The Immortal Hunter(8)

That fact made him give her a second look. This time he took notice of her blue eyes, her almost too-wide mouth, and her straight little nose. While she wasn't classically beautiful, somehow those individual features-when put together-made up an attractive face. But it was the face of a woman he couldn't read. The question was whether it was because she was upset at the moment, her thoughts possibly in enough chaos after recent events that no immortal could have read her? Or was there another reason he couldn't penetrate her mind?

Decker hesitated, and then concentrated once more on trying to pierce her thoughts, but met a wall of blackness that was hard and impenetrable.

"Who are you?"

He glowered at her for interrupting his concentration, but she merely glowered back. It surprised him into answering.

"Decker Argeneau," he said, and then frowned at the slip and said, "I mean Pimms." He hadn't used the Argeneau name for over a century now. He refused to. The name carried a certain cachet with it, elicited a certain respect from his kind, but he didn't want respect just because of his last name. Decker would rather earn it based on his own merits.

"All right, you're Decker-May be-Argeneau-Maybe-Pimms." The woman sounded grim. "But telling me your name doesn't really tell me who you are and why I shouldn't be running in the opposite direction right now, does it?"

"You're safe," he said, and when she didn't respond or relax, added, "We just saved your life, lady. You're safe."

She hesitated and then asked a touch sharply, "And my sister, Stephanie? Your friend went after them. Will he be able to get her back?"

"I don't know," Decker admitted, "And he's not my friend."

She frowned. "You were together."

"No. Justin and I just followed him here," Decker announced, digging his phone out of his pocket and peering down to find "no signal" flashing on the screen.

"Your phone won't work out here," she announced, and then added, "At least mine didn't. Where's your vehicle? We have to go after my sister."

"I don't have one," Decker muttered, not bothering to explain that it had been stolen. He ignored her then and raised his phone skyward, turning in a circle in hopes of catching a signal. When that didn't work, he snapped it closed with a sigh and slid the useless item back in his pocket. Decker turned his attention back to the blond then, only to find that she'd started off up the trail toward the road.

Rubbing absently at his chest, he instinctively tried to take control of her once more, but this time was no more successful than the last two attempts. Cursing, he gave it up and hurried forward to grab her arm and draw her to a halt, "Wait."

The blond turned on him sharply and glared at the hand he had on her arm.

Decker ignored that and asked, "Where do you think you're going?"

"After my sister," she answered succinctly, and, tugging her arm loose, turned to start walking again.

"On foot?" he asked with exasperation, trailing her.

"Yes, at least until I reach an inhabited house or cottage where I can borrow a car or something."

"No one's going to just give you their car," Decker pointed out grimly. "And you can't go after these guys alone. They aren't your average bad guys. Let us handle this. It's what we do."

She paused and turned to peer at him uncertainly. "Are you a cop or something?"

"Or something," he said vaguely, and took her arm to urge her back the way they'd come. He ignored the way her eyes had narrowed and that she was dragging her feet.

"Are you with the OPP?"

"No. We're not with the Ontario Provincial Police."

"RCMP?"

"No. We're not with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police either."

The blond dug in her heels, refusing to move further. Rather than force her, Decker sighed and turned to say, "Look, we are in law enforcement. We go after bad guys, but there's no sense my telling you the name of the organization I work for. You wouldn't recognize it. We aren't well known by the average citizen. But you are safe."

Her eyes widened at his claim and she asked eagerly, "You mean like CSIS? You're like a secret agent?"

Decker hesitated; he had no desire to claim he was a member of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, Canada's version of the FBI, but he'd already said no to all the usual law enforcement organizations and he couldn't tell her the truth, so merely muttered, "Something like that."

When she opened her mouth to ask another question, he forestalled her by quickly asking, "What's your name?"

"Danielle McGill."

"And the other girl is your sister, Stephanie?"

"Younger sister, she's just fifteen," Danielle said. Worry overtook her expression once more, and her gaze again slid up toward the road.

Before Decker could ask anything else, a low whistle drew his attention to Justin's arrival.

The younger immortal peered to where their vehicle had been and said, "You left the keys in the SUV."

It wasn't an accusation, just an observation. Justin knew exactly why he'd left the keys in the ignition and hadn't protested it at the time. Neither of them had known about the nest of rogues or expected it to lead to the vehicle being stolen.