As he sat there, watching her tap away, Trace realized just how different this world was from the one he knew.
Chapter 21
Devil Hills, Idaho
“What are you going to do with her?” Jacob asked as he took his time looking through the assortment of junk food that Ethan bought for Indie the other day with the hopes of finding out how she processed sugar, something that should have clued him into what kind of impure he was dealing with since he was pretty that’s what she was now. It would explain why the bitch had gone through so much to hide her from him and why she’d put a twenty-million-dollar reward on her.
“Cut my losses,” Ethan said as he double-checked to make sure that his gun was loaded before he placed it in his bag.
“They’ll have her by the end of the night,” Jacob said, glancing back at the closed bathroom door where he’d left the small woman that he’d planned on using to bring the bitch to her knees.
“Probably,” Ethan said, sighing heavily as he glanced down at his watch, noting that he still had another half-hour before the sun finished setting and he could leave.
“She’s worth a lot of money,” Jacob said, sending him a questioning look.
“Have at it,” Ethan said, knowing when to cut his losses.
He’d waited a long time to see his son and he wasn’t about to waste another minute. He should have killed her when he found her, but he’d been hoping to use her to draw out the bitch that had gone into hiding two centuries ago. His revenge was going to have to wait until after he saw his son and then…
There was nothing on this earth that was going to stop him from killing her. Not now that he knew that his son was alive. He’d made the mistake of letting her go before, hoping that she would lead him to his son only to have her disappear. He’d spent the last two hundred years searching for her, destroying her precious Pack, destroying her properties, and fucking with the Pack’s businesses every fucking chance he got and making sure that there was nowhere for her to turn. When he’d found out about the little girl that she’d risked everything to protect, he’d torn this world apart to get to her and now that he had her…
He had no choice but to let her go.
The smart thing to do would be to kill her and make sure that whatever plans the bitch had for her were ruined, but he couldn’t do it. When he’d realized that they’d inserted a tracking device into her back, he’d reached for his knife, intent on killing her and making sure that the bitch never got her hands on her, but one look into her innocent baby blue eyes and he’d resigned himself to letting her go.
“They’ll probably punish her,” Jacob said, helping himself to the package of Twinkies that he saw Indie eying earlier.
“They probably will,” he absently agreed as he glanced around the hotel room, looking for his knife.
“They might kill her,” Jacob said, watching him with a curious look in his eye as Ethan shifted his attention back to his bag and-
Found himself frowning when he heard what sounded like a muffled cry seconds before the most intoxicating aroma that he’d encountered reached him and when it did-
“What the hell is she doing?” Jacob asked as Ethan shoved him out of his way and headed towards the bathroom door.
He didn’t stop to knock, he grabbed the doorknob and twisted it, breaking the lock and shoved the door open to find Indie sitting on the bathroom floor, crying as the knife slipped from her trembling hand and fell to the floor.
“I don’t want to go back there,” Indie said, sending him a pleading look that he wanted to ignore only…he couldn’t. Not when he wondered if his son had that same look on his face when he’d begged the bitch for his life.
*-*-*-*
“It’s in too deep,” Jacob said as Indie laid there, trying not to cry as her grip tightened around the comforter, afraid that if she opened her mouth that she’d beg him to stop.
“It has to come out,” the man that she’d expected to leave her behind said as she felt his cool fingertips push the shifter’s hand aside so that he could inspect the incision that she’d started on her shoulder.
“I can’t get it out without hurting her,” Jacob said, sounding frustrated.
“P-please just get it out,” Indie said, squeezing her eyes shut as she tried to prepare herself for the next slice of the sharp blade only it never came.
“New plan,” Ethan said as she felt a towel pressed against her back. “I have a device in my bag that can block the signal to buy us a little more time, but we’re going to need to get that out of there.”
“Any ideas?” Jacob asked as Indie opened her eyes and found herself looking into a pair of dark blue eyes as they slowly turned silver.
“One or two,” Ethan said, nodding absently as he reached for his cellphone.
*-*-*-*
Western Massachusetts