“I’ll be back as soon as I can. A few hours.”
“No. No, that’s—” I shook my head, anxiety beating like a drum inside my skull. “What if something happens on the road? No one will have your back. You need me to?—”
“That’s exactly why you’re not going.” He shook his head. “I won’t risk it.”
“It’s not your decision.”
“Yes, it is.”
I didn’t understand how he could be so calm when I was ready to tear the room apart.
“I’ll be back in a few hours.”
He’d been so tender with me all day that it was almost as if I were staring at a stranger. This was a different Daniel from the one who’d gently redressed me in the barn. He was harder somehow, colder.
All at once, I realized this was his game face. This unyielding Vampire was who I would’ve met if I weren’t his mate, and we’d met on assignment. Not unfriendly, not unkind, but unyielding.
I bristled.
“I’m going with you,” I snapped, stepping out of my pants. “You don’t get to make unilateral decisions for both of us.” I turned toward my dresser and yanked out a drawer. “If you think that’s how this is going to go, you’re in for a rude awakening.”
When I turned back around, a pair of jeans in my hand, he was gone.
By the time I’d pulled them on and raced out of the room trying to catch him, he was already driving back down the driveway.
My hands shook as I braced them against the porch railing. Already, nausea was making bile rise in the back of my throat.
“He’ll be back, Flower,” my dad called.
“Fuck him,” I whispered to myself as cramps joined the nausea. Panting, I tightened my hands around the railing, trying to ignore the panic that thrummed through every inch of my body.
How dare he leave me? He knew what would happen. Anyone knew what would happen.
We weren’t supposed to be separated. Not for any reason.
Silently, I took back every kind thought I’d ever had about Daniel Boucher.
I’d somehow ended up with the worst mate in history.
Chapter 6
Daniel
By the time I pulled onto the familiar driveway, my chest felt like it was going to cave in. The pressure there was nearly unbearable.
I’d nearly turned around more times than I could count. The further I got from Rosemary, the more my entire body screamed at me to go back. Instincts were a real bitch when you were ignoring them.
My parents’ house was pretty quiet when I parked out front. The bodies that had littered the property were gone, but proof of the assault was still noticeable as I moved toward the front door. Bloodstains marred my mother’s pristine white porch, the front window was covered with a piece of plywood, and when close enough, you could still see holes in the siding where stray bullets had hit.
“Hey, fucker,” my brother Chance said in surprise, jerking to a stop as I walked inside. He looked behind me. “Missing something?”
“Funny,” I replied flatly. “What are you doing?”
“Mom’s rug is toast.” He kicked the rolled-up rug on the floor. “I’m going to dump it. Seriously, where’s your mate?”
“She’s safe.”
“But not here?” he asked slowly.
