Page 60 of Bold Mercy

Chapter Thirty-Two

Outside the room the wolves, vampires, and turned humans were still fighting. It was as though I’d never left. I kept a tight hold on Lennon’s arm, using her to hold myself up. I could barely walk. I’d taken too many hits, and now that the adrenaline and desperation were wearing off, I was feeling every pain, injury, and shock that I had received there that night.

Oh, I was still desperate to reach Lucy, the detective, and Ash, but I was no longer in fear for my own life. Maybe that didn’t make sense, seeing as how I was half dead. I was also naked. And naked made me feel vulnerable. So I did what I always did after a shift. I found a dead body and stole its clothes. Lennon made no attempt at all to run. She didn’t believe she needed to.

“Kait,” a hoarse male voice yelled, and I turned my head to see Jared loping toward me. Bastien was at his side.

“After you ran,” Bastien said, “I tried to find you. I couldn’t find you.” He sounded honestly devastated about that but overjoyed to see the enemy dead and in my possession. “You did it. You killed Avis Vine.” He gestured at his house. “The glamour will hold now.”

I was pretty sure it was too late to put the glamour back into place. “Get her to the Council,” I said. “Can you do that, Bastien?”

“Yes,” he said. “I can do that.”

“Damn you, Kait,” Jared murmured. He pulled me and Lennon into his arms. “What happened to you?”

“Get us out of here, Jared. I’ll tell you everything, but we need away from here.” I couldn’t tell him about Lennon. Not there. He kept one arm around her quaking shoulders, his face a mask of concern. He was going to be so hurt by her betrayal. And yes, part of me was afraid he wouldn’t believe me when I told him. “I need to find Lucy.” I stumbled and would have fallen if he hadn’t been supporting me with his arm around my waist. He lifted me into his arms, glancing briefly at the wand I still held.

He hurried us out the back, through doorways I hadn’t even known existed, and when we slipped out into the night, a car was waiting. Lennon got into the front seat with the driver, so serene and quiet I got worried all over again. She was a seer after all, and apparently she wasn’t seeing anything that scared her. Or maybe she hadn’t seen anything yet. Maybe she just didn’t think her pack and her alpha would turn on her. She didn’t think they would take my word over hers. She was probably right.

But there in the back seat, with Jared’s arms tightly around me, I told him everything. He didn’t say a word. Lennon turned her head to look at us once, her face occasionally illuminated by streetlights that we passed.

“Alpha,” she said softly. “You’ve known me my entire life. You still don’t know her.” Then she turned back around, leaned her head back against the seat, and for all I knew, she went to sleep. She never said another word.

Jared leaned forward slightly. “I need a phone,” he said, and the driver immediately handed him one. “I’ll call Louis. Maybe the image you saw was doctored. Then I’ll call Rick. We’ll find her, Kait.”

“Rick is not himself,” I said. “But maybe now that Avis is dead, whatever hold she had over him is gone, the magic broken.” I could only hope.

The mayor told him that Rick had taken Lucy and Ash to his house. He seemed to think they would be safer there, though Louis had no idea why. Jared told him that I had killed Avis Vine but gave him no more information.

Rick answered on the second ring.

Jared handed the cell phone to me. “Rick,” I whispered, suddenly unable to make my voice work correctly.

“Kait?” His voice was groggy and thick and there was confusion just under the surface. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Where’s Lucy,” I asked. “Rick, you took Lucy. Where is she?”

“Took Lucy? Why would I take Lucy? She’s with Louis.”

“Why are you home?” I asked, keeping my voice as calm as I could. “Why would you go home and go to sleep with everything going on?”

He said nothing for ten seconds. Then, “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”

“We’re on our way to you. Stay there, okay?”

“Yeah.”

By the time we reached Rick’s house, I was feeling a little stronger. My wolf, whether or not I shifted, would help me heal. I would heal faster and better if I could shift, but there was no time to shift. Not yet.

There was also the matter of Lennon. “Jared,” I said, as the driver parked the car behind Rick’s. “Lennon—”

“Concentrate on finding Lucy. When that’s settled, we’ll figure everything out. Okay?” He pushed my hair behind my ear and leaned forward to kiss me. It was probably the best kiss of my life, because to me, that kiss meant he was behind me. He believed me. He trusted me.

Didn’t it? Any why the hell did I care so much?

What had I been afraid of? That he’d try to kill me instead of Lennon? That he’d look at me the way she looked at me, like I was a monster?

Maybe I was afraid that if he didn’t see my heart, I didn’t have one.