Page 52 of Furever Loyal
“Kincaid?”
He lowered his head and accelerated to sprint-mode. It wasn’t as impressive as it might have been if he’d not just run two miles, but it still would have caught anyone off guard to see a bear that size moving at over fifty miles per hour in a short dash.
“Kincaid!” Haley shrieked as he reached the wall and leaped over it.
They cleared it and landed on the far side with a heavy crash as he scrambled to keep himself upright. Haley somehow held on through it all, only sliding off when he came to a halt and indicated he needed her to get off.
Reaching into himself, he triggered the reaction once more, and his body returned to human proportions. Although in a hurry, his system was exhausted from the run, and he didn’t push it. The pain was enough, and he grunted several times as it lashed out at him while his body reshaped itself.
Eventually, it passed and Kincaid stood hunched over in his human form, breathing heavily. Steam curled up from his skin in the cold air as he bled the excess heat from his naked body.
“As interesting as that sight is,” Haley said wryly, walking up to him. “What’s the plan now?”
“We go to a safe house,” he said between breaths, trying to straighten out. She was right, they weren’t safe yet. Someone would have heard their passage, and they needed to go before they got closer.
“Right. Um. How?”
“We drive?”
“What?”
“That SUV Kaelyn was talking about, the one her guard so conveniently forgot about,” he explained, starting to walk toward where he assumed it was parked. “That was for us.”
“Oh. Right. Well, in that case, here,” she said, tossing the bag of clothes at him. “I know how much you hate driving naked, so put those on first.”
He snatched them out of mid-air and stuck his tongue out at her. They weren’t safe, and they had a long journey ahead of them to prove their innocence, but Kincaid was sure of one thing.
It was going to be a lot better with Haley at his side.
26
Kincaid turned off the road and into an apartment complex that had seen better days.
“Did you say safehouse or crackhouse?” she asked, looking around at the rundown walkups and the four-story building in the center of it all. “Because I must have misheard you.”
He parked in front of one of the units. “We’ll be safe here. I disabled the GPS tracker before we left, and this isn’t one of House Ursa’s. This is one of mine. I set it up a long time ago…just in case. Nobody knows about it.”
“Is it even still here?” she asked, wondering just what he’d needed to set this up for. What had Kincaid been involved in, in a past life?
“Yes. Now stop making a scene. We need to get inside. The rest of this place isn’t the greatest, and I’d really rather not have to deal with any of the locals getting an eye on you.”
Haley blinked. “Me? What do you mean?”
“You’re obviously not from around here,” he said, glancing at her up and down. “You sort of stand out. Your clothing, hair, mannerisms. It makes you a target. Come on.”
Without asking, he took her hand and guided her toward one of the walkups, down the lane and across from where he’d parked. Haley didn’t protest. After the moment they’d shared in the hallway, holding his hand no longer seemed like a big deal. If anything, she was worried about what might happen next between them.
Things were starting to confuse her, that was for sure. First, she was accused of turning against her employer, betraying them by working with the enemy. Then she broke the law—though that was a gray area, since nobody who’d arrested her was actually the police—and finally, she’d engaged in a passionate and blood-boiling makeout session with the guy who, for all she knew, could still be a criminal!
Now they were on the run, in an area she would never have visited on her own. It was confusing on so many levels that it threatened to make her head spin. Factor in the bit about him being able to change into a massive polar bear, and they had the makings of one hell of a made-for-tv documentary.
If they could not only survive but escape detection and somehow expose the real enemy...Oh yeah, an enemy that could be related to a mage. A magic user. Forgot about that little tidbit of information. As if the day couldn’t get any worse, or more confusing, they just had to throw that in!
She waited while Kincaid slipped a brick out of the wall and took a key from it, fiddling with the locks, then pushing the door open.
“Careful,” he said. “The door’s heavier than it seems.”
She pushed on it, trying to hold it open as she entered after him, only to find herself sliding back across the tiled entry. “Holy shit, what the hell is this thing made out of?” she asked, ducking out of the way as it closed with a solidthump.
