Embrace the Night (28 page)

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Authors: Crystal Jordan

BOOK: Embrace the Night
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Moments later, her arms went slack as he released her from the spell binding. She collapsed against the bed, cooing in delight when his long fingers worked any remaining tension from her muscles. He tugged up the covers and settled beside her, tucking her into his warm body.
Her hands fisted in the covers when he flipped off the lamp on the bedside table. Then she grinned. One of his truly hideous night-lights shone from a wall socket. The seashell light. From the glow in the room, she'd guess he'd plugged one into every available socket. She sighed and leaned back into him, relaxing.
“Not too dark?” He kissed her temple.
She shook her head. “Nope.”
He'd noticed. Of course he had. This was Merek. Her smile widened.
No wonder she loved him.
12
S
omething was wrong.
Every hair on the back of Merek's neck rose, his instincts shivering to life. In the three weeks since they'd left Arizona, he hadn't had a hint of suspicion that anything was amiss, but he stood looking at the woman behind the ticket counter at the Portland airport, and he knew. The way her eyes widened slightly when she entered his information into the computer, the way her bored expression flattened to emptiness.
They'd been blown.
“You know what? I need to make a call before I check in.” He gave the lady a grin he hoped looked genuine, swept his falsified passport out of her hand, and stepped back to let the next impatient traveler buy him a few seconds before she called security. From the corner of his eye, he noted when she picked up a phone.
Alex and Chloe were occupying a few of the uncomfortable chairs grouped near the ticketing area. They hadn't checked in yet. Merek insisted they switch things around when they flew. Sometimes they paired off; sometimes they all traveled separately. Same plane, but they didn't sit together, didn't acknowledge each other. Nothing would link them.
This time, Merek had been alone, the others together. He thanked the gods he'd gotten in line first. Digging through his duffle for a cell phone he didn't need, he pretended to lose his grip and scatter the contents on the floor near their chairs.
Alex hopped up to help him gather his belongings. Merek offered a thankful smile and kept his tone cheerful. “Our IDs have been flagged, and security is on the way. I'll handle them.” He nodded an easy farewell to Alex and Chloe, as if he'd never met them before and never expected to see them again. He could only pray he did see them again. Soon. But he had to get them out of here now. “I want you to very casually walk away from me, get in a cab, and leave the airport. I'll meet you in exactly two hours in the mystery section at Powell's.” The bookstore was enormous, the size of a full city block, and had gobbled up the surrounding stores into a sprawling maze of interconnected buildings. It was packed with people and a warren of bookshelves easy to get lost in. The perfect place to disappear, if necessary. “If I'm not there on time, you know what to do.”
Chloe gave him a dismissive wave before she set her purse in her lap and rooted around in it. She came up with a tube of gloss, slicked it on her lips, and dropped it back into the abyss of her bag.
“Come on, honey. Let's go.” She gave Alex an impatient glance as she stood, looped her purse over her shoulder, then picked up her suitcase and walked away.
“I hate Oregon.” Alex shrugged into his backpack and followed her. Neither of them looked back, and they hopped into a cab. A relieved breath eased out of Merek's lungs when they pulled away from the curb and sped away.
They were safe. For now.
The relief was short-lived. A uniformed guard slid into view. He wasn't Normal. Elf, maybe. Senses Merek had honed as a cop made that conclusion register before he'd even given the question his full attention.
A shimmer formed before his eyes, visions of how this could play out. Now that Alex and Chloe were out of the picture, he could see again. Possibilities, chances, probabilities. Some were uglier than others. He discarded those, making a snap decision, which made still more potentials dance before him, overlaying the reality of the bustling airport. Reflex kept the two pictures sharp, allowed him to react to what was true and interpret what was possible.
Adrenaline ripped through his system as his heart picked up speed, but he controlled the need to run, to fight, to hunt those who hunted him. Pulling in a deep breath, he let it ease out. Before it had completely left his lungs, he'd shifted his duffle to his left shoulder, leaving his right hand free if he needed to grab the weapon tucked into the small of his back, concealed by his jacket.
Ducking into a men's room, he used a pocketknife to jimmy the door to a janitor's closet and shut it behind him. No spells, nothing for another Magickal to detect.
The restroom door opened, and the elf stepped in. Merek froze, unsure how developed the elf's senses were. He might be able to detect a life-form in here, but Merek's visions showed that wasn't likely.
Another possibility sliced into his mind, crystal clear and certain. A second security guard would walk in behind the first, helping with the search for Merek. The second man was the greater danger, and more likely to find what he was looking for. The two of them together could take Merek. If that happened, he was on an unstoppable collision course with Smith. As much as he'd like a piece of that bastard, it would leave no one to protect Chloe and Alex.
Fuck.
Slapping open the door, he grabbed the passing elf from behind. The swift squeak of the bathroom door behind him told Merek the second man had entered. Struggling with the elf, Merek felt a nightstick slam into the back of his skull. There was heavy magic to power the blow. Dark spots exploded before his eyes, and he felt himself falling. The breath blasted from his lungs when he made impact with the tile floor, and he choked when the elf landed on top of him. Sucking in air, he swung out, a quick snap of fist meeting jaw and the first security guard slumped against Merek's chest. He blinked hard, trying to clear the cartwheeling stars, and heard the baton whistling toward his head again. He jolted, heaved out from under the unconscious elf, who took the blow instead.
The world spun in sickening circles before him, a kaleidoscope of colors. He lifted a hand, shot out a spell, and it collided midair with one launched by the second guard. The burst of light made his stomach lurch, and he let himself collapse flat to the tile, narrowly missing being hit by another spell. He flicked his fingers, took the guard out at the knees. He'd meant to go higher, hit the chest, but his aim wasn't quite straight.
A scream from the guard as he collapsed to the floor beside his companion rang in Merek's ears, jabbing into his brain. He jackknifed in reaction, but the movement made him sicker. He saw the guard with both hands locked around his leg, writhing in agony. Merek wheezed, sent a final spell, and left the second guard drooling beside the first.
Rolling to his hands and knees, Merek grabbed for one of the porcelain sinks to drag himself slowly to his feet. Then he bent forward and vomited his guts up.
Even with his skull ringing, the future still played out before his eyes. Only now the overlapping layers of vision made him gag on whatever was left in his stomach. The paths he needed to take to make it back to the welcoming blankness of his people rooted in his thoughts. He rinsed his mouth, wiped the sweat from his forehead, staggered to the janitor's closet to pick up his duffle, and escaped.
 
The red and white marquee sign that read
POWELL'S BOOKS—USED
& NEW BOOKS
was the most welcome thing Merek had ever seen. The drizzling rain felt like a hammer blow every time a drop landed on his skin, and he wanted to get out of it. His gaze swept the street one last time before he crossed toward the mammoth bookstore.
His movements were slower than he liked, his step careful. He was on autopilot. Just make sure no one followed him. Just get to Alex and Chloe. Just be certain they were safe.
The lights inside the store blinded him when he walked in, and he shuddered, fighting a wave of nausea. He paused for a long moment, trying to remember where he was going. Mystery. The mystery section at Powell's. Where he'd told them to meet him.
Reading the signs to get to the right area hurt his eyes, the words blurring and streaking, a halo of light forming around every person he passed.
And there they were. Two dark heads of hair bent together, one so deep a brown it was almost black, one a shining blue-black like a raven's wing. Chloe. She looked up at him, pushing that raven hair from her face. Her relieved smile made his heart skip a beat, but then her grin faded when she got a good look at him.
“Merek, what happened?”
“Took . . .” Somehow his tongue didn't want to shape the words correctly, but he forced himself to speak distinctly. “Took a knock to the head from an airport security guard.”
Alex's hand closed around his shoulder, and Merek startled because he hadn't seen the wolf move. The quick motion was like an anvil slamming into him, and his view tilted sideways.
“I've got you, Merek.” It was Alex's voice, but he sounded like he'd spoken from a great distance. Hadn't the boy just been next to him? Merek thought so, but he wasn't quite sure. He blinked a few times, but couldn't see clearly, couldn't think clearly.
He blinked again, and things had changed. What, he wasn't sure, but he felt a shift in space and time. A soft rocking motion told him he was in a moving vehicle. It was disorienting, and he didn't like that, but when he pulled in a breath, he smelled his lover's sweet scent. “Chloe.”
“Yes, Merek. I'm here.” Her hand stroked his forehead, and it felt good.
He
felt good, energized, but that wasn't right either.
“I got hit by a police baton.” He frowned up at the gray fabric that covered the ceiling of the car. He was in a tilted back passenger seat. Chloe perched in the backseat behind him. Turning his head, he saw Alex behind the wheel.
Alex's green eyes left the road for a moment, and they reflected a deep concern. “Yeah, you had a pretty nasty concussion. Chloe put you under a healing spell, so you'd sleep until you were completely better.”
“I didn't want to try to do any kind of quick healing on you. The brain can be so delicate to work with, and I just don't have the skills to rush it.” Her fingers brushed through Merek's hair, and he felt her testing him with her magic. “This was the best I could do.”
He reached up and caught her hand. “You did good, sweetheart. I feel fine. Great, in fact.”
Groping under his seat, he felt for the lever so he could sit up. The sun was setting, its light breaking through the overcast clouds. There were trees and a few houses along the road, but nothing else to indicate their location. A prickle of unease ran down his spine. “Where are we?”
This vehicle wasn't a rental, of that Merek was certain. Someone's graduation tassel hung from the rearview mirror, and his shoes stuck to the soda on the floorboards. Whoever owned this car was a total slob. The long silence made him glance around. Chloe was wedged into the middle of a nonexistent backseat. Ophelia sat beside her, using the back of Alex's seat as a scratching post.
He looked to Alex again. “Do I want to know where the car came from?”
“Stole it,” he replied, more cheerful than Merek had ever heard him. “I reprogrammed the onboard computer and scrambled some records so the owner will have a bitch of a time proving the car even belonged to him in order to report it stolen. We switched out the plates of six cars in a mall parking lot of similar makes and models, then drove over to a parking garage at Portland State University and did the same.”
Smart. It would take them a while to sort that mess out. Merek wasn't going to say it out loud. “You want to tell me what all this is for? Where are we, and where exactly are we going in this stolen vehicle?”
He could feel the tension ratchet up in the small car, saw Alex glance in the rearview mirror to meet Chloe's eyes. The teen swallowed. “Yeah. There's a story for that.”
“So.” Chloe took a deep breath. “Here's what we figured. We can't use the IDs or credit cards Millie gave us, and if those are blown, then any of the properties she owns are out as well. We haven't been using them, but not using them has seriously depleted our cash fund. And now we
can't
use them because we don't know which are covered by Smith's men and which aren't.”
Alex took up the thread of the explanation as he slowed the vehicle to make a turn onto a narrow two-lane road. “We need somewhere safe, somewhere I can Change, somewhere away from Magickals, somewhere not related to anyone we know.”
“ And . . .” Back to Chloe, and Merek was already sure he wasn't going to like where this was going any more than he liked riding in a stolen car. These two were too damn smart. “We
are
running low on cash, but contacting Millie for more would be a bad plan, since they probably know she helped us with the IDs.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Cut to the chase. Where have we gone?”
“You're going to be pissed.” The glance Alex gave him was worried, and that in itself worried Merek.
“We stopped and picked up groceries after we . . . after we got off the ferry from . . . Seattle,” Chloe whispered the last word, as though that would somehow dampen the effect.
He jerked around in his seat to stare at her. “No.”
“Yes.” The stubbornly mutinous look was so familiar he wanted to shake her. He usually found it endearing, but he was usually in control of the situation. “It's already done anyway. We're here.”
He snarled. “You know how far werewolf senses can stretch!”
Rearing back against the seat, she held up a placating hand. “Well, we just passed
through
Seattle. We didn't stop. We're on Bainbridge Island.”

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