She wasn’t his to crave back when he’d thought she belonged to another man, and she wasn’t his now.
She was still part of his promise to Theo Collier. Where Razor had failed to keep Laurel Townsend safe, he would not fail when it came to Willow.
“I’m going to drive until just before sunrise,” he said. “Then we’re going to stop somewhere for you to sleep for a few hours. I also need to get a hold of Theo, let him know what’s happened.”
Willow slid a weary glance at him. “What about your arm? That gunshot wound in your bicep doesn’t look like it’s healing.”
Scowling, he shrugged his good shoulder. She had a point, although he wasn’t going to admit it to her. Besides, the wound was nothing that a decent feeding couldn’t cure.
He was Gen One, which meant he typically had to feed every few days. When he was healing from an injury, he needed blood more frequently than that, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. There would be plenty of opportunity to hunt for a blood Host once they stopped somewhere.
He put the Jeep into gear without answering her concern. He didn’t want Willow giving his wellbeing a second thought when saving her own neck was the only thing that mattered.
The less she thought of him as a flesh-and-blood man—Breed or otherwise—the more smoothly these next several hours would go.
As for the time they would be forced to spend in close proximity once they stopped again to wait out the daylight, he would just have to deal with that torture once he got there.
CHAPTER 6
Willow awoke to a soothing, dark quiet. No bracing chill of night air nipping at her. No endless, vibrating rumble of a vehicle’s engine echoing in her ears and all the way down to her bones.
No acrid tang of ash and soot clinging to the back of her throat.
Only stillness now.
Only blessed silence.
Had she dreamt the whole thing?
If so, she’d never had such a vivid, horrifying nightmare in her life—not even in the aftermath of what had happened to her parents on that terrible night in her past, when she and Laurel were little more than babies.
God, Laurel.
Was she really gone now, too?
Willow was reluctant to open her eyes and confirm her fears. Not that lifting her lids would be easy. Her eyes felt glued shut, crusted with salt from the steady flow of tears that had racked her even in her sleep.
She didn’t remember getting from the Jeep into bed, but she did recall waking up weeping several times over the past several hours, only to cry herself back into exhaustion.
Now, even though her body was rested she felt utterly drained.
With no small effort, she forced her eyes to slowly open. The room was dark, a little dank. She was lying alone on the saggy bed of a small motel room, fully clothed under the thin covers except for her cowboy boots.
The heavy curtains were pulled closed, but a sliver of daylight through the crack between them was enough for her to take a quick inventory of her surroundings. There wasn’t much to see. A nicked-up chest of drawers served as a TV stand against the wall opposite the bed. An open metal hanger rack mounted to the dingy wall served as a closet.
And in the shadowed corner an upholstered chair was currently occupied by the hulking Breed male who’d also figured prominently in her disturbed dreams of the past several hours.
He spoke, his deep voice low and rough. “Good. You’re awake.”
Razor wasn’t the friendliest individual in general, but he sounded particularly impatient now. His tawny hair was still damp from a recent shower, and he now sat there in the shadowy corner wearing only his jeans, studying her.
It was hard not to stare back at him. Breeddermaglyphstracked all over his powerful chest and body, complicated tangles and swirling patterns only a shade or two darker than his warm skin color. She’d never seen Breedglyphsin person before, and the fact that they covered nearly every inch of Razor’s muscular chest, torso, and arms only made them more arresting.
Willow cleared her throat and sat up. “Where are we?” Her voice came out rusty, still raw from her last round of tears. Did he know she’d been crying in her sleep? Or, even worse, had he been sitting there coldly watching the whole time?
She didn’t need to ask. His aggravated-looking scowl was answer enough.
“I stopped driving around daybreak,” he said. “We got as far as Cheyenne.”
