Chapter 3

THREE

Asha

The road stretches out in front of us, practically glowing in the evening light, and I lean back a little more in the passenger seat with a sigh. I’m getting pretty damn tired of the road. Of exploring all these towns in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere in hopes of finding more leads. Yes, it’s what I signed on for, but I thought there would be more successes and fewer hours upon hours spent in almost near silence. In a car. With fucking Max .

But usually I can handle it. At least I can better than today, but I’m still agitated from what happened with Abby a few days ago. And the sideways glances that Max keeps throwing my way from the driver’s seat aren’t helping. I know it’s ridiculous, but I prefer that he treat me like a grenade about to go off than a fragile person. It’s easier when he’s ignoring me rather than having to deal with the pitying looks I’m getting now.

Because we both know I’m feeling more than a little sorry for myself right now. I’d finally reached one of my pack members before it was too late, and I still couldn’t save her.

Other Enforcers had come to clean up her body, and that of the old witch. They’d taken pictures, asked questions, but neither Max nor I mentioned the moment when I was going to let Abby kill me. Maybe Max wasn’t sure what he saw, but it didn’t matter. It was a moment of weakness I can never repeat. I don’t get to just die. I have people to save.

Basically, I have my hands full. So, whatever the hell Max’s problem is, he needs to get over it.

"What?" I finally snap, when I see his neck turn in my direction for the hundredth time.

He turns back to the road, the veins on his hands prominent from how hard he’s squeezing the steering wheel. “You couldn’t have saved her. She was too far gone.”

“Because you know so much about saving Blood Mages,” I tell him dryly. Belatedly, I regret calling my own pack member a Blood Mage, but that’s what the Enforcers call us now. And sometimes it gets in my head.

He’s quiet for a moment, then says, “But as far as Blood Mages go, she was weak. I want you to know that, because we’ll need to be on our game if we want to take them down.”

Maybe he needs to be on his game, but I'm not trying to ‘take them down’. I want to save them. And I have to keep holding onto hope that the rest of my pack might want to be saved half as badly as I want to save them.

“I don’t want to talk about Abby anymore,” I tell him curtly.

“Okay.” He nods, then clears his throat. "The nightmares you have seem to bother you a lot. Want to tell me about them?"

Great change in conversation.

"Sure, who doesn’t want to tell their captor their innermost secrets?" I say in a sickly-sweet voice. I know it’s not technically true, but I want to argue and get things back to the way they were.

I don’t know why.

He sighs. "You're not my prisoner, Asha, you came with me of your own free will."

Free will? I snort. "Yeah, like I had a choice. You would have killed or captured me anyway.”

“Asha–”

“Come on, we both know you hate me and that you're just waiting for the perfect opportunity to drive a stake through my vampiric heart." Again, not technically true, but there’s enough about what I said that is true that I don’t mind flinging the words at him.

Those big hands of his shift on the steering wheel again, then grip it harder. "You're helping me as much as I'm helping you. You shouldn't see it like that."

His voice is calm and quiet when he speaks, and ironically, it makes me angrier, like he's patronizing me. Oh, Asha, tell me everything about you so that I can kill you when you're at your weakest. Yeah, right.

“But that’s exactly how I see it,” I tell him, glaring.

Like usual, he doesn’t take the bait, just says, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“Fucking robot,” I mutter, pushing my sunglasses up higher on the bridge of my nose and glaring out at the woods that surround the little road we’re on.

A few minutes of silence pass and then he says, “We’ll be at our next stop in less than an hour.”

“ Perfect .” Damn it, I really do sound like a bitch.

The thing is, I know he's frustrated that I snapped at him, but he needs to get used to the fact that this is just how it will be between us. I’m never going to be a perfect, polite robot like him. To me, this isn’t a job, and he's not my friend or coworker. I’m here because it’s the best chance I have of finding what’s left of my Blood Pack and getting the Enforcers to show them mercy, so they won’t all just be slaughtered for what they are.

Maybe after we’re done, Max will become my enemy. Actually, he probably will be. But either way, I can’t get close to him, and I can’t trust him. Doing so would be stupid. And a distraction I can’t afford.

I already failed my pack and my family once; I’m not going to do it again.

Although I’ve failed them more than once. When we were attacked. When we were captured. When we were tortured. And when we were changed by the Blood Mages.

I shiver and wrap my arms around myself. Flashes of the sound of screaming, along with the sight of blood, and the painful experiments race through my mind. Moments where I could feel the cold bars of a cage at my back, and the cold metal floor beneath me, stealing all warmth from my sore body. It’s all right there in my mind, just below my determination to survive.

Memories of the Blood Mages.

Memories of Hell .

And it’s suddenly hard to breathe. I try to push the feeling away. I try to take deep, even breaths, but that panicky feeling is still there, whispering that it’s inside of me.

I hate thinking about the Blood Mages because it always makes me remember how twisted I am now. How I have dark, ugly magic inside of me. I swear sometimes I can even feel it, like a tar running through my veins. Spreading through every inch of me. Destroying who and what I once was.

Although logically I’m already destroyed. That fucking boat has long since sailed.

“Are you cold?” Max asks.

I startle and look down at myself, realizing I’m clenching my arms and shaking. “I’m fine.”

But still, he turns down the air. He’s not looking at me, even though I know he had to in order to know I was cold. Which pisses me off for reasons I don’t understand. This man, and the other Enforcers, see my kind as little more than dangerous burdens, so why should he care if I’m cold?

It’s not just him though. I almost laugh as the idea comes to me. Like I care if it’s just him who hates my kind or the whole damn world.

Yet, the thought isn’t wrong . Our society sees a half-shifter, half-witch like me as dangerous. Since half breeds are often unstable and crazed, we’ve all been labeled as such. That’s why the Blood Pack was created. That’s why our town was built. It was a safe place for half breeds.

At least it was, until it wasn’t.

And now that I’ve been changed again, turned into this… fucking thing, I’m worse than any half breed. More dangerous than even the Enforcers can imagine.

Max’s cellphone rings, and I jump a little. He answers, lifting it to his ear. “Hello?” A pause. “Yes, sir.” A longer pause. “Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it.” And then he sets his phone back down.

“Orders to kill me?” I ask, trying to sound hopeful.

He doesn’t answer for a long minute. “They’re just making sure we’re on schedule.”

My heart races. That can’t be all. “Any sightings of my pack?”

“Sightings, yes. Captures, no.”

“And are we going to the location of one of these sightings?” I ask, trying not to sound too hopeful.

He seems to consider his words with care. Something he does a lot, much to my annoyance. “They will always send us to the most likely places because with your presence they’re hoping to have fewer casualties.”

So, basically, they’re hoping I can calm down my “crazed” pack members rather than have the Enforcers continue to lose their people. It’s a bit annoying, but it’s also what I ultimately want, so I keep my thoughts to myself.

I steal a look at Max's profile and hate how perfect he looks. So perfect that I want nothing more than to mess up his dark hair. To put his tie askew. Damn, I bet he’d lose his mind if I did that. Because he takes perfectionism to a whole new level. And yet, it’s hard not to remember what he looked like that morning when he was holding me. Like a person rather than just an Enforcer.

A person who was concerned about my nightmare. Maybe even about me .

I can't help the feeling of guilt that creeps up. Yes, I don't want to be here, with him, but Max is technically helping me. Well, he’s using me if you think about it, but I’m using him too. So, on a surface level, there’s no need for me to be a raging bitch to him all the time.

But for some reason, I can’t help it.

No, not for some reason. For good goddamn reasons. His loyalty is to the Enforcers and mine is to my pack. If the Enforcers tell him to kill me or my pack members, he will. And no amount of holding me after my nightmares will change that. So, I’m keeping my distance for a reason.

My goal is to find my pack. Find my brother, who the Enforcers think is dead, and disappear before I can become their next test subject.

That should be the only thing that’s important to me. Not how distractingly perfect Max is, or how big and strong his hands are. I try to stop thinking about him in that manner, but his scent calls to me strongly. It’s clean and crisp like fallen rain and cedar. When I breathe it in, it makes fire race through my veins in a way that makes me feel wild and uncontrollable.

In a way that scares me.

Because the moment any of my kind let themselves be wild, we seem to lose all control and become something dark… something else. So, it shouldn’t matter how Max smells. I can’t enjoy it. I can’t give in to it. I just have to remind myself that we’re both shifters, so it’s not unusual to notice and like each other’s scents.

That’s all it is.

Well, it also might be because Max is admittedly attractive, but I'm not supposed to care about that. Noticing his scent and liking it in a way that I’ve never liked anyone else’s scent is just… a coincidence. Nothing important. Not like my mission.

I don’t even know why I’m thinking about that. Or why every time I let my thoughts run, they either go to terrible things or to Max. A therapist might know why, but I don’t have a clue, and I’m not sure I want to.

Leaning back in my chair, I close my eyes and will myself to think about something else, but it really is like my mind only has two gears. An obsession with Max that borders on unhealthy, and memories of horrific things that make my heart race and my palms grow sweaty. I try to repeat the lyrics to songs, something that helps me on these long, silent car rides, and it works. Time passes, I have no idea how much, as I go through every Brittany Spears song my sister had played on repeat when we lived together. When I had a home and a family.

And even the lyrics of the songs somehow come out sad in my mind.

The car halts abruptly, and I'm thrown back into reality. I look out the window and see that we’ve come to a small town, the likes of which we’ve seen a thousand times before while searching for my pack. It’s surrounded by trees. There are shops and stores on both sides of the road, but we’ve pulled into the parking lot of a diner.

I let out a slow breath, itching to get out of this car. To escape the constant need to fill my mind with shit to keep the monsters out. And, of course, the chance to eat. Eating is one thing that still brings me joy.

Saved by the diner. Perfect.

"Food?" I ask, my voice dripping with eagerness.

"Check in at the motel, then food," he says with an almost smile, then points to a run-down motel just behind the diner.

I sigh and get out of the car. Max opens the trunk and tries to take both our bags, but I snag mine from him before he can. The guy is constantly acting like he's living the rules of Gentleman 101, which bothers me. At least I think it bothers me.

But he seems not to have noticed my fight to carry my own bag as he closes and locks everything up, then leads me to the motel. He gets one room with two beds, which is our usual MO. We each take a keycard and then find our room in the far back corner, a location Max prefers. I almost see myself as his mistress with how hard he tries to hide me sometimes.

We throw our bags onto our beds. Then, without a word, we head back to the diner parking lot. Already, I'm excited. Meals are the one time when I feel like life doesn't absolutely suck.

"Go in and wait for me. Order whatever you want. I’ll be along as soon as I can," Max tells me, shoving a few bills into my hand.

I freeze, surprised. "What? Why? Where the hell are you going?”

Is it about that phone call? Is this where they slaughter me? Or are there sightings of my pack in this town and he’s keeping me away from it for some reason? I don’t know, but my hands curl into fists.

He sighs as if he's tired of me already. "Just go in there and wait for me. I'm meeting someone at the bar across the street. I'll be with you shortly."

“Who are you meeting?”

He lifts a brow. “If I wanted you to know, I would have said so.”

“And why are you meeting them?”

“Same answer,” he says without missing a beat.

“Does it have anything to do with my pack?” My voice goes up a few decimals.

“Asha, just go into the diner.” He actually sounds irritated, which would normally make me happy, but the whole thing just manages to piss me off. I’m not a child, and I hate when he treats me like one. But I know him, and there’s nothing I can say right now to get him to change his mind.

I frown but do as he says, stomping off across the gravel. I’m acting a little like a spoiled brat but that's what he deserves. Go in and wait for me. Huh? No, you go in and let me look for my pack by myself since you don't know how to do your job. I roll my eyes and push the diner's door open, then slam into someone.

Taking a few steps back with my hands already curled into fists, I jerk my gaze up to the person in front of me. And it’s like my brain freezes. It’s a man, but a hell of a man. Tall and broad with black hair and eyes such a pale blue shade they’re almost white. He’s wearing a tight green shirt with army tags, and tattoos crawl up both his arms, hugging his biceps in a way that makes me jealous. Jealous of the damn tattoos that get to touch him.

This is the kind of man I need. Someone who doesn’t look complicated. Someone who probably has an ass as fine as his face. Maybe if I took him around back and fucked his brains out, I’d have something good to think about when I close my eyes.

He gives me a smile that screams bad boy , like he knows what I’m thinking, and wants to lead the way. “Sorry about that,” he says, and his voice is low, a timber that rolls through my body and makes my nipples hard.

“I think I crashed into you,” I say.

His smile widens. “Well, I consider it an honor, ma’am.”

Hell, if he had a cowboy hat on right now, there’s no doubt he’d be tipping it to me, and in a short time from now, I’d be licking my way down to his cock. A cock I’m sure is thick and long and everything his swagger promises it could be.

But before I can say more, he starts to move past me to the door, and my eyes flutter closed as I breathe him in. He’s a shifter, that I’m sure of, and his scent is incredible. Rugged, like the broken earth, and also, somehow, green and rich, like freshly cut grass. He pauses as he moves past me, and our eyes lock. His are wide with surprise, as he looks down at my much smaller frame like he’s seeing me for the first time.

“Table?”

I turn. A woman in a blue uniform, including a hat and apron, is smiling at me. Okay, well, she’s smiling at him, but she jerks her gaze to look at me, a menu in hand.

“Uh, yeah, thanks.”

She starts leading me to a table, and I follow her, feeling foolish. Glancing back once, I see he’s still frozen at the door, staring after me, but then he shakes himself and heads for the door. Like maybe, just maybe, he felt the same connection I’d felt.

But it’s stupid. He’s a stranger. One I’ll probably never see again.

The waitress stops at a booth by the window. I scoot in and sit down, then watch as the handsome man passes a kid with a dog. My heart aches a little as I look at the dog. It looks like it survived being hit by a car, with one leg that isn’t as straight as the others. It’s mostly bare of fur. And then there are scars across the lower half of his body. I’m honestly surprised the injuries didn’t kill it. The man grins, kneels down, and pets the golden retriever before he slips the boy some money and nods toward the bar before getting up and crossing the street.

Part of me wants him to look back, a sign that he felt whatever I did, but the waitress comes again, and I order a Dr. Pepper. When I glance back up, he’s disappeared into the bar. I have no idea if he looked back or not, but if I was a different woman, a smarter, smoother woman, I have a feeling that me and Mr. DogTags would be in the back fucking right now.

So much for making new, happy memories.