“I’m not saying that’s what we will do,” River replied, standing there looking every bit the leader, the Alpha. He folded his thick arms, causing his crisp white shirt to strain a little, and his golden eyes narrowed as he watched me. “It’s just one possibility we should keep on the table in case we need to create a false trail.”
“Makes sense,” I nodded, burying my hands in the soft fur of Tyson’s neck. “I don’t like it, but it makes sense. Did we have any luck finding somewhere safe for Lucy and Elena to stay?”
My rainbow-haired bestie snorted from the barstool where she perched, eating cereal from a bowl. “Fat fucking chance, sunshine,” she snickered. “I’m sticking to you like glue.”
Rolling my eyes, I let out a long-suffering sigh and looked back to River. Despite the guys having formally resigned from Omega Group, River was and always would be the leader of our little team.
“Okay, so where to this time?” I asked, dropping the whole Lucy-safehouse scenario for another day. I would win that argument sooner or later, even if I did need to appeal to her protective side. Elena—her girlfriend, as well as Cole and Vali’s sister—was nowhere near equipped to handle being on the run from Omega and whoever else was hunting me.
“Toronto,” Vali responded instead of River.
Dragomir Valeriu du Romane, or Vali for short, was a bit of a wild card in our crew. Cole’s estranged older brother, he had been, or still was, the head of a huge crime syndicate set up by their Romanian father.
His intense, granite-gray eyes locked on me, unblinking as he stood in an almost mirror pose to River. Muscular arms, encased in butter-soft black cashmere, folded while he leaned his back against the door frame.
“Cool,” I nodded, not needing to ask inane questions like why there? The location was irrelevant. Staying ahead of my adoptive father, Jonathan, was all that really seemed to matter at this point in time. Hopefully once we’d moved a few more times, we would have confused the trail enough we could go back on the offensive.
The ducking and hiding was grating against me. I needed to know why Jonathan had been using me, but possibly more important than that... I needed to find the creepy doctor who had taken a vial of my blood.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Wesley reassured me, sliding his strong hand over my shoulder and rubbing the tense muscles in my neck. “We’ll track him down sooner or later.”
One the one hand, I loved that Wes was in tune with my thoughts enough to know exactly what I was thinking, but on the other... “Yeah, it’s the ‘later’ that I’m worried about.”
“Toronto might be okay as a base,” River suggested, but didn’t look overly optimistic. “I’d feel more comfortable with somewhere more secluded.”
“I get that, I do,” I nodded, still running my fingers through Tyson’s fur, his throat vibrating against my lap as he purred. “But maybe we can just start looking when we get to Toronto? I don’t know what that dude wanted my blood for, but given he’d made an arrangement with Mr. Gray, it can’t have been anything good.”
A deep shudder rippled through me as I remembered the slimy little man attaching an IV to my vein while I lay immobile, zip-tied to a bed. Then how he had left me there, knowing full well the kind of hell Gray intended to rain down on me... Some people were seriously sick fucks.
“Yes, I think so,” River agreed, his golden eyes pinched with concern as he watched me.
Wesley raked a hand through his floppy blonde hair, then scooted a little closer to me on the couch so that our thighs touched. “I’ve already started doing some background and surveillance on Director Pierre too,” he offered. “So we might have something more concrete to go on once we arrive at the new safe house.”
“Awesome,” I grinned my appreciation, but my stomach twisted like I might throw up. How the fuck had it come to this? That we were running spy-level background checks and surveillance on my own dad?
I guessed it was a small consolation that we’d found out when we did. Jonathan had been acting weird ever since we’d captured and questioned Madam Dupree, months ago. She’d been the one to really open my eyes to what was going on in the shadows of this world—that magic was real and I wasn’t even human.
At least we’d found out before anyone died. Or at least, died permanently.
“So, Toronto again. How are we getting there? Plane, train, or automobile?” I pasted on my best big-girls-don’t-cry smile and looked to Vali once more. River was in charge, yes. There was no doubt about that. But Vali was the one orchestrating our little game of hide and seek with Omega Group, thanks to his extensive directory of underworld contacts and the seemingly bottomless pit of money at his disposal.
“By road... for the most part. Then we will cross Lake Ontario by boat.” He said it so seriously, and he looked so damn sinister in his black, long-sleeve top and dark jeans with his wavy, shoulder-length hair tied back in a tiny ponytail... it forced a grin to crack through my anxious inner turmoil.
“Under the cover of night?” I teased. “Like real criminals?”
Vali’s gray eyes narrowed at me in dangerous amusement. “Yes, drag?. Like real criminals.”
The Romanian endearment sent a flutter through me, and I ducked his intense gaze. Our relationship was still... new? Uncertain? Confusing as all hell? I blamed the circumstances of our meeting for the mess we were in now.
Vali had purchased me in a slave auction after I’d been kidnapped, but the bastard had never told me he was one of the good guys until the ninth hour. So the attraction I’d felt toward him had seemed a bit on the Stockholm Syndrome side of sane.
“Cool,” I murmured, then looked to River once more. “Can I drive?”
Our stoic, British leader snorted a short laugh and generously offered up a tiny half smile.
“Not bloody likely, love.”
Damn. Worth a try, though.
“I’ll let you ride shotgun if you’d like,” he offered, oh so generously, and I sulked a little. River had yet to allow me to drive his Aston Martin Vanquish, despite my never-ending pleading.
“Fine,” I sighed and headed back into the bedroom to grab my small suitcase of clothes. We had left Omega headquarters in a bit of a rush, given we were pretty certain Jonathan would have been calling the cavalry down on us, so I’d had to leave the majority of my stuff behind.
It was for the best though. We were moving around so much, it just wasn’t practical to have more than one bag.
As I threw my few toiletries into my bag, zipping it shut and rolling it out to the cars, I couldn’t help but feel hopeful about this next step. If all went according to plan, this would be the last stop before we could find a more permanent base and start turning the tables.
I was sick of running and hiding. It was time for action.
2
Caleb
The sound of Kit's scream and breaking glass jolted me from sleep sharply, and I leapt to my feet before my eyes had even opened.
“Sorry,” Kit groaned, pushing herself out of bed and trying to gather up pieces of the broken lamp in the dark.
“What happened? Are you okay?” I exclaimed, striding to the light switch and flipping it on. The decorative blown-glass bedside lamp was in pieces beside the bed where Kit must have knocked it during her nightmare.
I'm fine,” she sighed, and I couldn't miss the deep shudder that ran through her. “Just another bad dream. Sorry I woke you.”
“Don't be silly,” I scolded. “You know I don't mind you waking me. I'm always here if you need to talk about them too...?”
“I know,” she muttered, still stacking pieces of broken glass into a pile as I knelt to help. “I'd rather not, though. You know? I'd rather just ignore them and hope they go away. Besides, most nights Wes helps me. I just woke myself up with the whole broken-lamp thing before he got there this time.”
“Let me,” I coaxed, picking up the stack of big glass shards and dumping them in the trash can under the desk. Just as I was returning to help with the smaller pieces, Kit's sharp intake of breath made me pause. Less than a second later, the spicy-sweet tang of her blood reached my nose, and I automatically inhaled.