Cry Wolf (Wolves of Angels Rest #7)(41)

Her heart pounded out a rhythm she wasn’t ready to put words too.

Instead she jumped for the first boulder above them. Taking turns, they leaped up to the ridge top, then turned to look back the way they’d come.

The warehouse burned, and the fire had spread to the outbuildings. It would have been scary except the stark, dark desert surrounded it like a moat.

A few rats had deserted the sinking ship, though. From their vantage point, she saw three blue vans jouncing over the rutted lane toward the highway.

Diesel angled his muzzle, directing her attention the other way. Her Econoline was coming along the back roads, a four-wheeler guiding the way. He trotted a few steps, clearly intending to intercept, and glanced back at her.

She took one more look at the burning warehouse, her stomach clenching so hard the wolf lifted her lip in a silent snarl. Let it burn. She wouldn’t even spit on it.

She followed Diesel down from the ridge.





Chapter 15

They were back on Mesa Diablo almost before the original plan for the attack was supposed to commence.

Willow heard the whole story from the back driver’s side seat of the Econoline. Diesel was driving and a woman named Gypsy was in the front seat, explaining everything to a huge man named Cianán.

Despite his size, Willow wouldn’t have suspected anything unnatural—or supernatural—about him…until she saw the sunburst tattoo on his shoulder.

The bear creature in the cage next to hers.

He met her gaze but didn’t speak.

In the back of the Econoline where the band’s gear was normally stowed were the other rescued shifters. Ahead of them was the SUV with the four-wheeler in tow, and behind them was another SUV plus a mom-mobile, also full of shapeshifters.

Willow’s head was whirling with all the things she wouldn’t have ever believed if she hadn’t just lived through it herself. Not just lived through it, become it.

Like the bear shifter, like the wolf that circled uneasily inside her, she thought she’d lost the urge to ever speak again. Not when everything that came out would likely be babbling nonsense.

And to think she’d started this week thinking she just needed to find enough words to fill an album.

Now she wasn’t sure…of anything.

As they climbed the switchback road, she met Diesel’s gaze in the rearview mirror.

“You said my van wouldn’t make it up to Mesa Diablo.” She didn’t try to modulate the sharpness of her tone.

“I said it was rough,” he corrected. “And it is, isn’t it?”

She bit her lip. He wasn’t talking about just the actual road, she knew.

Too confused and tired, and stuck in the back where the view sucked, she couldn’t see where they were going except for some pines, the damp needles reflecting the headlights. But when they finally stopped and Gypsy opened the back, letting the shifters out into the night, she hung back, suddenly afraid again.

Anyway, her heart was slamming hard enough that it could escape on its own.

She curled in place, eyes wide, then gasped when Diesel reached around his seat to touch her shoulder. Gypsy had taped a bandage there before she’d donned a loaner T-shirt and sweatpants. She could only be grateful for the nightly backstage wardrobe changes that had pretty much banished any claims to modesty she might’ve made.

“C’mon,” he said gently. “You can’t stay here all night.”

“I’ve spent plenty of nights in here,” she protested.

“And now you don’t have to.”

She wanted to tell him how she’d liked being on the road, but really, that wasn’t quite true. She’d only wanted to make music, to play, to sing, and that was how she’d done it. The band, the van, the Vegas gig were just all ways to be who she wanted to be.

And now…she was something else.

But what did that mean?

Slowly, she put her hand in Diesel’s, and he guided her out into the darkness.

It wasn’t totally dark. There was a light from a big log cabin, and someone had lit a lantern to lead Cianán and the other warehouse prisoners inside. Diesel’s ex-military buddies gave him some hard eye contact but walked by without saying anything to him.

Instead of falling into line behind them, Diesel took her around to the back of the house. Through the big picture window, she could see all the shapeshifters gathering in the great room and the kitchen beyond. It was part reunion  , part triage, part chaos, and she was glad she didn’t have to deal with it at the moment. Because, really, shapeshifters?

From the patio where the two of them stood, the view stretched from between the trees down to the town of Angels Rest below and then out to the desert beyond.

A silvery glow lightened the horizon, and in that light, Willow finally faced Diesel. “What now?”

His gaze was shuttered, eyes half hidden by the fall of his lashes. He was dressed all in black again, harder to read than the shadows around him. “What do you want now?”

The wolf in her shivered. It didn’t understand words or the need for schedules and plans. It only knew the fighting was over, the moon was coming up soon, the night was peaceful.

And her mate was beside her.

Her mate?

If a wolf could roll its eyes…

“What is a…a true mate?”