me, the location's changed.'
'It certainly has.'
It wasn't his father on the phone. It was Betise. His knuckles went white with the force of his grip. 'If you've hurt him, bitch, you're both dead.'
Betise tsked. 'Such anger.'
'Just tell me what you want.'
'My mother is waiting in front of the hair salon for you. I'm not sure where you are, but you have two minutes to get there and get into the truck. We hear, see, or smell the rangers anywhere near, and Rene is a dead man.'
'This is not going to achieve anything.'
'Promises were made. Tonight they will be fulfilled.' The bitch was definitely crazy. He hit the 'end' button, then dialed his father's number as he ran. 'Betise just called me,' he said, the minute his father answered. 'She wants me in front of her hair salon, alone, within two minutes.'
Zeke swore. Duncan didn't give his father the chance to say anything else. 'Follow the truck's tracks,' he said. 'And don't get near enough for them to see or smell you, or Rene's dead.'
He hung up, sped around the corner, and saw not one waiting truck, but two. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement, and something sharp plunged into his arm. He swore and swung around, fist flying. Betise laughed and danced out of the way. He glanced down. A dart had been buried hilt deep into his forearm. 'Do you really think I'd trust you to sit back like a good little wolf while we take you to
Rene?' she taunted. 'I may be well-used flesh, Duncan, but I'm not stupid.' He lunged for her. But it felt like he was moving through glue, and his feet were extraordinarily heavy. Betise laughed, capering just beyond his reach. The dart must have been drugged. He cursed her and lunged again, but suddenly found himself falling face first onto the pavement. Then the darkness rushed in, accompanied by harsh, almost maniacal laughter.
Chapter Fifteen
Neva woke to the nagging sensation that something was wrong. Frowning, she lay still in bed, listening to the silence haunting the cabin. Duncan wasn't there. His smell was little more than a lingering tease of wood on the air, and there was no sound of footsteps or breathing. Maybe he'd joined the hunt for Betise and Iyona. She glanced toward the window. The light filtering past the curtains was soft, almost muted, as if the day had come and gone, and dusk was almost over. Surely she couldn't have slept that long.
Neva? Savannah's thought was abrupt, and the feeling of wrongness increased.
What's happened? She swung out of bed, shivering a little as the cool air caressed her skin, and padded downstairs to find her clothes.
Plenty. Savannah's mind voice was grim. There was a fire at the hospital, which we've since discovered was little more than a cover for Rene Sinclair being snatched. Duncan then got a phone call stating he'd better meet Iyona in front of Betise's hair salon if he wanted to see his brother alive. He wouldn't have gone to such a meeting alone. Surely he wasn't that stupid.
He was given little choice and little time. But he did call his father. By the time we got there, the trucks were gone. We followed the tracks, but the damn snow came down again, and we lost them.
Neva cursed the unseasonably late onslaught of snow, though no doubt the skiers still lingering in
Ripple Creek were rejoicing. I'm coming to the hospital. I'm not there.
What? Savannah--
I'm fine. I'm being careful. But I'm a ranger, and I'll be damned if I'll lay on my back in bed while these bitches run around killing and kidnapping people. Neva moved across to the window and looked out. It was no longer snowing, and the moon was rich and yellow and almost full as it began its ascent in the darkening sky. She stared at it for a moment, remembering Betise's words. Remembering her conviction, her certainty, that she and Duncan were soul mates. She's going to perform the promising ritual.
What?
Betise believes she's Duncan's soul mate. She grabbed her coat, swept a set of keys off the coffee table and ran for the door.
Impossible, when you--Savannah's thought cut off abruptly. It doesn't matter, does it?
No. It's the night of promising. The magic can be raised whether it's your soul mate or not. God, how she wished their pretense last night had been real. While she might then have bound herself to a man who did not love her , she'd rather that than Duncan being fettered to a murdering fiend like Betise. Have you searched down Heather Creek Road?
We did last night, after they'd attacked you, but we found nothing. And the truck tracks didn't head that way tonight.
Well, that's where they are. Why she was certain, she couldn't say. And if she was wrong, Duncan would pay. Where are you?
Just coming out of Snowflake Lodge.
I'll meet you on Main. Be there in five minutes. Savanna was there in two, and she didn't come alone.
There was a convoy of four trucks in all. Neva climbed into the first one, relieved to see Ronan at the wheel. Her gaze swung left to meet Savannah's. The main bandage had been removed from her sister's face, but there were still dressings on her right cheek and over her left eye. 'I'm a little surprised to see you in the back seat rather than the driver's.'
Her sister's good eye twinkled brightly in the shadows. 'I may be stubborn, but I'm not a fool.' Her voice was dry. ' Besides, I can't see well enough to drive just yet.'
'Mind you,' Ronan commented, a smile touching his gray eyes as he glanced at Neva, 'it took the threat of a revolt to lose that foolhardiness she claims not to have.'
'Why am I not surprised?' Neva slammed the door shut and buckled up her seat belt as Ronan took off.
Lights swept through the rear window, briefly setting Ronan's russet hair aflame as the trucks behind fell into line. 'Probably because doing stupid things runs in our family,' Savannah replied.
Neva met her sister's gaze. 'That it does.' Things like deciding to seduce the most dangerous man in the
Sinclair pack, or pretending to perform the promising ritual. One had led her heart into danger, and the other had forced her to confront what she'd been trying to ignore--the fact that in a mere couple of days she'd fallen in love with Duncan.
She pulled her gaze from Savannah's and stared out the window. 'It doesn't matter,' she said softly. It does if you love him.
I love Mom and Dad, too. I won't give up my family for the sake of a man. No matter what I feel for him. Savannah didn't say anything. There was nothing she could say, because they both knew the truth of the words. Ronan turned the truck onto Heather Creek Road, and they quickly left the lights of Ripple
Creek behind them. Under the cold light of the rising moon, the land became a vast expanse of black and silver. It was stark, oddly beautiful, but also eerie.
Neva stared out the window, her gaze roaming across the lustrous landscape without really seeing any of it. They were closing in. She wasn't sure how she knew, but the sensation was similar to what she shared with her sister. It was as if somehow Duncan had become a part of her, as if he was reaching out for her, not only psychically but physically. She could feel him, not only in her mind, but on her body. Almost as if he were caressing her, trailing his fingers across her skin, sending little tingles of electricity through every nerve ending. She was attuned to him. Totally attuned. She briefly closed her eyes, too afraid to confront the reason why that might be. Because confronting it wouldn't change the facts. Wouldn't change her parents' opinion. Wouldn't change her refusal to walk away from them completely.
She bit her lip, her gaze moving past the trees and spying a flicker of gold in the darkness. 'Stop,' she said quickly and was out the door before Ronan even touched the brake.
'Neva, wait,' Savannah cried.
She stopped on the verge of the road. She wasn't a fool. If Iyona and Betise could overpower someone like
