“I haven’t got time to be hurt, love.We have to go.”
“But your side?Your head?”
“Don’t argue with me, Regan.”Declan buckled himself into the passenger seat.“Just start the car.”
“Let me at least look at your wounds first.”
Grey eyes turned to her, worry like a cold flame in their depths.“There’s no time.He’ll be after us.”
“Who?Epoc?”
Declan didn’t answer.
Fear tickled at Regan’s chest and her throat squeezed tight.“McCoy?”The name tasted like bile on her tongue.“But I saw you break his neck.Iheardit!”
A shudder wracked Declan’s body, but he kept his gaze on her.“Most of the myths are crap, love,” he said, his normally deep voice rough and somehow scratchy, “but Hollywood got two right.Silver bullets work really well if you want to kill a werewolf, as does decapitation.Anything else just pisses us off.”
Regan swallowed.“Then McCoy is…”
She swung her head around.Stared out the window at the body of the massive man, lying face down in the long, dry grass.Watched it twitch.Watched wide shoulders bunch, elbows bend.Watched as McCoy began to move, to lift his torso from the ground.An inch.Two.
Ice ripped through her and she spun back to Declan, mouth dry, chest tight.“What…what?The other men?Wolves…werewolves?Did you kill…Are they…?”
The worrying tautness around his eyes stretched and a fine sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead.“Turn the key and get us out of here, love.”He coughed and Regan gasped as a spurt of blood left his mouth.He wiped it away, hands shaking.“I’ve little left in me and if we’re both to survive the next few minutes we need to go.Now.”
Regan turned the key.
She flung the van along the freeway, the stench of McCoy in the cabin threading through her every breath, an insidious reminder of a nightmare she hoped to forget.
You’ll never forget that.Never.
She shot Declan a quick look.He slumped in the seat beside her, sweat pouring down his face, his body wracked by violent shudders.If he hadn’t arrived when he did…A cold weight pressed on her heart and she turned back to the road, pushing her foot harder to the accelerator.
“North’s the other way, love,” Declan mumbled, voice weak and shallow.“Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you to see a friend of mine.”
Heavy silence followed until Declan asked, “Who’s Rick?”
Regan ground her teeth, gripping the wheel in a death vice.He was in her head again.“How do youdothat?”
“Who’s Rick?”
She swerved around a 4x4 moving at a snail’s pace.“A vet in Sydney.”
Declan growled.“It’s not safe.I need to deal with Epoc before you can go back home.”
She studied him, eyes narrowed.“Declan, we’re almost a hundred kilometers out of Sydney and I’ve just been attacked.Do you really think we’re safe anywhere?”
He opened his mouth to argue, but she shook her head.“After we get you better, than we can talk about how we’re going to take out Nathan Epoc.”
She heard Declan shift in his seat and a whisper of a word floated through her head.“Yes,we.”She grinned bleakly at the road.“I’m a farm girl, remember.I know every way possible to kill a feral animal causing trouble.”
The car was a wreck.Peter stared at it, taking in the crumpled metal and shattered glass.The powerful state-of-the-art engine now nothing but a mangled tangle of steel and hose, pissing oil and fluid and smoke.He ran his inspection over the splintered mess of bark, branches and leaves before returning it to the Jag, his nerves and chest so tight he could barely breathe.Shit, his sister hadbeenin that.If it weren’t for the one lone eucalypt, she’d probably still be in it.At the bottom of the ravine, her lifeless body as broken and shattered as the car itself, her blood soaking into the cream leather upholstery, staining it forever with her life.His gut twisted.
“She was not driving.”
Yolanda’s shoulder brushed his and he started, flicking his gaze from the stolen Jag to his partner.“That meant to make me feel better?”
