Page 72 of The Renegade Mate

“Sounds chaotic. I like it,” I replied, my eyes meeting his. For a brief moment, the car dropped away, and it was just Ryan and me and the promise of hours and hours of fun making pups.

Ryan glanced over at me, his eyes softening. “Do you want to talk about what happened back at the compound?”

“Do I want to? Not particularly. Do I need to? Probably,” I answered, chewing on my lower lip.

He sighed, his grip tightening around the wheel. “Mai, I was scared out of my mind when I found out you walked right into their lair. Don’t ever do something like that again, or I swear, I’ll put you over my knee.”

I grinned at the image, my eyes twinkling with mischief. “Promises, promises.”

Jase groaned theatrically from the back. “Ugh, get a room, you two.”

“Oh, we will, after this is all done,” Ryan promised, his voice dark and seductive.

Jase was right, though. We had to focus right now; it was just that I thought I wouldn’t ever see Ryan again. I’d been so scared, and now he was here. I wanted to lighten the mood, to take a moment, breathe in the scent of him, and steady myself for what was to come. It sucked, but we didn’t have time.

“I think Hayley’s on ripple.”

Ryan’s eyebrows shot up. “What? How do you figure?”

“After Seth kidnapped me, there was a witch at the house he kept me in. He was working with this witch to try to break my bond with the Three Rivers Pack. Seth said my bond was ‘impure’ and that the witch had helped him see it.”

The car veered sharply to the left before Ryan corrected it. “What the fuck, Mai? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We’ve been bouncing around from one disaster to the next. It didn’t seem important. Seth was dead. I figured we wouldn’t see the witch ever again. But then Arabella said that when she was on ripple, she felt ‘pure.’ I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but Hayley came to see me in the compound. She wanted me to go to the Meet and give up my claim and bond to our Pack. She said, and I quote, ‘Your bond with the Three Rivers is impure.’”

“It could be a coincidence,” Jase said from the back seat.

I shook my head. “Hayley all but admitted that she was taking ripple. She implied that Brock had been giving it to her.”

Ryan tilted his head to one side. It was his thinking pose. “It might explain her personality change. Why she killed Jem. If Brock’s been keeping Hayley on ripple for a while now, there is no telling what effects it’s having on her.”

Jase chimed in with a sarcastic tone, “Ah, the circle of life. Witches, drugs, and impure bonds. What’s next? Zombies?”

Ignoring Jase’s comment, Ryan looked serious, his eyes searching mine. “Once this is over, we’re digging into this, Mai. Ripple, witches, the whole nine yards.”

The sincerity in his voice melted away some of the tension I’d been carrying. “I have a feeling this is important. Something bigger is going on here, and if it involves the witches and this drug, then it’s bad news for all werewolves.”

Ryan swung the car round a corner. He was pushing it, taking it to the limits of what the car could do, and I was so grateful. He would get us there in time, I had to believe that.

"You killed Brock's father."

Ryan glanced at me. "Yes, I did. And I loved every fucking second of it."

Okay then.

"You know, I think he's been planning this ever since then."

Ryan's jaw clenched. "The thought had occurred to me."

"You could apologize," I suggested.

Ryan looked at me for a moment, then we both started laughing.

"I've got a much better idea," Ryan said, as his face turned serious and he let a bit of the rage he was feeling escape along our bond. "Let's go and rip his fucking head off."

Chapter forty-five

Mai

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