Hierarchy (12 page)

The first rational thought—sort of—that ran through Bronwyn’s mind was home.

She hadn’t even begun to think of her apartment as home, however. Home was Greenville and the boarding house she’d grown up in and then run herself after her grandmother’s death—and sold.

She didn’t care! She needed to retreat to a place that made her feel safe and that was home. First, she had to find her way back to her apartment, though, and grab her things.

She considered simply abandoning them, but she’d brought the few mementoes that meant anything to her with her when she’d left Greenville. Most of the things didn’t matter at all. She could replace them. But she had Nanna’s embroidery and sewing box at her apartment! The charm bracelet her grandmother had given her on her tenth birthday was in it, her grandmother’s embroidery scissors—the few pictures she had of herself when she was growing up and her grandmother and mother ….

She couldn’t leave those things!

She didn’t have a clue of where she was, though. She hadn’t really learned the city except for the few blocks around her apartment and nothing looked familiar—

especially since it was night!

Trying not to panic, she slowed to read street signs, but she discovered that didn’t help. The names weren’t familiar. After turning corner after corner and growing more frightened by the moment, she finally spotted the freeway in the distance. She almost felt like bursting into tears. If she could just get to it …!

Unfortunately, even though she could see it, she couldn’t see the streets that might lead up to it and it was while she was trying to find a street that didn’t look like it was nothing more than another residential street, that she discovered there were several cars behind her.

Her heart leapt into her throat. She tried to convince herself that it was nobody—

just other cars—but every time she looked back, she could see the cars—more cars.

Three became five and then seven.

“Oh my god! Omigod!”

She floored the gas pedal when she saw a traffic light ahead of her that was about to change, stomped the break halfway across, and whipped the wheel into a hairpin turn because she’d realized just as she was about to shoot through it that it was the thoroughfare she’d been looking for. Behind her, the seven cars she’d been trying to convince herself
weren’t
following her, shot through the light, as well.

She was so busy looking behind her in the rearview mirror, she almost missed the poorly marked onramp. At the last second, she veered onto it and shot onto the freeway

… only to discover that it was the east/west corridor. She felt like weeping. Sniffing, she wove in and out of traffic until she finally saw an off ramp ahead. Whipping across traffic from the far left to the right, she went down the next exit ramp.

Where were the damned cops when a person needed them, she thought with a
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touch of anger! If she’d been driving like a normal person instead of a maniac, they would’ve been all over her already!

Maybe she should just leave town and find a place to stay for the night and then sneak back into town when she could find her way to her apartment?

The thought perked her spirits up. Her rent was paid up in advance! She could afford to wait even a week or two!

The new plan sounded much better than her first even though she disliked the idea of returning to her apartment at all.

She discovered when she checked the rearview mirror again that she’d lost at least half the string of cars behind her. Either that, or her imagination was running wild and there never had been anyone chasing her at all.

She wanted to believe that. She almost made herself believe it until she caught a glimpse of the lead car beneath a streetlight.

“Oh fuck!”

It was the black van that had picked her and Luke up that first night, and directly behind it was a long, black limo.

She giggled a little hysterically. If that was Constantine’s idea of keeping a low profile it wasn’t working!

The giggle ended in a choked sob.

So maybe it was a little more than a slightly hysterical giggle.

She slammed on the breaks and jerked the wheel to turn into the next cut off she saw and discovered to her absolute dismay that it looked rural. Not that she hadn’t wanted to leave town! But she certainly hadn’t planned on leaving town with Luke and Constantine right behind her. A long, dark, deserted road seemed like the wrong place to be at a time like this. And what was worse, there were only a sprinkling of street lights for a few miles and then nothing. Seeing that she was coming up on no man’s land, she slammed on the breaks and made another turn, deciding to head back toward town and try to shake them in a less deserted looking area.

The road she found herself on seemed to meander through a heavily wooded area, though. There weren’t the short, neat blocks of a residential area. She’d driven at least two miles before she saw another turn. She’d left the lights behind, but saw the first—

actually four headlights as if the limo was trying to pass the van—as she made the turn.

Hoping against hope that they hadn’t seen her headlights when she turned, she immediately began looking for another turn—anyplace where she could turn off and shut her headlights off.

Instead, she discovered she was heading straight for a huge gate that seemed to take up the entire road. Dead end!

It
couldn’t
be a dead end! Why would there be a road to
one
house!

To her relief, she realized after a moment that it had just been an optical illusion.

The road curved away from the gates.

She must be in the ritzy-rich area of town, she realized unhappily, and that meant only a house here and there and probably no through streets, certainly not many if what she’d seen so far was anything to go by. She had to break to make the curve and she damned near missed it. The car skidded and fishtailed as she rounded it, but she didn’t see any sign of the cars following her.

Another set of gates loomed in her headlights. She stared at them, wondering
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what to do and abruptly realized she recognized the symbol wrought in iron on the gates.

She wasn’t certain where she recognized it from, but it was certainly familiar.

Oddly enough, the gates began to open as she approached them. She stared at them, wondering if she dared, but she’d run out of options. She’d planned to pull into someone’s drive anyway, she told herself. Why not?

She wavered indecisively when she saw that, as with the first one, the road curved away. Go in? Keep going?

She angled the car and headed through the gates, slowing as she nearly skidded off into the grass. To her relief, she saw it was a curving drive that looped around to the gates again. Better than that, there were manicured hedges along it that were almost as high as the roof of the car she’d stolen! And best of all, there didn’t seem to be anyone on the drive.

She must have lucked out, she decided and come in just as the owner was heading out!

Which meant the gates were going to close again!

Shaking the thought with the reflection that she’d consider that problem when and if it arose, she pulled the car to a stop and quickly shut off the headlights and then the engine for good measure. Snatching her seatbelt off, she lay down in the seat and closed her eyes, hoping the cars following—if it really was Luke and Constantine—would keep going, thinking she’d rounded the curve.

Trying to steady her breath so that she could hear over her thundering heart, she strained to listen for the sound of cars passing on the road behind her. Instead, someone tapped on the glass. She nearly leapt out of her skin. When she jerked upright, however, she discovered that there was a complete stranger leaning down to peer into her window.

She stared at him in dismay, but she couldn’t tell anything about him, not even his expression since the only exterior lights were behind him. Reluctantly, she found the window knob and rolled the window down.

“Can I help you?”

That was the politest way anyone had ever demanded to know why she was trespassing! His deep, almost rumbling voice sent shivers along her spine. “I’m sorry,”

she said apologetically. “I … uh … I’m lost.”

He braced his hands on the side of the car and leaned lower. “I see. I suppose you were searching the glove box for a map?”

Bronwyn felt her face heat. “Uh … I didn’t find one. I’m so sorry for trespassing. Really, I am! If you could just tell me how to find the freeway from here?”

she asked, glancing toward the road to see if she could see any sign of the cars.

“Actually, I never drive myself. If you’d care to come inside, though, I’ll summon my driver. I’m certain he could give you directions.”

“Oh! I couldn’t do that! I don’t want to impose!” she said hurriedly as she saw the first set of headlights and slid down in the seat.

“No trouble at all, I assure you,” he murmured, unlocking the door and opening it.

Relieved when she saw the headlights pass the gate, she hesitated, waiting for the next set of headlights. Four more cars passed the gate in quick succession. “Oh shit!”

“Pardon?”

Bronwyn managed a facsimile of a smile. “Thank you! I really appreciate the help. Uh … maybe you could send him out and then I wouldn’t have to intrude?”

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“I insist. The road dead ends just past my gate, by the way.”

“Oh god! Really? Oh that’s bad! That’s really bad!”

He took her hand and practically dragged her from the car. “Thoughtless of me, I suppose. But I saw no reason to make it any longer.”

The first of the vehicles made it back to the gate even as she tumbled out of the car. She sent the man a wide-eyed look. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”

He made a tsking noise. “Don’t worry, sweety. I closed the gates.”

Bronwyn sent him a frightened look. “It won’t do any good.”

“No?”

She bit her lip. “I know this is going to sound crazy but … they’re not …

ordinary people.”

He drew her cold hand through the crook of his arm and patted it reassuringly.

“I’ve never cared for their sort myself, but you mustn’t be frightened of the bad old lycans and vamps. You’re perfectly safe.”

Bronwyn gaped up at him, trying to pierce the shadows. His eyes caught a gleam of light from the vehicles pulling up at his front gate and glowed eerily. Her heart skipped several beats. “You’re … one?”

His brows rose. “Certainly not! I’m Raja—
they
are merely vamps and lycans!”

Bronwyn felt a wave of dizziness wash over her. “I don’t understand.”

“Poor baby!” he purred. “I should’ve had more faith in the prophesy, and so should you. I’ll have to admit I didn’t expect you to drive right up to my door, but it’s a delightful surprise. Maybe a little disappointing, but only in the sense that I found the search highly invigorating.”

They’d ascended a row of stairs and reached a rounded porch by that time and Bronwyn looked back toward the gate. To her horror, she saw nearly a dozen cars at the gates and lycans and vamps leaping the eight-foot wall that surrounded the property.

“Oh my god!”

“Yes. I think we should wait for them,” the man said calmly and then tsked.

“I’ve forgotten my manners. I’m Caleb Westmoreland. And—aside from being the future mother of my children—you are?”

Bronwyn blinked at him, catching her breath as she finally got a look at him in the lights from the torch-like sconces on either side of the front door. Luke and Constantine were handsome, but Caleb Westmoreland was still in a class by himself and yet, as crazy as it seemed, there was an almost cat-like air about him that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “Bronwyn,” she managed to stammer. “Williams.”

He smiled. “Lovely.” Lifting a hand, he stroked her cheek lightly. “Very lovely.

I’m quite pleased with you.”

Bronwyn swallowed convulsively, but the spell he’d woven around her shattered when he glanced away and she followed the direction of his gaze.

Luke and about a dozen of his pack members, and Constantine with nearly half that many of his own people, had nearly reached the porch where they stood. Oddly enough, though, they’d stopped as if they’d hit a block wall.

Caleb smiled coldly. “As you see, she has arrived safely. You may take yourselves off now.”

Luke lifted his hands and almost seemed to brace them against something—

except she couldn’t see anything at all. “What the fuck?”

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“Magic,” Constantine said tightly. “Step away from him, Bronwyn. Come to me.”

Bronwyn stared at him blankly and finally glanced at the stranger who’d introduced himself as Caleb Westmoreland. “You have magic?” she asked a little hoarsely.

“It won’t hold you!” Constantine said, his voice sounding strained. “You have protection. Just come to me, baby. I didn’t kill the bastard …won’t.”