CHAPTER 3
991 Words
NYLA
"Don't slow down," he said again, and I didn't.
My foot pressed the gas before my brain even caught up with what was happening. The cracked windshield made the world blur into smears of light, but my wolf eyes cut through it, sharper than any human's would be. The SUV behind us swerved closer, its grille almost kissing my bumper.
"Take the next left," Cole said. His voice was tight with pain, but steady. "Hard left. Now."
I didn't ask why. I yanked the wheel and the car fishtailed onto a narrow side road, gravel spraying up under the tires. The SUV overshot the turn, brake lights flaring red as it tried to correct.
"Good," Cole breathed. "That buys us maybe thirty seconds."
"Thirty seconds for what?"
"For you to lose them completely. There's a turn coming up on your right in half a mile, an old logging road. Most GPS won't even show it."
I glanced at him in the mirror. He was pale, sweat mixing with the rain and blood on his face, but his eyes were sharp, calculating, like he had this whole road memorized. Like he'd planned an escape route before tonight ever happened.
"How do you know that?" I asked.
"Because I used to hunt out here as a kid," he said, and something in his voice told me that was true, but it wasn't the whole truth.
I took the turn. The logging road was rough, barely more than a dirt track, branches scraping along both sides of the car. My headlights bounced wildly, but behind us, the SUV's lights got smaller, then disappeared completely as the trees swallowed them.
For a long moment, neither of us said anything. The only sound was the rain hammering the roof and Cole's ragged breathing.
"Okay," I finally said, my hands shaking on the wheel. "Okay, we lost them. The motel is just up ahead."
"Thank you," he said quietly. "I mean it. You didn't have to help me."
"You're bleeding all over my back seat," I said, my voice cracking somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "I think I'm a little involved now."
He didn't answer that. I think he didn't trust himself to.
The Wayfarer Motel was a sad little row of rooms with a flickering neon sign, the kind of place where nobody asked questions and nobody remembered your face. I parked around the back, away from the single working streetlight, and helped Cole out of the car. He was heavier than he looked, all muscle, and every step made him hiss through his teeth.
"Room twelve," he said, nodding toward the end unit. "Key's under the mat. Always is."
I didn't ask how he knew that either.
Inside, the room smelled like old carpet and bleach, but it was dry and warm, and right now that felt like luxury. I got him onto the bed, and he immediately tried to sit up.
"Don't," I said, pushing his shoulder back down. "You have claw marks across your entire back. Let me look at them."
"I'll heal," he said. "Wolves heal fast."
"Not fast enough to walk right now, apparently."
He huffed out something that was almost a laugh, and for a second, the pain in his eyes eased just a little. I went into the bathroom and found a thin, scratchy towel, soaked it in warm water, and came back to kneel beside the bed.
The second I touched the towel to his back, he went still again, the same way he had on the road. My fingers traced along the edges of the wounds, careful, gentle, and I felt him shiver under my hands. Not from pain.
"Sorry," I whispered, even though I wasn't sure what I was apologizing for.
"Don't be," he said, his voice low and rough in a way that did something strange to my stomach.
I kept cleaning the cuts, working slowly down his back, and I tried very hard not to notice the way his muscles moved under my hands, or the heat coming off his skin, or how my wolf, Saela, had gone from terrified to something else entirely. Something warm and curious that I did not have the emotional bandwidth for tonight.
"You said your husband cheated," he said quietly, breaking the silence.
My hands stilled. "Yeah."
"And you're pregnant."
"Yeah."
He turned his head slightly, just enough to look at me over his shoulder. Up close, his eyes were even more striking, blue like ice with a sunset behind it. "His loss," he said simply.
My throat tightened, and I had to look away before I did something embarrassing like cry on a stranger I'd hit with my car three hours ago.
"You should rest," I said instead, standing up and grabbing the remote off the nightstand. "I'll find us something to eat. There's a gas station up the road."
I flicked on the small TV mostly for noise, something to fill the silence so I didn't have to think about my own life falling apart, and I crossed to the window to check that the parking lot was still empty.
Behind me, the TV crackled to life on a late night news channel. A reporter's voice filled the room, calm and practiced.
"...breaking news tonight out of the financial district. Sources close to Frost Enterprises confirm that CEO Blaine Frost was attacked earlier this evening during what officials are calling an internal pack dispute. At this hour, Mr. Frost has not been located, and sources within the company say they fear the worst..."
A photo filled the screen. Dark hair. Ice blue eyes. A face I had been cleaning blood off of for the last twenty minutes.
I turned around slowly, the wet towel still in my hand, and stared at the man lying on the bed in front of me.
"Cole," I said carefully, "is there something you forgot to tell me?"
- Writer
