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Chapter Three
Willow
Later that night…
Ishould have known better than to relax my guard, even for a few hours.
Our escape was going far too well, and that’s not the story of my life.
The story of my life is being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Born into a despised family in a violent pack in an age when it’s easier to die of a gunshot wound than grow up safe and happy in Parallel Brooklyn.
And that was all before I realized the moment of my birth basically guaranteed I’d be at the center of the biggest upheaval to hit the shifter world in thousands of years.
I was just so grateful for—and exhausted by—our escape and so blissed out by how incredible it felt to make love to the man the universe made for me that I allowed my focus to slip.
But thankfully, my instincts are smarter than my conscious mind.
I wake up with my heart slamming against my ribs, insisting I do something before it’s too late. I bolt upright in the hotel bed, my breath coming fast, and almost instantly catch the scent of wolf.
But not just a wolf, a shifter, one whose fecund earth and petrol scent I know means nothing but trouble.
And possibly…death.
Pulse rushing in my ears, I shake Maxim awake, whispering, “It’s Bane, Maxim. Outside. I can smell him.”
He moves swiftly into a seated position and reaches out to squeeze my thigh. “Get to the car, get away, I’ll find you later,” he says, fur already beginning to replace skin as he rolls off the bed.
But before he can finish shifting—or get his paws firmly settled on the ground—the window above the small dining table explodes.
I flinch backward on the mattress, lifting my arms to shield my face from the flying glass as a massive brown wolf bursts into the room. He lands on the table, but immediately vaults off of it, flying across the small space to land on Maxim’s back.
Maxim’s head has just gone fully furry seconds before Bane’s teeth dig into his throat. With his thick fur and strong wolf muscles in place, it’s a survivable battle wound, but if Bane had locked his jaw a second earlier, Maxim would be dead.
The realization sends my already surging adrenaline levels skyrocketing, the terror shoving me into a vision the way it did that morning at the pharmacy.
The scene of Maxim and Bane fighting in the shadows is instantly replaced by splintering wood and crumbling plaster as a giant yellow claw crashes through the room’s door, impaling Bane on its sharp edge.
No, it’s not a claw…
It’s the front of a bulldozer, a small one.
My brain throws up a memory from earlier tonight, when we were pulling into the motel, of the small post office across the street with the torn-up lot and the construction equipment parked beside it.
A beat later I come fully back into my body with a gasp and sharp pain spreading through my mid-section. But it’s not as bad as it was at the pharmacy. I can still breathe, and when I jump off the bed and run naked across the room to the demolished window, I have no trouble bracing my hands on a glass-free patch of windowsill and vaulting over the edge.
I land on the other side with a wince and a curse as pieces of something sharp dig into the bottom of my foot, but I don’t stop running. I know that visions don’t always come true. What I saw happening to Diana and Jacob didn’t come to pass. I can’t take for granted that I’m going to be able to save Maxim just because I saw it in a vision.
By the time I dash across the street and aim myself toward the bulldozer, I’m limping and bleeding freely from the bottom of my right foot, but I don’t stop. I climb up into the seat of the machine, hand trembling with gratitude as I reach for the key still sitting in the ignition.
I have never driven a piece of heavy equipment—I’ve only rarely driven a car, seeing as my parents and I were both too poor to afford one—but thankfully the controls are fairly intuitive. By the time the light flicks on in the apartment over the hotel office and a man shouts, “What the hell is going on?” from an open window, I’m trundling back across the street, tugging at the lever that lifts the sharp digging apparatus into place.
The machine moves so slowly that it makes my jaw clench with anxiety and the guy from the window has plenty of time to shout several more things at me before I reach our room, but I don’t stop or allow anything to divert my attention.
I have to get to Maxim in time. This has to work.
If I don’t save him; he’s a dead man. There’s no way he’ll be able to beat his brother in a fight right now. He’s still injured and weak from being tortured.
And from making love to you all night…
