He opened the wallet just as Sam approached, his gaze serious.
They’d bonded as Grizzly brothers, as well as enforcers, more than prepared to take down any enemy. Most of the Grizzlies were actual grizzly bear shifters, so as the only two vampire-demon hybrids in the motorcycle club, they would’ve bonded anyway. Of course, Garrett’s sister had mated Sam’s brother, so they were true family as well.
“Destiny Applegate,” Garrett read from her license. “Address in Texas.” He looked closer. “The license looks genuine.” There were no credit cards or pictures in the wallet. Only nine dollars and three cents. She’d been traveling with a man she didn’t trust, and all she had with her was less than ten bucks? Irritation flooded through him, with anger—real anger—right behind.
“G? What the fuck?” Sam asked, his gaze sweeping the entire area around him.
That was a damn good question. Garrett folded up the wallet and tossed it at one of the prospects guarding the bike. “Shot? I want a deep dive on this. Everything you can possibly find, and tell the techs they might need to just start with the picture. Discover who she is and when she acquired this. Call Chalton at the Realm—he’s the best, and I don’t have time to fuck around.”
If Bear was in danger, Garrett wanted to know it yesterday. Bear was the president of their club, happily mated, with triplets in the back of his SUV as they took this run.
Sam watched the prospect jog away. Many of the other clubs had already taken to the road, but the Grizzlies hung back, waiting patiently. “She’s human. Like, genetically human and not enhanced.” Immortals could mate enhanced humans and often did, but normal humans held no appeal for them. Normal humans couldn’t be mated, and they were fairly uninteresting except when they made scientific advances. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.” Garrett wanted her. His entire body rumbled with hunger for her, and that made no sense. As a vampire-demon hybrid, he could scent an enhanced female five miles away. That woman inside, with her fragile bones and sharp wit, was all human. He’d been wrong about her eyes. They weren’t just blue. They had gray flecks through them, giving her a wild look. An untamed and wild look that no human should ever have.
“Well, what did she say?” Sam asked. “Did she explain?”
“No. Said she saw me in a dream.” Garrett looked at the rest of the contents. Two romance novels, one in French and the other Italian, an older book written in Greek hieroglyphics, a bottle of water, a notebook with no notes, a pen, a toiletry bag, and a set of clothing, including a light jacket. No laptop.
And one more thing.
He’d expected a pocket knife. Instead, he found a military tactical combat knife with a six-inch, stainless-steel blade about six millimeters thick. The silver was deadly sharp and angled on one side, with serrated barbs on the top. The handle was zinc alloy and made for a woman’s hand. One word graced the glinting steel.Destiny.
Sam scratched his head. “She doesn’t look like a woman who’d have her own custom-made knife.”
Garrett examined the weapon. “It’s handmade. There’s no way to trace her from it.” As a woman traveling alone, it made sense to have a knife. What didn’t make sense was her name on it. His brother was correct. Dessie was not the type of woman to own a knife. She wasn’t enhanced and thus had no way of protecting herself from him. He could smell a lie, and he hadn’t scented one on her. But a human wouldn’t dream about him. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“I couldn’t detect falsehoods, and neither could Honor, but we could have Honor sit down with her,” Sam offered. Honor was an enhanced human female who’d become immortal when her chromosomal pairs increased after mating Sam. Her enhancement, even as a human, had been the ability to detect lies.
Garrett slid the knife into the sheath and replaced the contents in the bag. “Some enhanced females have been able to mostly mask their enhancements.”
Sam winced. “But there’s still a slight vibration. I getall humanfrom her.”
“So do I,” Garrett said softly, his gut clenching for some odd reason. “How could a normal human dream about me?”
“She has to be lying,” Sam said, frowning. “With the knife and the girl-next-door good looks, perhaps she’s trained in deception? We would never expect any of our enemies to send a human after us, which would actually be smart and might work.” They had so many enemies.
But it didn’t feel right. None of this felt right. Except when Destiny Applegate had been in his arms, in his control, falling apart. That had felt more than right. That had been sunshine and good scotch all wrapped up in one, warming him from within, hitting places he’d thought frozen cold forever.
For months, maybe years, he’d been slowly going ice-cold inside. The power inside him and the pressure on him, the fates pulling at him, had all conspired to keep his mate from him, and the absence had been killing him.
Slowly, ride by ride, inch by inch. He had a very real fear that by the time he found her, his powerful goddess, he’d be dead inside. It would be too late for them both.
But this little human, with her innocent eyes and sassy remarks, had warmed and thawed those dark places. Even if only for a few minutes. Garrett tossed her bag in with his belongings. “Find me a helmet and boots for her. She’s coming with us until we figure this out.”
* * * *
Dessie rushed through the diner to the restroom, her head down. There were still some motorcycle club people in booths finishing their lunches. Had she been loud? She’d experienced a spectacular orgasm, and she was fairly certain she’d cried out. Possibly noisily. The man of her dreams was even better in person. Although her dream hero would’ve believed her when she told him the truth.
Garrett most certainly had not.
She pushed open the door and hurried to make use of the stall, trying to fix her panties as best she could. Then she moved to the sink and stopped short. Her eyes were deeper than usual, her mouth rosy and swollen, and her hair a wild mess of curls. She looked the way she felt—like she’d just had an incredible orgasm. As if she were truly the captain of her own soul, as she’d read in “Invictus.” Her romance books had not described the sensation well at all. It was so much more than she could’ve imagined. High color, close to a candy red, splashed across her cheekbones.
Her legs shook, and she forced her knees to hold tight. Then she washed her hands and dried them with a paper towel. Now what was she going to do? She couldn’t exactly run away while he held her bag.
Just as she was about to exit, the door opened, and two men walked inside. They were rough-looking but young—maybe her age. Both were taller than she, and they hadn’t been sitting with the Grizzlies. “This is the ladies’ room,” she objected. Neither looked anything like the man she’d thought had been following her that week.
The guy on the left was blond with a goatee, and his belly fell over his belt. “But you’re no lady, are you?”
