“Just curious,” he said. “Geez, why are you so wound up?”
There were a million answers to that question, and none of them were appropriate to share with Darla in the car. I just clenched my jaw and stared out the windshield. Once we got out of the mitten, I’d be able to pick up speed. In the almost twenty years I’d been making the trip to Copper Harbor, I’d never seen a cop after crossing the Mackinac Bridge into the UP. It was just the lower part of the state I had to worry about. Luckily, traffic was light so we were still making okay time, but I didn’t want to hear the funky bunch ask “are we there yet” for the next five hundred miles. I’d muzzle them both just to be safe if I had to.
Currently, my stress level was through the roof, and honestly, I wouldn’t even know where to start telling him why I was so “wound up” as he’d put it. I missed Bryce. As pissed as I was at him, not having him around had been damn near unbearable. I loved him, and his absence was eating at me. We’d never been apart for this long. I sort of understood why he’d left, but the lack of contact pissed me off. Okay, fine, he thought it would be easier to leave us then to actually work out his feelings for my lover. Great. But to run so far away that even phone calls were difficult was unacceptable.
Our whole lives, it had been me and him against the world. With him gone, it felt as if the whole world were against me. I loved Sebastian. Hell, I wanted him to marry me more than anything. But without my brother around, things between us had degraded. It was almost as if we needed Bryce as a buffer. He was part of our relationship. As fucked up as that might sound to anyone else, it was the truth. I wasn’t always as okay with him sleeping with Bastian once a month as I pretended to be, but I certainly preferred it to not having my brother around at all.
On top of that, there was the whole crazy moon were-panther thing, and I was totally out of my element. I knew dick about shifters. I mean, I could kill one, but living with them, working with them, being their fucking guidance counselor because their alpha had taken a hike… That shit was not in my skill set. The problem was that these cats had nowhere else to turn. Their previous alpha had been a serious nut case, abusing and mistreating them. The other packs shunned our city because of it, and even though there had been a new sheriff in town, so to speak, the cats still weren’t trusted and they had no one to help them but me and Sebastian.
Everything seemed to be crashing down around me, and I had no idea where to start picking up the pieces. Bryce was a selfish prick, and when I got my hands on him, there would be hell to pay. I was supposed to be the irresponsible one. Fuck him for stealing my title and doing what I’d have done if our roles had been reversed.
Sebastian reached over and turned on the radio, the sound startling me since I’d been so lost in my thoughts. Glancing at the clock, I realized I’d been driving on autopilot for over an hour as I’d mused over all of the horrible things I’d do to my brother when we finally found him.
“You’re speeding,” Bastian pointed out.
Right. We were coming up on the Mackinac Bridge, so I must have been driving over the limit for a while before he’d mentioned it. Thankfully, we hadn’t passed any cops on the way.
“That…is a big bridge,” Darla whined. “Do we have to cross that?”
“Unless we take a hell of a detour, yes,” I told her. “Just lay down, and it will be over soon.”
“That’s what he said,” she mumbled as she curled up on the seat.
I blew out a snort. Fair enough.
Sebastian reached over and took my hand in his, placing our entwined fingers in his lap. His grip was a little tighter than usual, and I figured he was nervous about the bridge, too.
When I was younger, this suspension bridge used to scare the shit out of me. I’ll never forget the story about the wind gust that had knocked a Yugo off the side into the lake below. But our Mustang was solid, and there wasn’t so much as a breeze. Plus, I’d made this trip so many times it was just like any other bridge at this point. Just longer…and higher.
As I drove, I wondered how the cats had gotten up here. Surely, if they’d taken off on foot, they wouldn’t have run the bridge. I’d imagine a pack of panthers scampering over the Mackinac Bridge would garner some news attention. Of course, they might have gone in cars in human form. If what Darla said was true, they might have heard the call but not been forced to shift so many days before the full moon.
I wasn’t cut out for this shifter shit. I squeezed Sebastian’s hand and gave him a smile before turning back to the road. We’d eaten up a lot of miles while I’d zoned out, so I figured once we got over the bridge, we’d stop for food and I’d try to check in with Pops, though I had little hope of getting a call through.
“Is this the UP?” Sebastian asked about halfway across the bridge.
“Pretty much,” I said.
“How long before we get there?”
Sonofabitch.
Chapter Four
By three PM, we were finally approaching Copper Harbor, and I couldn’t wait to get out of the fucking car and away from Darla and Sebastian. They’d been antsy as
