“Which is why I have to take you some place safe,” he continued without looking at her, his knuckles growing whiter on the wheel.“So you can keep sending me reeling for the rest of forever.”
She gazed at his hard profile, at the hawkish nose, the messy tumble of ink-black hair brushing the brooding forehead, at the lips capable of making her weak at the knees and the jaw chiseled from granite.She wanted to kiss that jaw, wanted to caress its unforgiving hardness with her fingers and tongue, wanted to taste his sweat on her lips as she took away every moment of pain in his heart.
He’d opened her eyes to a world she’d never dreamed existed and now she wanted to do the same for him—show him there was a world without pain, without anger and blood and death.Fresh heat pooled between her legs and she pulled in a swift breath.Oh no.Shewasin love with him.In just one day.Irretrievably in love.She closed her eyes for a moment, shocked by the realization.Mad, Woman.You’re mad.Maybe, but that fact didn’t change a thing.Nor would she have it so.She’d deal with it all later, once she and Declan were safe.Opening her eyes, she placed her hand on his thigh once more.“Let me help you, Declan.Please.”
Silence stretched between them as the Jag ate up the road.She stared at him, waiting.Praying.
Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, he turned those stormy grey eyes of his on her, his face unreadable.“No, Regan.I can’t—I won’t risk it.”
Cold heaviness fell over her.She withdrew her hand, glaring at him.“Youarestupid, Declan O’Connell.Stupid and stubborn.”
He chuckled—low, bleak and wry.“Then I guess the stereotype is…” A brutal spasm suddenly rocked his body and, like someone had reached into his stomach and yanked out his soul, he collapsed forward.
“Declan!”Regan screamed, grabbing at the wheel.The car lurched wildly to the right, flinging both her and Declan to the side.A solid thwack filled the car, bone on glass, as Declan’s head smacked against the side window.Cutting heat ripped across Regan’s neck, her seatbelt slicing at her flesh.She scrambled forward, desperately trying to gain control of the still-speeding Jag even as her seatbelt tried to flatten her back into the seat.“Declan?”she shouted again, fighting with the wheel.Blood oozed down his shattered side window in bright red streams, following the cracks like iridescent ink.Oh, God.Declan.
An ear-splitting horn blasted over the screaming tires and Regan snapped her head around in time to see a semi-trailer roar past them, so close she saw the dead, splattered insects on its metallic, cherry-red paintjob.The sucking force of its wake yanked the wheel from her hands in a violent spin, burning her palms and almost popping her right shoulder joint.The Jag lurched to the left and they were off the road, barreling through grass and eucalypt saplings, the rapid sound of dirt and stones spitting up into the car’s undercarriage like bullets peppering a tank.
Regan cried out, reaching blindly for the spinning wheel, her seatbelt sawing at her neck.Metal creaked and squealed and, just as she closed her fingers around the wheel, the car came to an abrupt, jarring halt, smacking her forward into the dash.
White agony exploded in her head.Disorientated and confused, she pushed herself upright.Releasing her belt buckle, she slipped free, the narrow band of synthetic material lashing her neck one last time as it snapped back into its housing.Sucking in a ragged breath, she peered at Declan’s slumped form through a hazy fog of pain.
“When you come to, you are in so much trouble,” she mumbled, disconnecting his belt buckle.Gingerly, she twisted in her seat and opened her door, stumbling out of the car.Legs wobbly, head spinning, she gazed at the scrub and mutilated vegetation behind the Jag, following the path of destruction up to the bitumen.Her stomach clenched.How were they alive?
She turned slowly and staggered behind the Jag, leaning against it as she made her way to the driver’s side.Pain throbbed in her head but she ignored it.She had to get Declan out of the…
“Oh, shit.”
Frozen, she stared at the Jag’s crumpled hood, wrapped around an immature tree like it was trying to devour it.Her heart leapt into her throat.After the tree, there was nothing.Just a drop-off.If it weren’t for the eucalypt both she and Declan would be dead.
“Oh, Paddy,” she growled, turning away from the chilling sight.“You are in so much trouble.”
She opened Declan’s door, gravity grabbing at his limp form and pulling him from his seat before she was ready.She caught him seconds before his shoulder hit the ground and, hooking her arms around his back, dragged him from the car.
Crouching beside his still form, she checked his pulse.Weak, but there.Looking about, Regan chewed on her bottom lip, ignoring the growing ache in her neck, shoulder and head.Rationality told her to flag down a passing motorist and get them both to a hospital, pronto.She probably had a concussion and who knew what was going on with Declan.
Yet at the very moment the thought of getting help surfaced, the sound of an unfamiliar female voice sounded in her head.The same arrogant, condescending yet almost desperate voice she’d heard on the end of Peter’s work-line.Tell me where you are and I will come get you.
Was Declan right?Did Epoc have plants everywhere?She closed her eyes for a second.Be safe, Pete.Be safe and watch your back.
Opening her eyes, she listened to the cars tearing along the freeway, oblivious to her and Declan down the embankment.She could go up there now and have help in sixty seconds or so, but what if the person she flagged down was one of Epoc’s grunts sent after them?
She scrubbed at her face, ignoring the pain the action caused.“C’mon, Thomas.Think.”
Looking up, she surveyed the area around her.They were approximately fifty-five minutes north of Sydney, which put them almost at the Central Coast.Hobby farming territory.
She knew the mentality of hobby farmers well.Rich city men, over-stocking their supplies just because they could, keeping every veterinary drug legally allowed whether needed or not in an attempt to out-do their neighbor.They were over-zealous, over-the-top and never there.Exactly what she needed.
Curling her fingers around Declan’s wrist, she hitched his arm around her shoulders, gritting her teeth.Bloody hell.He weighed a ton.White blossoms of pain flared in her head and she groaned, heading away from the broken Jag, the drop-off and the road.Damn, she was going to make him pay for this.For a very long time.
Fresh pain exploded in her head and she suppressed a moan, hitching Declan’s limp form higher up her shoulders as the world swam in and out of focus.
If theyhada very long time, that was.
Something deep in her gut told her falling in love with a werewolf shortened one’s lifespan.Considerably.
CHAPTERNINE
Peter walked into the mansion, every fiber on edge.He pulled in a deep breath, detecting lavender, furniture polish and the faint ghost of expensive cologne.He crossed a foyer larger than his living room, scanning the opulence around him, looking for anything out of place, anything that may give a clue to what he wanted to know.Nothing however, told him Reggie had been there.
