Kept (15 page)

We settled into the drive. After Abby thankfully stopped with her list, no one really talked. We all seemed to be on edge, as if we were waiting for someone else to attack us. I glanced at my phone repeatedly, to see if anyone had texted me about my dad or Alex’s baby, but there weren’t any messages. I actually had to keep myself in check from messaging anyone to vent about how I’ve been feeling: anxious, scared, out of control.

The pounding headache from my forehead meeting the windshield and dashboard didn’t help either.

Every time I managed to focus on the important things—like what I might face in Maine—my mind fought to drift away. It was like I had some strange person living in my head alongside the wolf. She caged it, keeping the place tidy and well kept—all the while the wolf circled and waited for the house of cards to fall. And right now those cards were teetering like crazy. Who in their right mind would drive a dump truck with who-knows-what inside?

Strange music penetrated my thoughts. Heidi had turned on the radio and evidently thought the classic rock station could pleasantly fill the silence. I wouldn’t have minded—except that one of the first songs that played was Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze.” My mind was separating at the seams while Jimi droned on about how he didn’t know if it was day or night (daytime?) or why he was actin’ funny (he was crazy?). My hands began to shake. The headache increased tenfold.

A hand took mine. “You doing okay?” Nick asked.

On any other day, I might’ve snatched my hand away, but something deep inside me whispered that at least his hand was clean. Of course, even though my nose could smell the antiseptic on his hands, the compulsion was still there.

Was a part of it related to Thorn? Was he the real reason I hesitated? To shove thoughts of Thorn away, I gripped Nick’s hand tighter. A wave of magical warmth hit, and I couldn’t help but sigh.

This was the feeling I needed. No worries.

“You’re tense.” His voice was a mere whisper. Low enough for the wolf to barely register it. Even with the others in the truck, I wondered what Nick was thinking as his white wizard calming energy bathed me. I dared not look at his face.

Unexpectedly, my heart started to race. Here I was, snuggled next to Nick, his hand holding mine, and all my anxieties caught on the brisk breeze outside and floated away. Bits of snow along with rain hit the truck, leaving the roads potentially precarious. But I didn’t give a damn.

The warmth flowed up my arm and settled into my chest. My breathing slowed—then quickened. The sensation raced down my legs—fast enough for my toes to curl. What the hell was he doing? From the corner of my eye, I saw the wizard looking out the window, taking in the view—while I was getting off on his happy magic.

Another surge pulsed through me, and my nipples tightened. My tongue snaked out to lick my dry lips. I wanted to let go of his hand. To let go of this strange pleasure flowing through me. I didn’t want it to go
there
. To get me excited enough to snatch that damn wizard from his seat and make out with him on the side of the road. The wolf within me writhed and rolled over on its back. How long had it been since I’d been this breathless? This fluid feeling from my belly to my center? My fingers twitched—and then my body completely melted.

I barely managed to swallow the whimper that tried to escape my mouth.

Embarrassment, both hot and warm, touched my face. I immediately let go of Nick’s hand and tried to sit
straighter in the seat. I’d just gotten a subscriber to
my
lady softness newsletter. At my side, the Muse had dozed off, while the mermaid appeared to be unaware of the mystical make-out session not far from her. She belted out the lyrics to “Afternoon Delight”—how appropriate—while I tried to pull myself together.

Off-key, she sang the chorus, which pretty much talked about two people rubbing each other’s happy places before they did the horizontal mambo.

Yeah, Nick wasn’t rubbing anything on me, but he had sure set off some fireworks. And he had the hugest grin on his face. Damn him.

I elbowed him with my right arm, but the movement bounced off his hard stomach. Damn his rock-hard abs as well.

Here I was, aroused as hell, and I barely heard his heartbeat on most days. I was so glad there weren’t any werewolves in this truck. They would’ve smelled my arousal immediately.

But then I caught it, the flare of his nostrils. The slow inhale and exhale when our gazes caught. For a second, only the two of us existed, sitting next to each other in a dump truck. I took in the contours of his face. Lips that I wondered what it would be like to kiss.

I opened my mouth to speak, but what the heck could I say? “Stop healing people and turning them on”? But then, he’d told me a few months ago that with the right person, the spellcaster felt as much pleasure as the one who received it. That made my face redden even more.

“You need to behave,” was all I managed to whisper.

He winked at me—a sly smile on his face.

Instead of more embarrassment,
Why?
was my first thought.
When can he do it again?

Chapter 11

W
e
had plans to drive straight through Connecticut as the night went on, but the warning light for gas told me we’d have to stop at the next gas station. We’d filled up the truck before the imps had attacked us, but I noticed with despair that the gas didn’t last anywhere near as long as it did in my car. Either something was wrong with the truck, or Roscoe had given me one with the worst fuel efficiency ever.

The flashing red light bothered the hell out of me. “Does anyone remember the number of miles until the next town with a gas station?”

Abby shook her head, while Heidi looked grim.

Nick said, “Maybe ten miles?”

I groaned softly. I asked Nick, “Is there any chance your staff squirts gas?”

“As in farts?”

I gave him a lethal look.

“You opened the door for that one,” he said with a laugh. “I simply walked through it.”

The engine sputtered, and everyone fell silent, barely breathing. It didn’t take long to sour the mood.

“Is that a bad sign?” the Muse asked quietly.

“Of course not.” But Heidi didn’t sound as confident as her words.

With each breathless minute that passed, we watched
the mile markers go by. The red light continued to flash, mocking me with the threat of an ended trip.

When it seemed as if I’d start babbling about pushing the truck down the road, we spotted lights from buildings off the exit.

I grunted, “If they don’t have diesel, we’re going door-to-door until someone gives us some.”

“I know how to siphon gas out, if necessary,” Abby said.

My head whipped her way as we pulled into the only station off the exit. From the way she spoke and acted—until the cop pulled us over—Abby came off like the poster child for the Girl Scouts.

She rolled her eyes at my look of disbelief. “I learn these things from my authors.”

“Uh-huh,” Heidi said.

There weren’t any other cars when we pulled up to the gas station. The lights from inside were far too bright after we’d been traveling on the dark road for so long.

We waited a bit for the attendant to come out, but no one did. The whole place seemed—too quiet. I leaned over Nick and peered inside. No one waited behind the counter.

“Maybe we have to pump our own gas in Connecticut,” I said. “Which would be nice, since I’d like to get back on the road sometime today.”

I tapped Nick so I could get out. We strolled over to the pump, and I whipped out my purse. Time to get some gas and get the hell out of here. With my luck, the pump wouldn’t take credit cards—and it didn’t.

“Nick, I gotta go inside—”

“Nat, you need to see this.” Nick’s voice was quiet.

“Just a sec, I need to run inside real quick to pay for the gas.”

“That can wait.” He took my hand and tugged me
toward the place where he’d stood before. At first I grumbled, but then my noise turned into one of horror.

Our gas tank had a few extra tiny holes in it. And this was a problem, since it shouldn’t have
any at all
.

“How did that happen?” I asked.

“Do you need me to explain?”

I frowned. “Can you seal the holes?”

“I’ll see what I can do, but right now I’m running low on juice.”

After rubbing the sour spot on my forehead, I nodded. I knew from past experience that Nick’s powers had a limit.

I strolled over to the building. On the way, I heard someone yell out behind me, “Make sure you get a few bottles of water, would ya?”

I didn’t need to look behind me to know where that request had come from. The mermaid should own stock in bottled water companies.

My hand reached for the glass door before I noticed it didn’t have any glass. What was left of the door swung outward, and I stepped inside … to a war zone. Bodies of imps—long dead—lay on the shiny tile floor. All around them were the remains of food from the shelves: smashed and ripped candy bars, broken bottles of beer, crushed boxes of cigarettes.

Something told me to leave this place, to flee and not investigate what was wrong, what had caused this. Why stick around to see what had killed those hateful things?

But still, I crept toward the counter to look for the register. Maybe if I left a few bucks, we could get some gas? The idea came and left quickly, as I knew I’d have to call the police. I couldn’t just leave the place like this.

“When did you plan to call me?”

I jumped and just about knocked out Nick for scaring me. “With all this around me, I didn’t exactly have time to plan the memo I meant to send you,” I hissed.

Nick assessed the damage, stepping over the bodies around us. He leaned over to examine where something had punctured the soda machine and the hot dog machine—as well as the coffee machine. Whoever had attacked all these imps, and there were many of them, had used a staff or spearlike weapon on everything in the place. Judging from all the black blood, whoever had done this hadn’t bled any of his. Unless it was black, too.

We checked the office and noticed the station’s back door was open. A trail through the snow showed the imprint of a small shoe. Most likely a pair of sneakers. Hopefully the gas station attendant had beat a hasty retreat, escaping down the highway.

“What were they doing here?” I asked. “Shouldn’t they be out there, planning their next attack on us?”

“Yeah. But maybe the fairies left a group of imps here to attack us, since they knew we’d be low on gas.”

My dread deepened. “So how come they were dead before we got here?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Somebody killed them. Do you smell anything?”

I’d scanned the store when I came in. Other than the bloody footprints of the imps, any of the tracks of their attacker were nowhere to be found. The imp assassin also hadn’t left much of a scent. What kind of creature had stealth like that?

My mind went to Thorn. He could do this kind of damage—but he never used a weapon like a staff, and he’d definitely leave a scent behind.

Nick shook his head at the carnage. “I need to call the Supernatural Municipal Group to bring in a cleanup team.”

I rarely heard them mentioned by other supernaturals, but the Supernatural Municipal Group was apparently some kind of governing body that provided services to keep us in line.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t just get a mop and bucket? I saw them in the corner.”

He offered a dry snort.

Nick flipped open his phone to make the call while I sidestepped around a heap of bodies. One of the imps had its hand locked around a Klondike bar. I guessed if it thought it was gonna die, it at least wanted to die with a smile on its face.

From my angle, I noticed something lying on the floor in the corner. Someone had scrawled something on the paper roll used for receipts. Gingerly, I picked it up and squinted at the strange symbols.

“Nick, do you know what this is?” I sniffed at the paper but didn’t detect a scent.

He’d finished his call, so he took the note from me.

“Holy shit!”

Nick and I turned to see Heidi take in the scene. Abby followed.

“What the fuck did this?” Heidi said as she carefully stepped over broken glass.

“We don’t know, but they left a calling card of some kind.” Nick’s face wrinkled as he checked the note more closely.

“I hope you’re about to say it’s written in some ancient wizard language that only you have studied for the past ten years,” I said.

“Nope.” He handed it back. “It’s gibberish to me.”

“Let me see,” Heidi asked.

We all stood there waiting for her to say something, since she studied it a lot longer than Nick had. Long enough to make me wonder if she’d read it out loud. But she didn’t. Matter of fact, she crumpled it up and tossed it over by the pile of bodies.

“I can’t tell what it says,” she said quietly.

“What the hell?” The Muse beat me this time. She
headed over to the pile to pick up the crumpled note, but now it was smudged with blood. “I can read over twenty languages. Why did you throw it away?”

“I’m sure it wasn’t important.” Heidi shrugged it off and then looked at her watch. The whole time I stared her down with suspicion. What was she trying to hide?

She jumped over the counter and pushed a few buttons on the register. “Did you call a cleanup team, Nick?”

He nodded.

“Then we need to use our time efficiently. When they get here, we need to have the tank filled and be ready to go.”

“Do we have to wait for them?” I asked. We
were
a bit pressed for time.

“I need to give them a statement about what we saw,” Nick said.

It was rather childish when I did it, but I still kicked at a fallen candy bar in frustration. It flew across the room and landed with a disgusting
plop
. More delays, more problems.

I whipped around to face Heidi to question her about the note, but she’d already left to go fill up the truck. I moved to follow her, but Abby grabbed my arm.