“And the poisoning?” I pressed.
“I teleported myself out as soon as I sensed it in the air.” Cade swallowed. “Others were not as fast.”
“Someone’s gunning for you. This isn’t exactly going to be me sitting around looking pretty. You need someone who’s watching your back.” I took a guess based on what he’d said. “You need someone watching your back who isn’t in Declan’s pocket and who doesn’t belong to the person who hired Declan to kill you.” Chuckling, I shook my head. “So it’s not so much the enemy of my enemy; it’s that I was your only option because if I was good with Declan or the person paying him, you wouldn’t have had to rescue me from a murder room in the back of a dive bar. I’m the only wolf between here and Los Angeles you can trust.”
Cade swallowed, and I thought I saw a dark flicker around his high collar. On the steering wheel, his fingers tightened and opened. When he spoke, he raised his chin, sniffing, ignoring what I’d just said about his real motives. “Yes. I need someone who can help me. You can either do that, or you can get out here. I’m sure running from Declan with no money and no transportation is so much better than the job I’m offering you.”
I turned and looked out the window. We were in a patch of forest between towns. Pineridge Springs was outside of Los Santos, and until we reached the turnoff for Clear Lake, it was just one small town after the other.
I could probably make it. Even if Cade called Declan Monroe and let him know exactly where he had left me, I could make it into the forest.
Sure, I didn’t have food or water, and I was running on no sleep. My head still throbbed from the fight and being coldcocked, but maybe I could make it work.
Experimentally, I flexed my fingers, trying to get the fur and claws I felt under the surface to spring to life.
Beside me, Cade tensed. Magic swirled, lines of darkness in the air that coalesced into something I knew could kill me.
The shift wouldn’t come. The wolf wouldn’t come. My stomach clenched.
How far could I make it on foot? How far could I make it without the ability to shift, the thing that had defined my entire life up until now?
My options were to go out into the wilderness as a human or go with him. I got food and someplace to sleep. I had enough time to rest up, to heal from whatever had been in that drug that made it impossible for me to pull the wolf to the surface.
House Bartlett’s compound was even further from Los Santos. It was even further in the woods. I could probably reach the Sierra Nevada mountains from there.
“We met three weeks ago. Are we screwing each other?” I asked. For eleven years, I’d been a paid gun for hire. What was so different about doing it for a mage instead of Declan? Both were paying me money. As long as I had that, I was good.
The buzz of magic beside me faded, and when I looked over, I saw the barest hint of a dark line crawl from Cade’s neck under the collar of his shirt.
He put the car in drive, the wheels spinning on the dirt of the shoulder for a moment before catching and jerking back onto the road.
“Yes. Part of being a consort is the… intimacy of the act.”
I stared at the side of his face, watching his expression, illuminated by passing headlights. “There has to be a hundred werewolves out there who would happily be your ‘consort’ for real. Strong ones who can survive assassination attempts and watch your back.”
“Having a wolf is a status symbol. It has been made clear to me that there will be no coronation until I have a consort.” Cade’s eyes flicked to me, but then they moved away so quickly that I couldn’t read his expression.
“That doesn’t answer any of my questions. Go to a club for real. There are matchmaking services that would happily hook you up with some brain-dead wolf who will give you their freedom in exchange for all that money and status.” Clenching my fists, I tried to pull at the change again, but it was missing, a puzzle piece in the center of my chest that had been removed. Until I found it under the couch, I wouldn’t be whole.
“I need someone strong enough on their own that we won’t actually have to join.” Cade’s words were stiff, unbearably formal.
“You don’t want to have to have sex?” I snorted. “You’re hiring me because you don’t want to have to lie back and think of England?”
“My reasons are my own.” Pointedly, Cade unlocked the door again. Even though my healing abilities didn’t seem to be affected by whatever drug they had given me, I still wasn’t eager to leap out of a car driving fast enough to place in the Indy 500.
“Okay, okay. We’re going to at least need to know some details about each other if we’re going to pretend that we’ve been ‘joining.’” I leaned back in my seat, shrugging. “What do I call you? Cade? Prince Bartlett?”
“I…” Cade went silent, and I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. Finally, he said, “Cade.”
“Do you go to clubs a lot? What were we doing when we were seeing each other for three weeks?” When he didn’t answer, I said, “Unless we spent the whole three weeks in bed?”
“No. Of course not. Museums. Restaurants. That sort of thing.”
“That sort of thing. Of course.” My brows drew together. I tried to remember the last museum I had gone to and came up with the seventh-grade field trip to the local agricultural museum. They had let us sit in the driver’s seat of a massive tractor. I still remembered staring out over the parking lot, my hands on the wheel, the other kids whining in line behind me.
“Why? How should we have dated?” Cade asked sharply. “Did we meet up at bars like the one I dragged you out of?”
“No, no, of course not. That would injure your precious sensibilities. You’d be too afraid of getting tetanus in the bathroom.” I tapped my chin, pretending to think on it. “I bet we went to cockfights and cage matches.”
