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But then, I had walked away.
I found my voice somewhere, and to my immense pleasure it came out steady and sure. “You’re a brute, Mr. King,” I said, refusing to use his title. “And I hope they lock you away in the darkest CEB dungeon when all this is over.”
Chapter Four
Boston International Airport hummed with activity, people making their way to terminals, politely keeping to themselves. Soft morning light filtered through tinted windows and outside there were planes of varying sizes parked or taxiing away. Underscoring the hum of many conversations came the roar of a departing plane, and a pleasant female voice announced the boarding of a flight to Tampa.
Men and women bustled through, some in business attire, others more comfortably dressed, all toting luggage and keeping a wary eye on the announcement boards for their flight information. Nobody gave my abductors a second glance, though in my mind I figured someone ought to have noticed four large men circling one woman. They couldn’t have spelled criminal any larger with their distressed jeans and black shirts. More than one of them had bruises on their knuckles.
Except, of course, for picture-perfect Derrick King.
Maker help me, that man needed a flaw.
Aside from the whole abduction business.
Really, the abduction business should have made him less attractive, even if he was trying to save his mother. But he had chosen to shave before we left the seedy motel, and that blasted aviator jacket did far too many nice things to his shoulders. His clear blue eyes tracked the wolves in our company, several of whom would be leaving on a later plane.
I took a breath and rubbed the runestone in my palm. There was a cold void where my magic should be, and a horrible blankness to the people around me that left an uneasy knot in my chest. Where I should have been forcing emotions away and trying to differentiate between what I was feeling and what belonged to someone else, I felt nothing.
It was unnerving to be so cut off.
Without my empathy connecting me to the world, I was unmoored in a burgeoning sea, drifting far and fast from shore. I wasn’t even certain who I was without it.
Smug, whose name I learned was Mark, kept a brisk pace and blocked my view of Derrick. He scowled down at me and I realized I’d been staring. Fighting a blush, I glared at him, all too pleased to see his cut lip and taped nose. “Tell me why we aren’t driving again? New York isn’t that far away.”
“Our section of New York is, and the plane shaves several hours off our travel time,” Mark said. “Which I think is a waste of money, but our fearless leader made the call.”
He looked particularly moody, and not only because of the battered state of his face. There was a sheen of sweat at his widow-peaked hairline, and he had a white-knuckle grip on his bag. For that matter, the rest of our troupe were in varied states of distress, each with hunched shoulders and grimaces, and I began to suspect that werewolves did not like to fly.
My suspicions were confirmed when we reached the terminal and Mark’s coloring had gone an alarming grey. Only Derrick seemed unperturbed by our situation, confidently handing out tickets and ushering wolves toward the waiting attendant. There were grunts and mutters from the group, but none of them made eye contact with Derrick as they passed.
“Believe me, you would not have wanted to be stuck in a car for hours with this bunch,” Derrick said as he reached me.
Eyeing the ticket he was holding I said, “I don’t want to be with this bunch at all.”
His jaw flexed and he gave me a tolerant look. I thought about screaming, making an awful scene and calling humans or other Bright to attention, but there was the runestone in my hand and blast-it-all if I didn’t need him. And, if I was honest with myself, there was the matter of his mother to contend with. Could I really walk away if it meant another woman would be harmed in my stead?
What sort of person would that make me?
Still, I wasn’t letting him off the hook. The fact that he was a Constable and allowing this to happen was an unspeakable breach of trust. I glowered and Derrick’s eyebrow rose in question. He opened his mouth to speak but I cut him off by snatching the ticket and marching to the attendant with angry strides that I hoped made my point for me.
The attendant smiled and it was only after a moment that I realized she was making eyes at Derrick, which was unprofessional to the extreme. Irritated, I kept going, trusting that the brute would be right behind me, and he was. He stayed on my heels as we entered the plane and squeezed through the tight space.
My seat was beside Mark, who had already stowed his bag and was bouncing his knee so hard I feared his foot might go through the floor. By the time I was buckled and slouched against the tiny seat, Mark had discarded the frayed emergency instruction pamphlet in favor of what I could only assume was a barf bag.
For a startled second, I stared at him as he clutched the paper bag and exhaled through his mouth.
“Really? We haven’t even left the terminal.”
“Shut up,” he said and closed his eyes.
His throat bobbed heavy under his skin, and I unbuckled. There was no way I was going to sit next to a motion-sick werewolf for however long this trip might be. Ignoring the hushed protests of fellow passengers, I made my way to Derrick, intent on forcing him to switch seats with me. He looked up when I reached his aisle, concern and surprise on his face, and glanced back at where Mark was leaning over his bag.
Most of the passengers were loaded and I nodded at the seat beside Derrick. “Is anyone sitting here?”
“I wouldn’t…”
“I don’t care what you wouldn’t do, Mr. King,” I said and sat down. “I refuse to deal with Mark throwing up on me.”
