Page 5 of Mated to the Enemy
“Not so fast!”
They spun to see the other man, the mage, thrust his hand forward at them. Another green cloud roiled forward, right at Jessica.
Just before it got to her, however, Zoe shrieked and threw herself at the cloud. The tendrils of pale green smoke wrapped around her victoriously.
“GO!” Zoe screamed. “Run, Jess. Don’t waste this.”
“Fuck!” she shouted, just as Lorran pulled himself to one knee.
Swiftly, she pulled back a boot, slamming it home into his groin once more, trying not to wince in sympathy pain. Then, with one last pained glance at her trapped sister, she took off down the hallway, unable to hold back the agonizing scream that ripped from her throat as she fled toward the elevator.
The second the metal doors closed around her, the tears fell. She’d left her. Left Zoe behind. Images of her baby sister trapped in that green cloud filled her mind, and would haunt her for a long, long time. She wasfairlypositive Lorran would forgive Zoe, blaming it on her love for Jessica, but there was no real way to tell.
And she’d left her with him. Lorran was one of the schemers, one of those who wanted to kill a bunch of members of his own house! And her sister was not only staying with him, she was mated to him! It was crazy. Jessica had never been Lorran’s biggest fan, even before the changes of the past few years, but he’d at least been acceptable in her eyes before then, just not exceptional.
The chimes announced she was at the garage level. The doors opened, but the area outside was empty still. No pursuit had followed her just yet. Lorran and his conspirators would probably be hesitant to call in backup, because if she got the word out about what she knew, they would be exposed.
Still, Jessica had no time to waste. She darted to the section of the parking garage she knew housed Lorran’s cars, finding the lockbox filled with keys. The keycode hadn’t changed, and she swung the door open, eyeing the rows of keys to cars both antique, flashy, and what she wanted.
Snagging the silver ring from the hook, she hit the unlock button. There was no need to search for the vehicle. The hulking behemoth stood out among the hypercars and other flashy automobiles like a sore thumb. But as Jessica hopped inside the full-sized military-converted Hummer and turned the engine over, she’d never been happier that Lorran hadn’t listened to Zoe’s pleas to get rid of the thing.
The Beast, as she’d nicknamed it, came to life with a roar that filled much of the underground. The entire cab shook, but she didn’t care. Speed would help, but the solidity of the vehicle was going to be even more worthwhile. Gunning the engine, she didn’t bother steering around the cars on her way to the entrance. Jessica simply wentthroughthem.
The push bar on the front slammed into a Lamborghini, pushing it back into a Ferrari, a McLaren and several other hypercars she didn’t recognize, but that had to be expensive. Carbon fiber siding flew everywhere as the Beast rumbled through—and in one caseover—another car.
Once she was free of them, Jessica punched the accelerator and the Hummer picked up speed as it went up the curving ramp, tires squealing as she hammered down her foot, not taking the turn slowly at all.
She shot up into the night, the suspension bouncing wildly as she cleared the top of the ramp and nearly went airborne for a second.
“Yeeha—AHHH!” Her shout of triumph turned into a scream as something huge slammed into the side of the Hummer, rocking it up on one side.
The Beast came back down and she nearly concussed herself on the roof, it bounced so heavily. But most importantly, she kept her foot down. Looking in her side view mirror, she had a split second to glimpse a fearsome visage of flashing teeth before something very large and very furry ripped it from the vehicle.
Instinctively, she swerved hard to the left and hammered on the brakes. A massive canine form flew past her side window with a howl, the headlights illuminating a giant mist-gray wolf as it rolled several times.
Jessica didn’t give it a chance to get up. She pushed down on the pedal and the bar at the front of the Hummer slammed into the werewolf, the heavy-duty steel bending slightly as it flung the wolf forward and off to the side.
A blast of some sort of red energy streaked by her driver’s side window, gouging out a black divot from the concrete driveway. Jessica screamed and blasted away from the House at full speed, weaving back and forth as randomly as she could. Two more red bursts flew by her, and something screeched across the roof of the Hummer, but nothing penetrated the cab.
In her rear view, she saw a wolf try to catch up, but the Hummer kept accelerating, and eventually left it behind.
Just before she disappeared into the woods that hid the manor from the outside world, Jessica saw a pair of headlights light up the sky behind her. They were coming after her now. The chase was on. She wouldn’t be able to outrun them, that was for certain. No, she needed to find safety.
“But where? Where the hell do I go?” Even as her panicked question filled the cabin, the answer came to her. Jessica didn’t like it, but it made the most sense, in a convoluted way of thinking. She would go to the last place they would ever expect her. Maybe there, she would find safety.
If the bears didn’t kill her first.
