The woman snorted. “Like it matters. No one would take the word of a little whore over his.”
“You didn’t see that dude that was shacking up with the kid,” the man disputed, the rise and fall of his voice making me think he was shaking his head. “He gave the cops a dirty look and they all but tripped over their feet to back off. It was weird.”
“Whatever.” The woman had lost interest in the conversation. “Irregardless, don’t hit him again.”
It was the man’s turn to snort. “You know that’s not really a word, right?”
Between the thud of flesh on flesh, the grunt of pain, and the sudden swerve of the car, I was pretty sure Grammar Man’s lesson fell on deaf ears. It also seemed to be the end of the conversation as someone turned up the radio and we continued on to who-knew-where to the ramblings of a local country station.
I swear we drove forever as I was bounced and jostled in the back of the SUV, each impact making the throbbing pain in my head worse until the car finally screeched to a stop, the action promptly being met with criticism.
“Where the fuck did you learn how to drive?” the woman hissed. “Are youtryingto draw attention to us?”
“Jesus fuck,” the man snapped. “Is thereanythingyou don’t bitch about?”
Her response, if there was one was lost as the two doors opened and slammed shut a few second before the rear driver’s door was opened and I nearly fell out.
“Good, you’re awake.” The man gave me a cold smile. He jerked me from the car, gripping my arm tightly when my legs threatened to give out. Looping a coat over my hands bound in front of me, he smirked. “Now, you’re going to walk nice and politely between us and not make any trouble, aren’t you, princess?”
“Why would I do that?” I spat, baring my teeth.
He laughed. “Because if you call any attention to us, I’d have to kill the other person and you don’t want that guilt on your shoulders, now, do you?”
The fight leaked out of me immediately. Of course, I didn’t want to be responsible for that.
“Good, let’s all go on in and get settled.” He shot me an evil grin. “You have a big day ahead of you.”
The crap about not making a scene ended up being exactly that-crap-since it was immediately obvious that the motel was no longer a functioning business. There was nothing I could do to suppress the shiver that wracked my body at his words. From the conversation in the car, it was pretty clear that they didn’t expect me to live to see the sun set, and since Sylas had no way of knowing where I was, it looked like I was going to have to find a way to make a break for it. Which ended up being easier said than done.
The motel was a single-story L-shaped brick building with private exterior entrances to each room. The walk from the parking lot to the room was short but it gave me enough time to glance around and realize that I had absolutely no idea where I was. Even worse, there didn’t seem to be anything in the immediate area- no fast-food restaurants, no shopping centers, not even a freaking gas station.
Nothing.
“I need to pee,” I announced as soon as the door to the motel room opened, hoping for a chance to squeeze out a window.
“No,” The woman said from behind me.
“I..what?” My jaw dropped. “I need to go!”
“So, piss yourself,” she said as casually as if she was declining seconds at lunch. “Yourfather,”she spat the word, “should be here any minute. Either way, we won’t be cleaning the room so it’s not going to matter to us, is it, Sean?”
The man shrugged. “Not to me.”
“But…that’s just cruel!” I gasped in outrage.
Neither of them answered. The man, Sean, closed and locked the door and then left me standing in the doorway and walked over to stretch out on one of the two double beds. I got my first look at the woman as she walked past me, spitting in my face on her way by.
Mrs.Senator from Texas, Rosemary Davis. Also known as my stepmother.
Fuck my life.
Chapter Thirty
Sylas
Through the numerous decades I’d lived, I’d watched as warm-blooded humanoid shifters had slowly crept out of the shadows, taking their place as neighbors to the full humans, cautiously at first. Then, as the years passed, the guarded truce had progressed into a kind of hesitant acceptance, with shifters and humans finally merging into communities of sorts.
The cold-blooded shifters, dragons and the like, had been left on the outside looking in. Partly due to a naturally standoffish nature that made those long-lived species less willing to forgive and forget the slights of the past and partly due to the humans’ inherent distrust of reptiles as a whole.
