At midnight she packed her car, locked her apartment, and began the drive. The plan had been departure from home at five a.m. to arrive around ten in the morning, but Ember had spent most of the night pacing and cursing and kicking the sofa. If she wasn’t going to sleep, she might as well drive. If she showed up at an obscene hour, well, Aaron Reed and his pack shouldn’t have kidnapped her nephew.
Directions to Harmony Ridge, Tennessee were intimidating in their sparseness, almost as if they were meant to be.Middle of nowheredidn’t begin to cover it. Reed’s house sat just off the main road, second on the left on a long dirt road calledLunar Lane. Seriously. Might as well have called it Wolf Run.
But the name of the street was troublesome. The pack might have more official influence in town than she had first assumed. Might be out in the open. Might not have to hide crimes like abduction of a minor. A shiver sliced down her back at the image of Quinn escaping a cage only to be recaptured, physically hauled down Main Street in view of God and townspeople. She’d gripped the steering wheel so hard for the last fifty miles, her wrists had begun to ache.I’m coming for you, Quinn.
Five hours passed like five years. She drove winding narrow roads past fields and forests, no more than three or four houses per mile. Her directions hadn’t taken her through downtown, assuming there was one. Then the green sign loomed ahead on the right.LUNAR LANE.She turned.
The houses here were even less plentiful. Spruce cabins, some more sprawling than others. A rustic aesthetic had always appealed to her, but admiring these homes was out of the question.
Finally there it was, the house from the satellite images she’d looked up. Second on the left. She turned into the gravel driveway and had to accelerate up a steep hill. High ground? Expecting a siege? Prepared to roll rocks down on lost travelers?
Okay, enough. Rein it in, Ember.
She parked and exited her car. Her legs were shaking. Great. She stared at the front door, painted pine-green and adorned with a simple bronze knocker. On the other side of that door—Quinn. Oh, if only he were really here, but they might be keeping him somewhere else, and the resident lupine might come to the door, take one sniff of her, and…
The full moon was ten days away, so Aaron Reed was human right now, in appearance anyway. Eighty-six percent human, which was general public knowledge these days. Able indeed to sniff her out over a distance of miles. Ember’s body wasn’t at ease, standing on his property. As if her nervous system knew something she didn’t.
Only one way to deal with that. She marched up to the door and brought the knocker down three times as hard as she could. She expected it to fly open before her hand fell to her side. Instead she stood there for several minutes. She knocked again. This time the door opened.
Aaron Reed was the greatest hulk of a man she’d ever seen, literally filling his threshold. He stood around six-foot-four, his red T-shirt large enough to accommodate musclebound shoulders, biceps, upper back. It hung a little loose around his slim waist. Black drawstring pants, barefoot. Yes, he’d most likely been in bed. No trace of sleepiness though. His brown eyes were shooting sparks.
“Ember Grant.”
She nearly stepped back from the immenseness of him, but he was a man not a beast, so she stood her ground. “I guess Claire called.”
He scrubbed one hand through his wavy black hair. “I respect that she did. Anyway for all she knew, you’d be forcibly barred entrance if you came unannounced.”
Heat surged into Ember’s face. “Would I?”
“Not as long as you’re driving a county road.” His grin changed his entire face, a flash of white teeth against sun-darkened skin. “We’re a law-abiding sort of town.”
“You know why I’m here.”
“Yep.” He folded his arms across his chest, and the T-shirt miraculously withstood the strain. “At five in the morning.”
“That’s hardly relevant in the event you’re holding a minor against his will.”
“I’m not.” He tipped his chin. “There, now you know. Go get a hotel and come back when the sun’s all the way up.”
“Not a chance,” she said.
“You’re not coming into my house at five in the morning, Ms. Grant.”
“Is Quinn inside?”
“He is, and he’s dead to the world.”
A gasp filled her throat before the last phrase registered. She let out her breath. Come on, girl, calm down.
The hardness in his gaze melted a little. “Kids like Quinn need even more sleep than the average teenager. He’s not just growing and developing; he’s also constantly overwhelmed by too much sensory stimulation. We’re working on it, but it’s exhausting in the beginning, until your brain knows how to catalogue everything. So no, I’m not waking him up to see you.”
As if one early wakeup would harm Quinn. “I’m not leaving until I’ve seen my nephew.”
Aaron Reed growled at her. Literally. Growled at her.
Incredibly, in the split second her brain needed to interpret the sound, to interpret the posture shift that lowered his arms to his sides, she didn’t run screaming. She lifted her chin and hoped he could see her motto in her eyes:Patience never got anything done.
He sighed, and the bulk of his shoulders caved only a little. “Sorry. But that’s my answer, and it’s not going to change. Come back at nine.”
