Page 56 of Lost Touch

For a second I thought we’d been set up, or possibly just scammed. We sat there in the middle of the road-driveway-thing, surrounded by trees, moonlight pouring down and joining the headlights in illuminating exactly freaking nothing at all.

And then someone tapped on Drew’s window. We both jumped and turned, Drew snarling and ripping his claws out of the steering wheel with a crunch that made me wince, me waving frantically at whoever was there, shouting, “Get back, he’ll—”

The words “kill you” died on my lips as the person on the other side of the window held up a hand, releasing a little flash of purplish light—and Drew slumped down in his seat like his strings had been cut.

“Drew?” I asked cautiously.

Nothing. His head lolled to the side, and he toppled down onto the center console like a felled tree, his head in my lap.

Slowly, terrified of what I might find, I ran my fingers through his hair and let them come to rest on the side of his neck.

His pulse beat too fast for someone unconscious—but he had a pulse.

I hadn’t realized how keyed up I’d been until some of my tension fled, and all of a sudden, I wanted nothing so much as to throw up everything I’d ever eaten and then sleep for a week. I leaned my head back, horribly dizzy. And also desperately needing to piss, now that I had the leisure to think about it.

Another bang on the window made me jump enough to bounce Drew’s head on my leg.

“Hey,” came through the glass, a little muffled. I peered out the window, getting an impression of a dark mess of hair and a pale, pretty face. Definitely a guy. Hawthorne? “I’m Nate,” he said. “Hawthorne. Want to get out for a sec so we can move him to the back and get the car up to the house?”

I was kind of surprised he hadn’t asked for a credit card first, but yeah, I’d come this far. It took a little effort to extract myself from Drew and get my seatbelt undone, but I half-crawled half-fell out of the passenger door a minute later, sucking in deep, cleansing breaths of air just as fresh as around Drew’s house out in the woods, only with a slightly different tang to it. Redwoods, I realized. California. My home state, maybe.

Nate came around the front to meet me, sticking out a hand for me to shake. He was about my height, only not quite as painfully thin, and had painted-on jeans and a hoodie so oversized it would’ve fit Drew.

“You never gave me your name,” he said as we let go.

“Ash, and that’s Drew in the car.” I froze as the likely source of the ridiculously large sweatshirt came around the front of the car too. Where the hell had a redheaded giant been lurking? I’d been distracted, but sheesh. A giant redheaded alpha, apparently, by the faint glow in his eyes. “Um. Is this the shaman?”

Nate burst into an inappropriately loud cackle. “Fuck no. That’s Ian, my mate. He’s the muscle. I didn’t feel like dealing with a passed-out feral alpha werewolf on my own, if you were out of commission. Also, he wouldn’t let me. Thought it might not be safe.” Nate rolled his eyes, as if this were a totally absurd stance to take. It seemed reasonable to me.

I shot Ian a nervous little smile. He didn’t appear to be about to eat me or anything. Not that I’d be the best judge.

And it hadn’t escaped me how fucking alone I was, out here in the middle of nowhere with this warlock who’d knocked Drew out with a flutter of his fingers and yet another big, scary alpha with no reason to be kind to me.

Who else might be lurking? The unknown shaman, at the very least.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, wondering if I should knock on some wood. “Thanks. For helping. I know it’s really late. But I was—I didn’t really have a choice.”

Ian grunted and turned away, apparently done with the pleasantries. Nate rolled his eyes again, sighed, and said, “We’ll get him in the back, and then you can give us a lift up to the house. We’ll sit down and figure it out there.”

“Give me one minute.” I was about to start dancing from foot to foot. “Long road trip, no stops. Those trees over there okay?”

Nate shrugged. “Ask them.”

He turned away to go and help his mate, and I went for the trees, shaking my head.

All warlocks and shamans are weird, I reminded myself.At least he’s not wearing gold lamé. Or experimenting on me.

We’d get to “the house,” and we’d figure it out.

I had to trust in that, and in this Nate person, and hope I hadn’t made a terrible mistake.

Chapter 17

They Just Felt Like a Bad Idea

A few minutes later, we trooped into “the house,” which turned out to be a two-story, sprawling ranch-style thing with ramshackle additions sticking off of it, a lot of peeling paint, and a million grimy windows. Ian had Drew slung over his shoulders, and he seemed to be taking a fair amount of care not to bash his head into anything. He also had the resigned expression of someone who’d done this a few times before.

That actually made me feel a lot better. If they didn’t find my situation all that unusual or worrisome, then maybe everything really would be all right.

---