She grabbed Conall’s arm, her grip probably bruising as she stared in shock at the dying wolf.
After a few seconds, Conall drew her hand from his arm and curled his own around it. He drew her into side. “Eirik?”
Thea shook her head. “I’ve no idea. The Blackwoods?”
Conall exhaled slowly, wearily. “I dinnae think so.”
Realizing there might be more than one group after her, Thea stared up at Conall who was glaring at the dead wolf in thought. If he couldn’t protect Thea, get her back to Scotland before someone else got to her, Callie would die. But somewhere deep down, Thea knew she’d begun to hope that Conall cared about protecting Thea because of Thea.
Something had changed between them, gradually, compelling them forward to a new state of understanding, one that finally sank its teeth into Thea as she watched Conall fight to the death to protect her.
Like he knew she had been fighting for too long.
Like he knew just once someone should care enough to fight for her.
Thea so wanted to believe that.
Only days ago, she would have told herself she was ridiculous to even contemplate trusting another being with her life. But she was so tired.
So tired of being alone.
Of being without faith.
The promise she made to Amanda floated across her mind.
“Iron,” she blurted out.
Conall frowned down at her. “What, lass?”
She licked her dry lips and then unconsciously squeezed the hand holding tight to hers. “My weakness, Conall. The thing Ashforth lined the walls with, the metal of the cat-o’-nine-tails. Pure iron. I’m allergic to pure iron.”
He was disturbingly silent for what felt like forever. And then he turned into her. “You trust me a little then, Thea?”
Although it was difficult, she nodded.
Something flared in his eyes. “I know someone who might be able to give us the answers we need. About you … about the Blackwoods and this Eirik person. Will you trust me to take you to this man?”
There was still a part of her that wanted to flee the truth, to flee trust, hope, but Thea accepted that everything had changed when Conall came into her life. There was no going back now.
“Okay …”
“He’s a friend but he’s also a vampire.”
Surprised by this information, Thea could only nod. She’d been under the assumption that vamps and wolves tolerated each other but weren’t exactly friendly.
Conall tugged on her hand and led her out of the courtyard of death. “Then we’re taking a detour.”
“To where?”
He flashed her a quick grin over his shoulder. “Ever been to Norway?”“I still can’t believe you have a fake ID,” Thea said as Conall drove north.
He shot her a look, wondering at what point she stopped seeing him as most people did. Everyone else would take one look at him and immediately think “That is a man with a fake ID, a Harley, and a knife collection.”
“Most supes I know have fake identification. Strange things happen around us. We need to be untraceable if the authorities poke around.”
She nodded, seeming to accept this.
Conall had used said fake ID, an ID that Ashforth did not know about, to rent an SUV in Düsseldorf. They were traveling toward Neumünster in northern Germany. It was over a five-hour drive, so they’d stop at a hotel for the night before continuing in the morning through Denmark to Frederikshavn. That drive would be followed by an almost ten-hour ferry crossing to Oslo.
“Ashforth used to scare me with the threat of the government. That they were interested in me after the plane crash and it was only his protection that was keeping them at bay. Do you think the government knows about supes?”
Conall didn’t like that Ashforth had held government exposure over her head like an axe, but he also wouldn’t lie to the lass. “It would be naïve to think they arenae aware of our world. I’ve heard stories of certain governments … experimentation, captivity, recruitment, that kind of thing.”
“Doesn’t that concern you?”
“As long as they stay out of my way, I’ll stay out of theirs.” He wasn’t looking for a war. His whole mission in life was to protect his pack from that very thing. Conall thought of Callie, whom he’d called from a pay phone before they’d left Düsseldorf. She hadn’t answered, and it was Ashforth who rang the pay phone back.
“The Blackwoods attacked again,” Conall had lied to Ashforth. “They were using the cell to track us.”
“And yet you survived,” Ashforth had murmured. “You’re proving yourself to be quite impressive, Conall.”
He’d almost choked on his bile as images of Thea’s back flitted across his mind. This man had used a vampire to whip Thea with a cat-o’-bloody-nine tails. She’d been nineteen years old. Rage had welled inside Conall just thinking about it, and he’d pulled the phone away from his ear, taking deep breaths and ignoring Thea’s questioning eyes.