Chapter Forty-Five
One thing I’d learned over the last year was to not go alone if you didn’t have to.
I’d put myself at unnecessary risk dozens of times out of foolish pride because I thought I could handle myself and because I didn’t want to put anyone in danger. But Shane was an assassin. He worked for the council, and by extension it was his job to do whatever I asked.
I liked him, but I didn’t feel guilty asking him to risk his life.
I asked him to risk his life every time I gave him a warrant.
Plus, I’d trained him over the last couple of months to be an efficient and meticulous hunter. He was the man I wanted with me tonight if any further shit was going to hit the fan.
As for Holden, well…when I wasn’t sure who else I could trust, I knew I could count on him if it came to life-or-death situations.
We took Shane’s car back to my apartment—I drove—and the entire trip none of us said a damned thing to one another. I hadn’t taken the time to go back to my hotel suite and get my phone. If Tyler needed to get me news on Desmond, there was no way for him to reach me. As I unlocked my apartment and let Shane and Holden in, I asked the vampire to tell someone how to contact us. I don’t know who he called—the conversation was too short to bother listening in on—but he’d done what I’d requested.
I slipped off my heels and directed my attention to Shane. “Get into the bathroom and take your shirt off,” I commanded.
Shane wasn’t like Holden. Had I given the vampire the same instructions he would have obeyed, but he’d have been cheeky about it. Shane did as he was told, scuttling into the bathroom and leaving his bloody jacket and shirt in the hallway.
“There’s peroxide and bandages in the cubby next to the sink,” I told Holden. “Bandage him up while I get the rest of our shit together.”
He must have known I wasn’t in a mood for joking around because he followed my directions without talking back.
Fifteen minutes later I had a duffel bag loaded with weapons next to the front door and I’d swapped my heels for black boots I could more easily run in.
“Do you want to, uh…change?” Shane suggested.
I looked down at my formerly white wedding dress. The hem was soaked with blood and the whole front was stained red from where Desmond had bled out on top of me.
“No,” I replied flatly.
It had taken almost twenty minutes to bind me into the dress, and to be honest, short of cutting it off there was no easy way out. I didn’t want to waste any more time than was necessary. I stepped up onto the façade of the fireplace and grabbed my katana off its wall mount.
Safe. Not sorry.
“Secret, what’s the plan here?” Holden had hoisted the duffel bag onto his shoulder. Next to him Shane was down to a white tank top, his shoulder expertly bound. They both waited for my word.
I stared at the sheathed blade in my hand.
“We find the bitch.”
“And then?”
“And then I kill her.”
I let Holden drive because he was a vampire, and vampires drove like maniacs.
I couldn’t be certain my guess on Morgan’s destination was going to be right until we got there, but I had a gut feeling about where a werewolf would hide if her life was in peril, and I was willing to trust my gut on this.
Besides, I wouldn’t stop hunting her until I found her. If this idea didn’t pan out, we would turn around and go back, and I would start from square one.
I’d keep starting from square one until she was dead.
The highway from New York to Lucas’s upstate mansion was practically abandoned this time of night, yet I found my anxiety was higher than usual for the whole trip, my gaze constantly checking the rearview mirror for signs we were being followed.
Paranoid? Maybe. But once you’ve survived a near-death shootout on a state highway, you tend to be a little wary.
Shane didn’t argue about Holden driving and didn’t ask any questions about why we were taking a two-hour road trip in the middle of a manhunt. I liked him all the more for his willingness to go with it.