Page 19 of Bad Blood Alpha

The voices grew louder, shouting inside her head. Help us. Someone, please help us. Don’t leave us here to die…

She clenched her teeth and willed them back. Not now, she told them. Leave me alone. God, why can’t you leave me alone?

They paused at a stop sign. The road was nearly empty, and Flynn could have gone, but he looked over at her, his brow furrowed as if he could sense something wrong.

“Are you okay?”

“Sure.” She forced her voice to sound light. “Summer night, jacked-up truck, hot lion shifter taking me back to his lair. What’s not to love?”

He gave a faint snort, but he put the car in gear and kept going. “If you put country pop on the radio and start singing along with songs about tailgate parties and moonlight and Chevys, I’m going to shove you out onto the side of the road with a flare for the hellhounds.”

She wasn’t sure if he was serious or not.

“You live in Nashville and you don’t like country?” She shook her head. “Is that even allowed?”

“No. Like I said, I like to live dangerously.”

“Good for you.” Loves guns, hates country music. Two things she knew about her promised mate. That, and the fact that he was totally ripped and overwhelmingly sexy, and had no desire to help her.

Her head throbbed again, and she took a deep, slow breath. No voices. Please. No seizures. Not until she had a chance to talk to him, see if there was any chance he’d uphold the mating pledge they’d made so long ago.

He had to. If he didn’t…

Another stab of pain lanced through her skull. She clenched her teeth so hard her jaws ached. Stop. Stop. Stop.

He frowned. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.” I could be fine. If you help me. Would an appeal like that sway his opinion? He was famous for being a stone-cold killer, when he needed to be. Word was he’d take you down without blinking.

Not the kind of guy to care if you were okay. Or if you needed help.

“What makes you think I’m not okay?” she asked.

He shrugged one of his enormous shoulders. She could feel the heat radiating off his massive body. His scent was hot and masculine, like baked earth and desert sage. It contrasted with the smell of summer rain that surrounded them.

It smelled like the place they’d both been born. Home. The band around her head loosened, and the voices began to fade away.

“Maybe I’m just used to being around people who’re usually not okay,” he said. “I figure any time somebody’s quiet for too long, all hell is going to break loose.”

Damn. That made her look forward to meeting his crew even less. She said, “If I were planning to rain hell down upon you, I wouldn’t give you a warning.”

Was that just the ghost of a smile at the corner of his mouth?

No. Couldn’t be, because he was still angry. She could feel it. Must have been just a trick of the light.

They were driving down the main street of a small town, mostly dark and shuttered except for the lights from an all-night diner on the main street.

Even in the rain, it looked…nice. Friendly. Like towns she’d seen on TV, and never had the chance to visit.

She was a creature of cities, of dark shadows, of mercenary jobs that needed her brand of special skills. Hostage rescue. Kidnap negotiations. Retrieval of various objects or documents that had ended up in the wrong hands—dangerous hands.

It was no life for a princess; Markus, her mentor, would have been horrified. But it paid the bills. There weren’t a lot of career options for a draken princess whose dragon was magically bound, and whose only marketable skills were stealth raids, infiltration, hand to hand combat and assassination.

And Markus had been dead for three years. She was on her own.

But if Flynn would help her—if he’d do what he’d pledged to do all those years ago, at least she wouldn’t be defenseless.

Flynn drove through the town and out into the countryside. They were on a dark, narrow county road, tall trees looming over them on either side. It was raining harder now, the dark limbs whipping overhead in the growing wind, water slapping on the windshield every time they moved out from under the cover of branches.