At least until Razor made dead certain everyone involved in her twin’s murder had paid the ultimate price and were no longer a threat to Willow.
His first step on that journey would be tracking down Theo Collier.
As much as he didn’t want to think it, he had a sinking feeling he was already too late to get any intel out of his old friend. Whatever he and Laurel had been involved in together had apparently attracted some very dangerous attention.
Trying to unravel the facts without either of them around to shed any light would be a challenge to say the least. One way or another, he’d get those answers. But first, he needed to get rid of his unwanted and far-too-tempting traveling companion.
He heard her rummaging around in her purse in the dark. Cracking one eye open to the narrowest slit, he watched as she pulled out her keychain. The ring was full of keys, fobs, and charms, all of them jangling softly in her hands. She clicked one of the many items on the loop and a thin beam of light pierced the gloom.
Grabbing the bird book from her bag, she opened it in her lap and aimed the little penlight at the pages. Razor watched her for a while, noting once again how intently she studied the book.
He could imagine Willow as a young girl in the Breedmate shelter, passing the time poring over the illustrations and descriptions with her sister. Just as vividly, he could imagine the horror Willow and her twin had endured the night that Dragos’s army of blood-addicted Rogues were unleashed on an unsuspecting world at large.
As young as they had been, it was clear that Willow had been irrevocably scarred by the attack. Little wonder she looked at him in fear, and, understandably, no small amount of revulsion.
The pang he felt at that surprised him. He had never been one to care what others thought of him, but with her it was different. The months he’d spent watching her from afar—wanting her—had given him the illusion of an emotional bond he had no right to feel.
Even when he had believed, incorrectly, that Willow was Theo Collier’s lover, Razor had known an undeniable sense of possessiveness for her. He’d felt not only responsible for her but connected to her in a way he’d never felt for anyone before.
He’d watched Willow and felt to his marrow that she belonged with him.
That she was already his.
Seeing her reaction to him a short time ago made that illusion come crashing down like a hammer on glass.
And just in the nick of time, too.
Everything male in him still demanded that she was meant for him alone, from the throbbing of his fangs in his gums to the hard, thickened length of his cock.
He shifted on the hard floor of the container, his body tight and uncomfortably hot with frustrated arousal.
“How long are you going to pretend to sleep?” Willow asked casually, as she flipped the pages in the book.
Damn the female, she was too observant for her own good. A growl curled in the back of his throat. “Who says I was pretending?”
She swung the beam of her little flashlight into his face. “I doubt you ever sleep. Besides, we’re stuck in such close quarters, I can practically hear your mind at work from where I’m sitting.”
Razor scowled, his arm raised to shield his eyes. If she truly could hear his mind, she’d be on the other side of the container by now. “The light, Willow.”
She redirected the slim beam down to the opened book. “Sorry.”
“What have you found in there?” he asked. “Before you try to deny it, I can practically hear your mind working too. You’re getting close to figuring out why Laurel left that book for you, aren’t you?”
She hesitated, biting her lip before exhaling a slow breath. “I’m not sure yet. But there is . . . something.”
“Show me.”
He moved closer and she angled the open book so they could look at it together. “You see this underlined entry? It’s newer than any of the other notations Laurel and I made in the book.”
Razor nodded. “I counted seven of them.”
She swiveled a frown at him. “You’ve been looking at this?”
“I glanced at it while you were in the motel bathroom earlier today.”
“This book belongs to me, Razor. It’s all I have left of my sister.”
He grunted in semi-acknowledgment. “If there’s something in it that’ll help me track down the people who killed her, I need to know. If anything in that book will explain what may have happened to Theo, I need to know that too.”
