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She’d assumed that was where he had been spending time. Not that she cared.
Dammit. I spent the last few years getting him out of my head, and now he just walks in unannounced because of that stupid business with Marius?
She was heading on her usual loop, down Willow to Crabtree, to Cypress…rinse and repeat. It was almost exactly two miles, so it worked out great.
She pounded along at a good pace as the memories flipped by.
Dax. Her father. Other faces of jerks she had dated popped by. Christof, that fae twit. When did things get so complicated?
Well, that would be when your mother died and you moved in with your father, wouldn’t it? Or actually it was probably the day your mother bore you in secret ten years before that.
There had been a while with her dad where it was simple…once she got past the roughest teenage years and before all the drama of dating. And then Christof. She knew at some level she had been drawn to his fae-ness, if one could say that. Maybe if she were with a powerful fae, or at least one from a good family, maybe then she would feel like she finally belonged.So cliché.
It hadn’t worked.
Big surprise there.
Her feet pounded her forward, and her arms pumped as she headed around on the long loop that was Cypress, as it cut through the woods. The swamp stretched out on her left. That place was eerie. But it only bordered maybe a quarter of a mile on her route before she was back amongst the woods. Out here there was only the occasional house. People were surprised that she was so fearless, but in truth, she had never felt threatened by what happened to her father. As Dax kept pointing out, they had no leads, or at least nothing he would share with her, but she had always figured it had been some homeless or down on their luck shifter he had made the mistake of trying to help. He had always had a soft spot for counseling or helping those on the fringe. Some unsavory characters were out there. And unless she were way off, it had gotten him killed.
Dax had even posted one of his pack to keep an eye on her for a while right after it had happened. And then he had started keeping an eye on her himself.
Ugh. Stop. Thinking. About. Him.
But she couldn’t help it. Hehadlooked good, in that effortlessly rugged way he had about him. His solid muscled forearms had rippled with every gesture. She had never been totally into muscular guys before him. See exhibit A. Christof. But boy, she had sure grown to appreciate his muscles.
And God, they had only been together a month or so before it had blown up. Or was it two? Whatever. It didn’t matter now. But God, though somehow they had never gone all the way, they had gotten close. God had they gotten close. She sighed thinking about it. The way he had touched her. The way he felt.
Bloom. Stop it.This run is not helping.
She did her best to bring her focus to her breathing. Counting breaths in and breaths out. Now she was turning right onto Crabtree and getting back to the town proper. More than half way. She upped her pace. Maybe she would go for two laps.
Suddenly, her full focus was pulled to an alarming sight. There was a woman and a girl being sort of backed up along the sidewalk by two men.Holy shit!
And it wasn’t exactly deserted here, which in some ways made it all the more shocking. They were right out in front of the library.
If being a half breed had done anything for her, it had given her a sensitivity for the underdog, or at least for anyone she perceived that way. The two women definitely fit that bill. She was still about one hundred feet away when the men grabbed the woman.
That was when she saw the van pull up.Holy shit!
The door on the side slid open.
No way. No, no, no. Not on my watch.
In an instant, she summed up the situation. There were a ton of people around, actually.
Scare them. My key chain! The mace!
Thank God she didn’t stop and think, or she might not have acted. But before she knew it, as the two men were dragging the woman toward the van, with their backs turned to her, she yelled, “Hey assholes!”
Just as they turned, wham! She nailed them both with a good dose of mace. The two men instantly screamed and cursed as they rubbed at their eyes. At the same time, the woman broke free. Somehow one of the men made his way toward the van, even as the crowd turned to witness the commotion.
But the other man, half blinded, was not so lucky, as he ran headlong toward the sound of his accomplices’ yells, he ran straight into a signpost, and went down like a ton of bricks. He was out cold.
The other non-incapacitated bad guy - she was pretty confident in labelling them as bad guys – hesitated for a moment, before apparently realizing it was time to go. Leaving their presumed partner sprawled out on the sidewalk at the center of a growing crowd, the other two sped off in the van.
“Holy shit,” she said, as she looked at the two women, who she immediately realized must be mother and daughter. “That was my outside voice this time, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, my God, thank you so much!” the mother was saying, as she hugged her daughter.
