She didn’t know what she would do if he died.
She hooked her hand in his, squeezing it, trying vainly to wake him up while racing down the highway. Ahead, a giant green sign for I-35 approached. She sped up and took the fork.
Hold on, she prayed. Just a little longer.
Lucidia
She sat in the passenger’s seat, rubbing her wrists and looking in disbelief at the open road ahead of them. They were in Megan’s old truck, rumbling along at about sixty-five. They would have been going faster, but if you went over seventy, the whole thing shook like a leaf.
“How did you find me?” Lucidia asked, turning in her seat.
“We tracked you from the cabin,” Clay said, keeping his eyes on the road. “We saw them take you.”
“Camped outside that vampire house for a whole day,” Megan muttered, hunkered down in the backseat.
Lucidia frowned. “What about your injured?” She knew that wolves didn’t leave their own behind.
“They’re fine. Your boyfriend didn’t kill anybody.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said sharply. “But yeah, killing isn’t really his style.”
Lucidia studied Clay’s face. He knew she was looking at him, and shifted, his hand tightening ever so slightly on the wheel. She’d had extensive training on facial expressions and body language, and she could tell something was wrong.
“What aren’t you telling me?” she demanded.
Clay shook his head. “Not big into gratitude, are we?”
“Stop it. What did you do?”
Clay’s lip turned up, and he gave a half-smile. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”
Lucidia turned, looking at Megan now, who was sitting in the backseat with an unsure expression. “What happened?”
She shook her head slightly.
“Tell me,” Lucidia commanded.
Megan’s eyes flared and she looked to Clay for direction.
“Knock it off, Lucie,” Clay said, pushing her shoulder back so she was facing forward.
“What did you do to break me out?”
Clay let out a huff of air. “It’s not important.”
“Like hell…” she growled.
“We disobeyed an order,” he said at last. “Alright?”
Lucidia’s heart sank. Disobedience was a worse crime for wolves than it was even for strongbloods.
“From Jackson?” she asked. The alpha’s word was absolute.
“Yeah,” Clay said. “He wasn’t too happy about it, either.”
Lucidia felt anger building up inside of her. She looked at Clay, and then to Megan, and then back to Clay.
“That was a really stupid thing to do,” she said sharply.
“Hey!” he snapped.
“No! I’m serious. Why would you throw away your pack like that? I asked for a favor, Clay. I asked for you to hold Robin for me. You did that, and you held off for longer than I ever thought you would. The debt was paid after that.”
“You think I did what I did for a debt?” he shot back. “Talk about stupid.”
“Why would you throw your life away for me?”
Clay’s hand tightened even more, until she thought it might snap the steering wheel in two. She was just as angry. “We fought a war!” he growled. “We fought a war so that we could choose what pack we belong to, and who gets to be a part of that pack. We didn’t fight a war so that the wolves could stay tucked away in the forest, watching other people, saying it’s none of our business. So…”
“So what?” she asked, her eyes blazing.
“A friend of the pack is a friend of mine,” he said. “You’re more than a friend, to both of us. You’re a member of my pack.”
“You don’t have a pack if you disobeyed a direct order, numbnuts!” she yelled.
“Yeah? Well, then I guess I’m a free wolf. We have our own little pack right here.”
“No, Clay…” she said, her anger giving way to sadness. “You were the second in line.”
A sharp voice from the back interjected.
“It was my fault,” Megan snapped. “Jesus.”
Lucidia glanced at her and quirked up an eyebrow.
“Clay didn’t want to leave you, but he was ordered back. I refused. Clay followed me because he thought I’d get myself killed. Now we’re both in the tank.”
Lucidia let out a sigh of frustration and sat forward, thinking about what they’d sacrificed to save her.
“Thank you,” she muttered after a few moments. “You both are absolute idiots… but, thank you.” She snuck a glance at Clay, and she saw the familiar half-smile that sent her own heart racing.
A few minutes later, he leaned over. “So, where are we headed?”
Lucidia stared at the open road ahead of them. “Good question. Got a phone?”
Robin
She made it into Austin without a hitch, much to her surprise. It was about four p.m.
Austin was a sprawling city set in a little oasis of green, compared to the otherwise sparse Texas landscape. When they’d come in on the main road, she’d seen the downtown of a normal, bustling metropolis. A lot of the skyscrapers were built with tan sandstone, and ahead of them stood the massive capitol building with its impressive dome and sculpted columns.
But clearly, it wasn’t a sightseeing trip.
She didn’t know where to start for Finch road. Reykon had expressly opposed the use of smartphones or google maps, so SIRI wasn’t an option. Eventually, she was able to throw on a jacket, make sure the blood was off her face, and ask a kind older woman for directions.
Finch road was a quaint stretch in the sleepy section of town. There wasn’t a lot of money here. Bungalows and two-story apartment buildings with outside facing doors cropped up along the road. It was barely busy enough to warrant a yellow line.
She scoured the address numbers until she found 672 Finch road.
Of all the things she expected, this was not one of them.
A normal old apartment building with faded green siding and brown doors, that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the eighties. Trees concealed the building, leaving it shaded and private. Through the leaves, Robin made out a golden number four on the second level.
Had she gotten the address wrong?
No; she’d gone over it so many times that it was carved into her
