“Oh, good.And here I was thinking you were going to do something stupid, like leave Sydney.”
Declan’s jaw bunched.“You still don’t believe me, do you?”He slipped the mechanic’s pickup into a break in traffic the size of a kid’s tricycle.“You think either I’m delusional or you’re still asleep.”He flicked an enigmatic look her way.“Even after what happened back in the hotel room.”
A blush hotter than the sun flooded Regan’s face and she turned away from him, watching instead the rapidly approaching pylons of the Harbor Bridge.She let out a soft sigh and dragged a trembling hand through her hair.“I don’t know what to think,” she answered truthfully, gripping her seatbelt tight.“I wake this morning to find a wolf who’s really a man on my sofa.He tells me I’m in danger, knocks me unconscious and takes me to some hotel who knows where, giving me a cockamamie story about a werewolf-slash-scientist with a demented Dracula complex, and even though I should be petrified or madder than hell, every time I look at him all I can think about is sex.”Her face flushed again at the unexpected admission but she continued, even with the heat on her cheeks.“Every time he touches me I almost orgasm, despite the utterly surreal fact he has a tendency to grow long teeth and claws and growl like a wild beast if he doesn’t get his way.”
She turned back to Declan, noting with a small sense of dry satisfaction his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.“Can you see my predicament?”
He didn’t answer.Not until the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the expanse of water it spanned was long behind them, the pick-up heading through the opulent northern suburbs at kamikaze speeds.“I don’t know what to do or say to convince you you’re in danger, Regan,” he said, voice low, accent thicker than ever.“Save drive to Epoc himself and there’s not a chance in hell I’m doing that.”His gaze flicked to her and Regan sucked in a swift breath at the turbulent desire she saw in his eyes’ stormy depths.“As for making you come…I’ve wanted to do that from the second I saw you in Epoc’s lab.Covered head to toe in black, risking your life to save a?—”
An explosive crunch cut his words dead.As did the lurching jolt of the pick-up.
Regan grabbed the dash, heart thumping up into her throat, seatbelt biting into her neck.“What the hell?”The car jolted again and this time, she saw why.
A black van charged along the road beside them, crumpled nose almost level with theirs.Almost.It swerved, a violent and deliberate arc.There was a deafening bang, the sickening squeal of metal on metal filled the cab, and the mechanic’s pick-up shuddered.
“Fuck,” Declan growled.
Regan’s heart hammered, hot rage roaring through her veins.“They’re trying to run us off the road!”
The van crashed into them again and Declan let out a sharp snarl.Sweat popping out on his forehead, he spun the wheel to the right.“The fucker found us quicker than I thought.”
Another crunching collision jarred them, hard enough to make Regan’s skull smack the side window.Her teeth snapped shut on her bottom lip and the coppery ting of blood slicked her tongue.Head throbbing, she watched Declan fling the pick-up up a narrow side street.She held on for dear life as the now badly beaten automobile tilted so far to the left, its right tires lost contact with the road and the world abruptly skewed on its axis.“Who’s found us?”she demanded.“Who’s in that van?”
Tires screeching, the van followed.Gaining.
Declan’s jaw clenched and his knuckles grew whiter.“McCoy.”
Regan blinked.“Who the fuck is McCoy?”
Declan didn’t answer.Slamming his foot to the accelerator, he pushed the pick-up harder, its finely worked engine roaring to new life just as McCoy’s van rammed straight into the back of it.
The pick-up lurched forward violently, careening into a RV parked at the curb.More metal screamed, the hood concertinaed, the windshield shattered into a thousand pieces and, before Regan could scream, the pick-up spun into a sickeningly fast one-eighty, slammed into another parked car and jolted to a shuddering halt.
“Get out!”
Declan was growling at her before her head stopped spinning.
“Get out!Get out now!”
He turned in his seat, raised his knees up to his chest and struck out at Regan’s door with his heels.It flung open, the sharp ting of salt air biting immediately at her sinuses as summer flooded into the cab.
“Get out, Regan,” He ordered, ripping her seatbelt off and shoving her from the car.“We’ve got to run.”
Regan stumbled across the footpath, swiping at the small trickle of blood running down her temple.“Jesus.What…” Her head felt like it was about to erupt.“What…”
A demoniac, bestial growl assaulted her ears and her stomach dropped.Oh, no.
“Regan!”Declan grabbed her arm.Stared hard into her eyes.“Run!”
He shoved her away and spun about.
Just as a man, roughly the size of a gorilla threw himself against his body.
The pair rolled across the ground, crashed against the mechanic’s crumpled pick-up.A howl filled the air.Loud and piercing.Followed by a growl equally as loud.
People—curious about the noise and carnage—began to appear on the surrounding footpaths, more than one gasping and calling for someone to call the cops, but Regan couldn’t move, unable to drag her stare from the sight before her.
The brutish man forced Declan to the ground, driving punch after punch into his chest, face and ribs.“Thought you’d get away from us, you dumb-fuck, Irish shit.”
