Fear as they slide down the mountainside, because even the best drivers can’t win against Mother Nature—
Certainty as he knows he has to protect his passenger—
Emotions and thoughts came to Reece as if from a distance. His eyelids didn’t seem to want to open, but there was velvet softness under his cheek, smooth fabric against his shoulder, comforting weight on his back. A soft and steady pulse under his ear, like the rhythm of a heartbeat.
Evan, his mind nudged.
Reece’s empathy was reaching out before his thoughts could take form, searching, wanting—
And then everything was black.
Jason Owens’s mansion was at the end of a residential street on Mercer Island. Jamey remembered the location from the day she’d been called to his murder scene. Tonight, a light snowblanketed everything, more flakes still falling on her windshield as she pulled her car along the curb and peered at what she could see of the house ahead, the four-car garage, the driveway.
It seemed empty, but then, if the empaths were here, they wouldn’t exactly be advertising it. And if the empathswerehere, they were going to pick up on her emotions. There was no point in trying to hide.
She got out of the car and made her way toward the house under the dusting of tiny snowflakes. The neighboring homes had their lights dimmed too, the residents probably enjoying their winters somewhere tropical, and the night was quiet other than her footsteps on the pavement.
She headed for the front door and knocked. She waited, ears pricked for any sound, but all was silent. After a long moment, she tried the knob and found it unlocked. But then, empaths who could feel others approaching didn’t exactly need to lock the door.
She stepped into the house. It was eerily still, in a way that raised the hairs on her neck. She left the lights off, moving through the rooms based on her memories of her one previous visit. She paused in the study, where the faint scent of ash lingered in the fireplace; someone had lit the fire within the last couple of days.
Eventually she found the kitchen, which was a little lighter from the glow coming off the snow outside the large windows. Her eyebrows went up as she made out the faint shapes on the kitchen table: the silhouette of a laptop, the pale glow of papers.
Keeping her steps silent, she approached the table. “Here we go,” she said under her breath as she pulled a flash drive out of the side of the laptop. She used her phone flashlight to illuminate the papers, fanning them out.
Deliveries to Stone Solutions, one of them was titled in handwriting. Below it, Jamey could see more handwritten notes from the past couple weeks. Someone had circled a company called Metallic Tailors and added three question marks.
Jamey folded up all of the papers and pocketed them along with the flash drive. She had just closed the laptop, ready to take it, when the faint sound of footsteps came from down the hall.
Jamey straightened, drawing her gun. “Who’s there?”
The footsteps continued without hesitation, coming closer.
She moved into the kitchen, behind the island, as the footsteps reached the doorway, and then abruptly she was staring into the blood-streaked eyes and menacing expression of a clearly thralled Officer Kosler.
Well, shit.
Kosler roared as Jamey lunged forward and got ready to kick some thrall ass.
Wake up.
Come on.
Wake UP.
Reece’s thoughts broke through the darkness again, a little louder, a little clearer. The distant rhythms were still there, a heartbeat, the rise and fall of breath. And the sensation of that soft skin, of muscle, of warmth beneath him.
He was warmer now too, his core temperature rising, the presence of another person making his empathy perk up. There was still a gentle weight on his back, pleasant and secure.
Arms, his mind supplied.Evan’s arms are around you.
Wake the fuck up and make sure he’s okay.
Reece twitched.
Grayson’s arms? Aroundhim? Where were they? The truck still? Why was it so dark?
Reece tried to open his eyes.
