Page 52 of Lost Touch

Trying to keep his shift in check. I knew that sign well enough by now.

“Mate me, you mean?”

“Yeah.” His chest rose and fell too fast. I wondered if he knew he was leaning forward, his body and his instincts and whatever predatory, parasitic magic the warlocks had embedded in him driving him to get closer to me, to take what he wanted. “Claim you. Mate you. And I don’t fucking know what would happen after that. I’m losing control. You’re not safe with me anymore. If you ever were,” he added bitterly.

I couldn’t move, mired in fright and misery and in the rigidity of muscles that’d been so hard-used they’d gone stiff, even if the pain didn’t penetrate.

Safety. That’d been my first, my most critical impression of Drew. That with him, I’d be safe. But maybe I truly never had been. Even as he’d carried me out of our prison, he’d also carried that insidious, wicked magic brewing within, waiting to tear him apart—and me with him.

He almost certainly wanted me to run. To leave him, go back to California armed with what I knew now about my past, with a place to start in unraveling the mystery of what had happened to me. Maybe I could call Alyssa or Victoria. They might even help me.

If I stayed, I’d be trapped: desperately servicing Drew’s instincts, offering up my body as a sacrifice until he couldn’t stop himself from mating me…or destroying me.

It made me sick with horror, but it also didn’t matter.

I wouldn’t be leaving him.

“There’s nothing you can say that’ll make me go,” I said hoarsely. “Nothing in the world. We agreed we’d fix this together, that we were always on the same side. That hasn’t changed.”

Drew’s eyes flashed. “That changed the second I was a danger to you instead of protecting you,” he snarled.

A flash of anger seared through me. “No, fuck that,” I said, doing a decent snarl myself for someone who didn’t have werewolfery to give me an assist. “No. We both went through hell. You didn’t abandon me, and I’m not abandoning you! And no, shut the hell up, that’s final, Drew. Obviously we need to do something else. Go and find a shaman who can help, or even a warlock, someone. We’ll leave today, okay? But I’m not. Leaving. You!”

Drew’s expression softened, and his hand twitched like he’d almost reached out to me.

“My worst nightmare is hurting you,” he said. “Literally. I wake up sweating some nights. Seeing your blood—I’d rather slit my own throat.”

I pushed myself up and turned, sitting on the edge of the bed—remembering at the last second to pull the blankets over my lap. Drew’s eyes still flickered down, avidly scanning my bare skin, and a red flush spread over his cheekbones.

God. This wasn’t going to be easy.

“You should go downstairs and get anything done you need to before we leave,” I said, keeping my voice even and soothing and as not-challenging and not-sexy as possible. “Call your second in command at your company.”

“I went back on leave. That’s not a problem.”

“Then—go do something, okay? Something that’s not here.”

“Yeah.” Drew looked me up and down again. He shook his head and pushed to his feet, jaw set. “Yeah.”

And then he booked it out of the room, shutting the door behind him a little too hard.

As soon as I couldn’t hear his footsteps on the stairs anymore, I darted to the door, locked it—for all the good that’d do if he tried to break it down, but at least it might stop him long enough to make him think—and then shut myself into the bathroom, locking that door too.

I needed a shower. I needed to get myself together. If I could find a hand mirror, I kind of needed to take a look at my ass…although no, strike that, because I might have a panic attack if I could see what he’d done to me without being able to feel it. Knowing about it made me shaky and lightheaded enough.

And then I’d have to pack up what few belongings I had, the clothes and toiletries Drew had bought me, and manage to get him packed and in the car without getting fucked again on our way out the door.

Of course, I had no idea where we were going, beyond the vague idea that we might head for Southern California eventually. But my past had to be put on the back burner until we’d found a solution for Drew. And I’d have to use his phone’s data to search for a shaman while we drove, and here was hoping that shamans had websites, because we simply couldn’t delay any longer. Drew wouldn’t be able to keep his hands, and other parts, off of me for that long.

While he drove a car, he couldn’t knot me.

At least, I sure as fuck hoped so. That had to be illegal in all fifty states.

Anyway. It might distract him enough to keep him from losing it completely.

Shower first. I avoided looking at myself in the mirror over the sink, either, figuring that in this case ignorance would be bliss. I didn’t need to see my ass or my face. Both were probably totally wrecked.

And then I’d hustle Drew into the car—the SUV this time, because we needed to take some luggage and because I didn’t trust Drew’s driving in that death-trap of a sports car even if he wasn’t trying to knot me on the road—and get him to a shaman.

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