If this was my heat, playing tricks on my head, then maybe it was a far more powerful thing than I’d ever realized.
“Be right back,” he said, and then he closed the door. He touched the key fob in his pocket, and the locks all activated in the car with a beep. Through the window, he warned me, “I’ll hear the alarm if you open a door or break the glass. And remember what the cuffs will do to you if you shift.”
As if I could forget.
Blue and Gray strode down the road away from me, and I watched them go. Blue was tall, broad-shouldered, the picture of an alpha, really, in his jeans and fitted shirt. Gray was more slender, but the way he moved was mesmerizing, and his leanly muscled body was sexy and athletic. Then they followed a bend in the pines just ahead, and I lost sight of them.
I didn’t know how long they’d be gone. I quickly threw my leg over the center console and slipped into the passenger seat. It smelled faintly of Blue up here, of the same scent of his body that I found so magnetic when he was near me. The pockets in his door were empty except for a water bottle like the one he’d given me. I leaned forward to open the glove compartment with my cuffed hands, fumbling with the latch as I hoped it would open but didn’t really expect good luck.
It opened, falling open onto my knees, and I grinned in triumph even though I hadn’t found anything yet. I dug through the glove compartment, past the owner’s manual in its leather case and an array of maps, looking for anything that could help me. There was a small leather bag, and I pulled it out and hastily unzipped it on my lap to find a small emergency kit.
Deep inside it was a spare handcuff key.
How did these guys stay alive? They had to transport far more dangerous prisoners than me. Were they just sloppy because they trusted me for some reason, the same way I kind of found myself trusting them? Hell, were they trying to let me escape?
Stockholm syndrome, I told myself sternly. I’d read about that before. You just want to be able to trust them. You have to be smart.
I didn’t want to hurt them—I wouldn’t, I could feel that in my bones when I imagined using the knife on one of them—but in the end, they were still the ones taking me to prison.
If they were a pair of assholes like my father and the alpha, I’d uncuff myself, run, stab one of them if I had to.
I hastily packed everything else away, making sure not to drop the key, stealing glances at the moonlit road ahead. I didn’t want to be discovered with the key.
When I glanced up this time, I saw bodies moving down the road toward me. I didn’t have time to look at them twice. Instead, I hastily closed the glove box, then swung back into the backseat. Had they seen me moving through the windshield?
I tried to still my breathing, closing my eyes, drawing slow breaths through my nose and exhaling through my mouth. I had to slow my heartbeat down. I’d been so frantic at the thought of being caught by them that my heart had hammered in my chest.
The key felt sharp in my palm, I was clutching it so tightly that the tip dug into my hand. The key was my chance, an unexpected miracle.
I opened my eyes again and leaned forward in my seat, trying to prepare myself to play a role. They’d expect me to be curious about this man who was joining us. I’d had so many questions already. I wondered if he’d make it easier or harder to escape. Blue and Gray had made it sound like he was dangerous.
Through the windshield, I could see them coming closer. In between Blue’s tall frame and Gray’s slighter one was a man close to Blue’s height, his head down and his wrists bound behind him, which drew back his powerful shoulders.
Then Gray opened the car door across from me, and Blue pushed him down into the seat.
The man’s glittering eyes met mine. They were bright green, magnetic—or maybe full of madness—in a face that was otherwise handsome, with a faint scruff of dark blond hair across his jaw and tousled hair above. When his gaze met mine, my heart stopped beating, and his lips arched up in a faint smile.
“You can’t leave me like this for the ride.” He had to sit forward, with his hands cuffed behind his back, and it looked uncomfortable, especially with his size. “It’s cruel and unusual.”
Blue settled into the driver’s side. “That really doesn’t matter to me.”
My lips parted, and Gray looked back at me. “He’s tried to strangle guards before, Saoirse. It’s unavoidable.”
“You don’t need to explain things to her,” Blue said.
“Maybe I want to,” Gray shot back.
The man next to me said, “Saoirse.” He said it slowly, as if he was rolling the word around in his mouth, as if it was delicious.
It did sound delicious in his warm honey voice, to be honest.
“Shut up,” Blue warned him.
The four of us drove off into the night. I craned my head to look at the pines vanishing behind us, wondering at the fact that I’d never seen any signs of the pack who lived here. What had this mysterious man done that his pack handed him off in the middle of nowhere? What was he capable of?
Chapter Four
I wasn’t sure about the man with the glittering gaze, or about the way my body seemed to respond to his presence, just like it did with Blue or Gray. Suddenly I knew why my mother had been in such a hurry to marry me off before my heat.
Because if I
