Page 15 of Bad Blood Alpha

It was empty.

Flynn reached out, ripped a hole in space, and stepped through into the muggy night. The smell of garbage and piss assaulted his nose.

He made his way to the front of the alley. His truck was parked only half a block away. At least he still had his…he patted down his pants pockets.

No keys. Fuck on a stick, they’d been in his vest pocket. Muttering curses, Flynn headed for the truck. He was going to have to break into it, which sucked—both for the truck, and the chance of someone calling the cops when they saw a shirtless man with a blood all over his back breaking into a vehicle.

He couldn’t even call his crew—he’d dropped his cell when the hellhounds broke down the door, and Kira had taken it with everything else. Muttering curses, he jogged across the street and down the sidewalk. He was almost at the truck before he realized there was someone inside.

Flynn crouched and drew his last boot knife, making his way around the back of the truck, staying low. He crept up to the passenger side and wrenched open the door with his right hand, whipping his knife around with his left and holding it to the throat of the person inside.

Kira.

She was slouched in the passenger seat, one booted foot up on the dashboard. She turned her head, her heart rate not even accelerating.

“Took you long enough,” she said. “I was starting to be afraid I’d have to break you out of jail.”

Flynn was really pissed, Kira realized. That she hadn’t waited for him? Or that she was here at all?

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he growled.

That would be option number two, then.

She carefully pushed the knife away from her jugular. “Waiting for you.”

There was a short silence. Then Flynn slammed the passenger door and went around to get in the driver’s side, slamming that door too.

His presence seemed to fill the entire truck. She’d never met another shifter that dominant. All her nerve endings tingled with heat.

Shit. She didn’t want hot. She didn’t want a man she was attracted to, and she really didn’t want a man she cared about. She wanted the last surviving member of the Elite Lion Guard of the House of Al-Maddeiri: Proud. Hard. Caring about nothing but their duty.

The ones who joined with their chosen mates and then went back to their own business.

This one was angry. And unhappy, she realized. She didn’t know how she could tell that, but she could.

“A) thanks for abandoning me,” he said. “And B) get the fuck out of my truck.”

Okay, so he was pissed about everything. She supposed he had the right.

“A) I didn’t abandon you. The cops were on the way, and I had to clean out the room. I could see you were okay.”

“So you left me for the cops, then.”

“Come on,” she said. “I knew you wouldn’t get caught. You’re Flynn.”

He didn’t smile. “Damn straight. Now get out of my truck.”

“And B,” she added, “I can’t get out of the truck. I’m your mate, and we need to talk.” She handed him his keys and his cell phone.

“You,” he said through this teeth, “are not my mate. I don’t know who the fuck you are, but I repeat: the entire House of Al-Maddeiri were massacred over twenty years ago in a war that I’ve spent all that time trying to forget. Princess Kiraset was killed with the rest of her family. She was only five years old,” he added.

His voice was a deep growl, and his face didn’t change. But she could hear a world of pain in that last sentence—pain that he didn’t show to anyone. The death of a little girl he’d only seen once.

It stabbed her in the heart.

“She didn’t die,” she said quietly. “I didn’t die. One of the Lion Guard saved me. He brought me here, to this world, and raised me in secret. And now I need your help.”

Silence. Deep, brooding, terrifying silence.