Page 34 of Damien’s Mate

Lila tried to glare at Damien, but her eyes wouldn’t focus. “No way,” she said. “One bathroom sex incident per twenty-four hours. I have a rule.”

The restroom had a small lounge area, and he eased her down on a loveseat. “To be fair, when I promised you ‘a great night in a fancy hotel’, I don’t think I specified that we were actually going to get a room there.”

“Funny hooman,” she muttered. “Funnier than all the clowns in the circus.”

Damien settled her go bag and her artifact case on the loveseat next to her, then fished in his pocket for the bottle of painkillers and handed it over.

Lila swallowed a couple of capsules dry and then leaned back, ridiculously glad not to be moving.

Damien pulled out his cell and made a call. “Hey, Uncle Vinnie, it’s me.”

She couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the box in her lap, and the fact that she wasn’t alone with her pain.

Damien was taking care of her.

No one had ever taken care of her.

Damien was saying, “Yeah, the license plate needs to be totally clean, and don’t put it on the SUV until you get to the meeting place, okay? And bring my go bag, would you? It’s on the closet shelf in the guest room.”

He listened, and then said, “Nah, Aunt Jenn can come. Trust me, Salzano and Rostov are busy elsewhere right now. She can bring your car and drive you back. See you there.”

Damien hung up the phone and then crouched down next to her. “Are you okay?”

Lila opened her mouth to say yes, but somehow it came out, “I don’t think so.”

“I was afraid of that. Look, I got us a car, and—”

“I need to get these artifacts back where they belong. I need to—”

“Finish the mission. I know. But not right this minute.” He glanced at the artifact case. “We’re sure they’re not going to blow up, right?”

She tried to glare at him again. Still didn’t work. “You never know.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘we’re sure’. Here’s the deal. I’m assuming you’re taking this stuff to these hardass shifter soldiers you keep talking about?”

She didn’t answer.

“Well, the whole ‘crawl on your belly/get someone to carry you’ thing aside, if they’re so tough and uncompromising, with no tolerance for weakness, how much respect do you think they’re going to have for you if you come in all doped up, barely able to stand?”

They were her family. They’d welcome her. But then she thought of her father’s stern face, his disappointment whenever she showed weakness, and for the first time a little seed of doubt kindled inside her.

“I’ll be all right in a day or two.”

“Exactly. But you need somewhere to go until then, right? Somewhere that nobody can trace us to?”

“I guess. I take it you think you have a place like that?”

“Actually, yeah.”

“Where?”

“Kentucky.”

“What’s in Kentucky?”

He smiled at her. “Shifters.”

Chapter 14