I looked toward the SUV as Ethan got out. Our gazes met. I couldn’t read what he was thinking, but, unlike Isabelle, there was no visible anger or resentment.
“Let’s get our room,” I said, going to the trunk.
I grabbed Isabelle’s bag and mine. Grey grabbed his and Ethan’s and followed me toward the door. Without saying anything, he handed Ethan his bag and collected a room key.
Isabelle’s in the bathroom just down the hall, Grey sent me.
“I’ll wait here,” I said aloud.
“I’m going with you,” Ethan said, looking at Grey.
“We’ll meet back here in fifteen minutes,” Charlene said to the group. Jim grinned and scratched his stomach.
Not long after the group walked away, Isabelle stepped into the hall.
“Where’s everyone else?” she asked.
“Dropping off their things. Everyone’s hungry.”
I offered her the spare keycard. She took it, looked at the number, then started toward the room. I could see the agitation in her long stride and in the way she pushed open the door as soon as she unlocked it.
Grey looked up from the bag he had on the foot of his bed. We both watched Isabelle march up to the bathroom door.
“Ethan, get out here.”
“No. I invoke my tenth grade birthday present.”
She hit the wood with the side of her closed fist.
The two of them had so much history together. They knew each other. I wanted to know her like that, and it frustrated me that she was preventing it. However, it was nice to see her mad at Ethan for a change.
“You can’t,” she said. “You used it already. Like, three times.”
“That card had no expiration or number of use limits.”
She slapped the door.
“Fine. Come out.” She backed away from the door and looked pointedly at Grey and me.
“We’ll wait for you in the lobby,” I said. Grey followed me out.
“You sleeping with Ethan, again?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. I think he might need you to protect him.”
We waited in the lobby for Ethan and Isabelle to join us. They didn’t take long. Neither did the drive to the Chinese buffet. This time, Ethan joined Isabelle in the backseat. Any pity I might have felt vanished. He now knew what Isabelle meant to me, and he was still encouraging her attachment. Grey was wrong. The boy didn’t need protection from Isabelle. He would need protection from me.
As soon as she took a chair, I moved to the one beside her. Ethan sat on her other side. My jaw locked with irritation.
After ordering drinks everyone went for food. Ethan and Isabelle stuck together as they looked at the offerings and joked as they moved down the line. I went to the first buffet table, took some rice, and whatever was next to it, and returned to my chair.
When she came back, she had a full plate.
“You sick?” she said.
I exhaled slowly and turned to look at her.
“No.”
“Don’t you like Chinese food?”
I glanced at the meager helping on my plate. I recognized the rice, but not the other thing.
“I’m not sure I’ve had it before.”
“Then you need to start with one of these.” She picked up an oddly shaped, crisp triangle and held it out to me. She wanted to feed me? My hunger changed. I leaned forward and took a bite while holding her gaze. Her hand started to shake. I reached out to steady it and ate the rest of what she offered. I didn’t taste the food, only the lingering flavor of her when my lips brushed her fingertips.
“Thank you,” I said after swallowing.
She cleared her throat. “No problem.”
She focused on her food and slowly worked her way around her plate. The way she ate one thing at a time seemed odd to me. I glanced at Jim and the way he shoveled in as much as he could as fast as he could.
When it came time to leave, Isabelle quietly walked beside Ethan. I could see tension creeping into her shoulders, but it had nothing to do with eating beside me. The emotions of the group were starting to fill her.
Grey reached the room first and had her bag on his bed by the time I arrived. She was in the bathroom again.
“Humans have tiny bladders,” he said with a grin at Ethan.
“Ha. Bet it’s bigger than an old werewolf’s.” He glanced at me. “She’s going to need to spar, big guy. Might want to get there before she does.”
I didn’t bother changing before I left the room. The exercise room was smaller than the last one. There was only a treadmill and an elliptical. I leaned against the wall just inside the door and waited for Isabelle.
When she stepped into the room, she seemed surprised to see me and glanced at the treadmill before facing me.
“We’ll need to be careful in here,” she said.
I nodded and got into a ready stance. She started out with slow, easy jabs. I blocked each one with an open palm.
“What did you think talking would accomplish?” she asked, just before she picked up the pace.
I knew she meant our attempted car ride alone. I shrugged.
“Not good enough.”
She dodged around my block and caught me in the ribs. It wasn’t the same intensely focused anger she’d shown in the field, but she was letting me know she was annoyed.
“It was obviously planned,” she said with a few jabs. “I mean, you had Winifred say something to Ethan, so he wouldn’t ride in the car with us. And, you said Grey wanted you to drive, so you would stay calm. Meaning, you talked to him about it beforehand. If you planned something, you had to have an expected outcome. So, what did you hope to accomplish?”
“Alone time,” I said.
“We’ve had alone time. This is alone time.”
“Alone time where you weren’t angry.”
“Then you picked the wrong topic.”
We were finally talking. I stopped blocking and straightened. She did the same.
“Why did it make you angry?”
“Are you kidding me? I’ve known about you people for what? Three days? You flipped out when I first met you. The girls in this group—my ‘sisters’—are all paired up with a werewolf; then, the first night Ethan and I join the merry men, Michelle comes to my room and mentions how she was attracted to Emmitt. Next, you try to start talking about ‘the pull.’ Three days. How would you react?”
“So, it has nothing to do with Ethan?” I asked.
“It has everything to do with me. Just me. I will never be with anyone. Ever. I kill people, Carlos. Slowly. I leave behind burnt-out shells of who they used to be. Ethan understands that. He jokes, and I know he would be there waiting for me if things ever changed; but he knows that, to keep him safe, I have to keep my distance.”
“I’m not like Ethan.”
“No. You’re not. You’re scarier. The control you have over your emotions is incredible. But, you’re a volcano. When your emotions finally erupt, you will leave devastation behind. If I’m around you when that happens, I can’t imagine how it would feel under my skin.”
She’d just voiced the same concern I’d shared with Grey. How would Claiming affect us both?
She sighed and rolled her shoulders.
“Now, are you going to help me purge or not?”
I brought my hands back up and nodded.
****
Lying beside Ethan, I listened to Isabelle’s soft breathing. After sparring, she’d showered and climbed into bed beside Grey without hesitation. She’d fallen asleep quickly. So had Ethan. I’d taken my time showering and packing away the things she’d left out, like her toothbrush and her hair brush and the tiny bottle of conditioner she’d kept from the last hotel. By the time I finished, Grey was sleeping, too.
I couldn’t sleep. Since eating, the link in my head had been feeding me hints of worry and fear, and even though I’d put it all behind the wall, a sense of unease had crawled under my skin. We were making our way north as fast as we were able while avoiding Urbat detection. My gut told me it wouldn’t be fast enough. Yet, there was nothing I could do about it. If we rushed, we risked detection. Bethi was clear about what would happen if they were found. It felt like I was choosing between my sister and my Mate.
Grey’s breathing changed, and he immediately sat up.
“We need to move. They’re coming.” I got out of bed, and he turned to Isabelle. “Isabelle, get up and get dressed.”
I turned on the light as Isabelle sat up then went to wake Ethan, who hadn’t moved at the sound of Grey’s loud, firm voice. Grey tossed Isabelle her bag, and she quickly got out of bed.
“E, get your lazy ass out of bed. Now.”
Ethan sat up and looked around at us.
“What is it?”
“Gabby said we need to leave immediately,” Grey said. “A group of ten are netting this way. We have five minutes to be a mile from here.”
Isabelle shouldered her bag and slipped on her shoes. I grabbed my bag and smoothly tied my shoes. Ethan jumped out of bed, grabbed his shoes and bag, and went to the door.
In the hall, the rest were already moving.
“Hurry,” Winifred said.
We moved through the lit parking lot to our cars.
“I shouldn’t have slept so long,” Gabby said softly to Clay as they walked ahead of us.
She hadn’t slept more than a few hours. Hardly a long time for a human.
We quickly piled into our vehicles and turned out of the parking lot. Winifred drove the SUV in front and Thomas the car behind us.
“Talk, Grey,” Isabelle said. “I want to know what’s happening.”
“There are more now. They’re closing in fast. Gabby says they aren’t veering at all, almost as if they know right where we are.”
How could they know? I sent Grey.
We’re not sure.
Winifred sped through the streets. The city wasn’t overly large, and it didn’t take long to reach its outskirts.
“They’ve made city limits and have split up. Five in each group. They’ll find our trail.”
Winifred accelerated suddenly, and I pressed the gas to keep up.
“Buckle up, Isabelle,” I said, glancing in the mirror.
She turned to do so, then reached for Ethan’s hand. This time, it didn’t bother me. She was afraid, and I couldn’t comfort her. I needed to try to get her as far from danger as possible.
“We’ll put as much distance between them as we can. It should be fine,” Grey said.
For the next two minutes, we did our best to put some distance between us and the hotel.
It’s not working, Grey sent me. They seem to have our trail and others are converging.
The scent of his worry filled the car.
“Grey?” Isabelle asked.
“They have our trail. The net’s closing.”
“How many?”
“At least sixty, more closing in behind them.”
Her pulse spiked.
Will you put out a call for help? I sent him.
Only a few of our kind are close enough, and we would not risk their lives needlessly.
You don’t think we’ll survive?
I think we will, but it will be bloody, like when Bethi and Luke arrived.
“Stop the car by the next field,” Grey said aloud.
“There’s no way to avoid them?” Isabelle asked.
“None,” he said.
I glanced back at her. The fear in her gaze only lasted a moment. Then, the look in her eyes turned hard.
“Keep that wall up,” Isabelle said, looking at Ethan.
“Grey, warn the rest. They need to close themselves off from me as best they can or stay away from me.”
“Done.”
The vehicles pulled over and doors opened. We abandoned our cars for the open field beside the road. With three Elders, we would have stood a fair chance. However, the humans turned the odds of favor against us. They were far too easy to injure, and our need to defend them would be our weakness.
I knew Emmitt, Clay, and Thomas realized the same thing as they pushed their women into the middle of our loose circle. Winifred stayed near them, too. Bethi came to stand beside Isabelle after handing Ethan a knife.
“Take a hit,” Bethi said.
Isabelle inhaled deeply and most of the fear left Bethi’s scent. The girl pulled out a wicked knife from her jacket and held it with ease.
“Have you used that before?” Isabelle asked.
I knew Bethi had. I’d seen her, and she was good with it.
“Yeah. You taught me how in another life.”
“Good.”
After that, no one spoke. We waited in silence under the stars.