Blood Rule (Book 4, Dirty Blood series) (15 page)

“
Yeah.” With effort, I
made myself get in.

In the silence, I found Wes’s hand and
promised myself I would see my mother shoot her speargun.
Hopefully, at someone other than my boyfriend.

True to my mother’s word, Jack’s
pickup was packed and loaded with bags when we pulled off the road
into the grass. A large, white tarp had been spread over the bed,
making the pile underneath look like a misshapen cotton ball. Jack
and Derek were busy tying it all down with rope. They looked up as
Wes and I walked over, their expressions matching in concentration
and concern.

“
Did Angela get home
okay?” Jack asked.

“
Yes. She’s going to look
in on Vera for us,” I said.

The lines around his mouth softened a
little. “She’s a good girl.”

Fee came around the side of the truck,
followed by Cord. Fee had a bag strapped to her back using a
peculiar-looking belt to hold it in place. In each of her hands,
she carried another bag identical to her own. She held one out to
Jack and the other to Derek as they each dismounted the truck
bed.

“
Tara, you made it,” Fee
said, clearly relieved.

“
No problems?” Cord
asked.

“
None,” said
Wes.

I didn’t miss the wistfulness in
Cord’s eyes as she asked—or the disappointment at Wes’s negative
answer. “They’re out there,” she said.

“
We need to get going,”
Fee agreed. She stepped forward to help Jack tighten the belt on
his bag.

My brow furrowed as Derek began
strapping his on the same way the others had. “I thought all the
bags were in the truck,” I said.

“
Cambria and Cord are
taking the truck,” Fee explained. “Jack, Derek, and I will meet
them there.”

“
The three of you are
running from here to Lexington Manor?” I asked.

“
It’s Maryland,” Cord
said.

“
It’s really not a
problem,” Fee added.

“
Is it because of the
luggage?” I asked, gesturing toward the truck. “You’re welcome to
take my car if you need more space.”

Derek grinned. “That’s not exactly
luggage. We cleaned out the weapons room.”

I eyed the boxes and bags underneath
the tarp. Now that he pointed it out, I recognized the storage
containers that’d lined the shelves in Jack’s back room. Those
boxes held stakes of all material and size. Some fit into crossbows
and some were handheld. What boxes didn’t contain stakes held an
array of knives, swords, and axes. I knew from the many times I’d
attempted to organize it all, Jack loved his weapons. He had enough
to supply a small army.

“
You’re taking
everything?” I asked, gaping at the load.

“
We don’t want Steppe
getting his hands on it, that’s for damn sure,” Derek
said.

And then I realized as I looked at
their faces—none of them expected to come back here. The thought
brought a lump to my throat.

“
When Steppe comes
looking, you can bet he’ll have trackers,” Wes explained in a
gentle voice that filled the silence I left. “We want to make it as
hard as possible on them. So we’re going to leave multiple trails
out of here.”

“
When was that decided?” I
asked. I didn’t remember this as part of the plan discussed at
Grandma’s.

“
Long before today,” Fee
said.

“
We’ve always had an exit
plan,” Cord added.

“
You have?”

Cord snorted. “Uh. Yeah. We’ve been
doing this a lot longer than you. We’re prepared.”

Jack cut a look in Cord’s direction.
“We’ve had an exit plan but we’ve never had to use it. Mostly, it
consists of confusing whatever trail we leave so that we’re harder
to track. We know what we’re up against.”

Trackers. He meant Kane. Strike teams.
Hunters.

I frowned at Wes. “So then we
shouldn’t take your car. Or my mom’s.”

“
We’re not,” he
said.

“
We’re running too?” The
thought of shifting, of stretching my legs and running with the
pack—at the head of them—made my muscles strain in
anticipation.

“
You’ll have to be careful
about your route,” Jack said. “A pack that large will be easy to
track.”

“
I thought about that,”
Wes said, “and I may have found a way around it.”

“
How’s that?” Jack
asked.

He hesitated. “I … procured a tour
bus.”

My eyes narrowed. “And by ‘procured’
you mean …?”

“
Benny stole
it.”

“
Benny,” I muttered. “Why
am I not surprised?”

“
Don’t worry. He won’t
remember a thing,” Wes said.

Derek chuckled and shook his
head.

“
When did you have time to
make that happen?” I asked.

Wes and Cord shared a look.

“
We may have been planning
ahead for contingencies,” she said cryptically. She shot a pointed
look at Jack. “Like I said, we’ve always had an exit
plan.”

“
You knew we’d have to
run?” I asked, looking back and forth between them.

“
Not necessarily from
this,” Wes said.

“
But we knew being able to
leave quickly and without a trail would be beneficial,” Cord
finished. “Especially once you started doing your wolfy thing … and
inherited a pack that had an appetite for human guts.”

I stared at her, feeling somehow as if
I was seeing her for the first time. “You helped Wes plan an escape
for the hybrids?”

She shrugged like it was
no big deal, but I knew better. Cord helping the same group that
had killed Bailey was a huge deal. Cord helping
me
was a huge deal. “I didn’t do it
for them,” she said.

Our eyes met and held. I felt a rush
of something I’d never experienced when I thought of Cord.
Gratitude. Something had changed between us during our time in the
woods, but this was almost like friendship. And judging from the
way she was staring back at me, she felt it too. I knew better than
to push it, though, so I merely nodded at her and said, “Thanks,
Cord.”

“
Whatever. I owed you
one,” she said quickly.

Awkward silence followed. Apparently,
no one else knew what to do with Cord and I making nice,
either.

Wes cleared his throat. “Where’s
Cambria?” he asked.

I looked around and realized my best
friend with hair the color of a summer sky was indeed
missing.

“
She went to say goodbye
to George,” Derek said. At Wes’s glare he added, “Stop looking at
me like that, dude. Chris went with her.”

“
That’ll do it,” Jack
said, giving the rope one final yank before stepping away from the
truck. He wrapped an arm around Fee and kissed her cheek.
“Ready?”

“
As I’ll ever be,” she
said.

As one, they turned to face the house,
the roof visible through the trees that lined the yard, regarding
it solemnly.

“
We’ll be back,” he said
into her ear, so low I barely caught it. My chest tightened. I felt
like an intruder, watching this moment between them.

A warm hand slipped into mine. I
looked up at Wes, attempting a smile. It wasn’t full but I knew he
needed to see I wasn’t going to fall apart.

“
We’ll be back,” he
whispered, echoing Jack’s words.

“
I know. I’m not
worried.”

He dropped his forehead to mine, and I
knew he saw right through my lie. “Where you go, I go,” he
said.

The curve of my mouth deepened toward
something more meaningful. I squeezed his hand, caught somewhere
between hope and longing for a life I knew I’d never see
again.

The sun dipped behind the trees,
casting shadows and making it darker here than it was elsewhere.
More was gathering than dusk.

I shivered.

Derek looked at his watch, then the
darkening sky. “Cambria should’ve been back by—”

“
Here!” She emerged
through a break in the trees a few yards away. Through the bond, I
sensed Chris hanging back. He was thinking about how much Cord
disliked him and he didn’t want to make this moment harder. George
stayed with him, both of them watching us from the cover of
branches, silent sentries.

It amazed me how much I’d
come to appreciate Chris. But once we’d bonded and he’d fought for
me in the clearing against Kane, things between us shifted, though
slowly at first. Somehow, I hadn’t realized until now, I trusted
him. To keep the pack safe in the woods when I was away. To walk my
best friend home amidst possible danger and threat of death. To
understand Cord’s anger wasn’t personal and give her the space she
needed. I sent him a
Thank you
through the bond, letting him know I understood
what he was doing.

“
Where have you been and
why aren’t you on the trail?” Derek asked, meeting Cambria halfway
across the yard and pulling her into a hug. He’d been going for
stern, but the way he smiled when he held her made it clear his
irritation was feigned.

She kissed his nose and explained,
“Chris said it would be good if we created multiple trails between
here and camp for when Steppe’s men come.”

“
Which will be soon,” Cord
said. “We need to go.”

Derek ignored her and kissed Cambria
on the mouth. “That was a good idea. I missed you.”

When she smiled at him, the sunshine
in her hair was nothing compared to the light in her eyes. “I
missed you too.” They kissed again, oblivious to the rest of
us.

It still amazed me, the relationship
that had sprung up between them. Cambria hadn’t necessarily been
flighty when it came to guys but I’d never seen her this serious
for any length. Then again, none of those boys had been Derek. Even
I could admit he was hot. And when he wasn’t standoffish and
actually decided to be friendly with me, I could see what drew her
to him. He wasn’t nearly as serious as he pretended to be. And he
loved Cambria, that much was clear from the way he saw past the
summer-sunrise hairdo to the person inside.

I waited for them to break apart, but
their kiss deepened. Arms tangled. I was pretty certain they’d
forgotten we were all here. And about to go on the lam with a truck
bed full of weapons. Or anything else remotely pertaining to
reality. Geez.

After a minute, Jack cleared his
throat.

“
We’re burning daylight,”
Cord called wryly.

“
And a hell of a lot of
calories from the looks of it,” Wes added.

“
Yeah, yeah,” Derek said,
finally breaking away enough to formulate words. He slung his arm
over Cambria’s shoulder and faced the group, a goofy smile on his
lips. He wiggled his eyebrows. “If you’re jealous, Cord, I can give
you the same goodbye.”

Cambria poked him in the ribs and he
jumped. Cord rolled her eyes.

“
Okay, this is it,” Fee
said. Her shoulders rose and fell with the deep breath she took and
let go again. She looked at Cambria, then Cord. “We’ll see you two
in a couple days.”

Cambria hugged her. “Be
careful.”

Jack handed Cord the keys and then
folded Cord into a bear hug. She let him go quickly and punched him
in the arm. “Try to keep up with your wife, old man. Don’t make me
come looking for you guys if you take too long.”

“
Please. I can run circles
around both of them. I’ll slow down for Derek, though.”

“
Pssh. Whatever. I have
two good legs,” Derek said. He and Cord exchanged a one-armed hug.
When their goodbyes were all said and done, Fee turned to
Wes.

He let go of my hand to wrap both of
his around her. The way he held her, gentle yet fierce, reminded me
of a mother and son. And I knew that although Wes wasn’t her
biological son, Fee loved him as completely as my own mother did
me.

“
Be careful,” she
whispered to him.

“
You too,” he whispered
back. “Don’t let Jack overdo it on that leg,” he said before
letting her go.

“
I won’t.”

Jack pretended not to hear. He hated
anyone bringing up his injury—or the slight limp he still nursed.
Pulling the extra satellite phone from his jacket, Wes handed it to
Jack.

“
What’s this?” Jack
asked.

“
Compliments of Edie,” Wes
said.

Jack turned it over in his hand once
and nodded. “Thanks.”

“
Call us when you get
there.”

“
Same to you,” Jack said.
His hug was like being enfolded by a peaceful grizzly. I squeezed
hard and stepped back quickly. If this took much longer, I was
going to cry.

I hugged Cambria last, swiping
underneath my eye to catch the pooling moisture before it could
fall. “Be safe,” I said simply.

“
Same.”