Marked (31 page)

I
stepped to the side as I grabbed for my pistol, and then as her fist
went screaming past the side of my head, I stepped forward and put
the barrel of my gun directly against her forehead.

"It's
a good thing I know this was just more juvenile chest-beating,
Tiffany, or you'd be dead right now."

"I've
never seen any human move that fast before."

Her
expression was so shocked that I figured I was safe putting my gun
away, especially considering that I didn't want anyone to call the
cops.

"I'm
not surprised—you probably won't ever see another human move
that fast. Are you going to let me ride with you or am I going to
have to bring Lori inside of my RV with all of those hot-blooded
males she's so good at manipulating?"

"Fine,
you convinced me. Alec Graves knew what he was doing when he picked
you to be our next queen."

"Does
that mean you're ready to swear fealty?"

Tiffany
snorted. "Not hardly."

"It's
only a matter of time, Tiffany. Pick two of your people to go get
some sleep, but I want a promise out of them that they'll obey
Donovan while they are in there."

"You're
not bashful about asking for the moon and the stars, are you?"

"Alec
has high expectations and he's not going to want to be disturbed for
anything
."

Tiffany
knocked on the window and motioned the driver and another of the
women out of the car. They'd apparently all seen me draw down on
Tiffany, because both of the women that exited the SUV looked at me
with the wary postures of shape shifters who weren't sure how the
dominance hierarchy was going to play out.

"Miss
Paige has kindly offered us a chance to get some shuteye in there
with her people. We'll sleep in shifts just like we've been doing,
but with the added benefit of bunks and not having to worry about
someone slitting our throats while we sleep."

The
taller of Tiffany's companions, a solid-looking woman with a mohawk
hairdo that was uncomfortably close to the kind of thing a Coun'hij
enforcer would wear, gave me a sour look.

"How
do we know we're not going to wake up and find one of her people's
claws around our throats?"

I
gave her what I hoped was a cold, imperious stare. "Because you
have my word that my people will treat you with the utmost
hospitality—as long as you follow the orders of my man
Donovan."

"Graves'
cripple?"

It
was all I could do to keep from going for my gun. The derision in her
tone touched off all kinds of protective instincts inside of me.

"Not
a cripple anymore, but then again he never was—not in the way
you're implying."

I
turned back to Tiffany and motioned towards the taller woman. "I
withdraw my offer of hospitality for that one. If you have another of
your people you'd like to put forth for consideration you can."

"Now
listen here! I've earned a break. I've been watching that little
whore for the last thirty hours straight."

Mohawk
took a step towards me, but I already had my hand on my gun and she
was still four long strides away from me. It was a gamble after what
she'd seen me do already, especially if she wasn't willing to shift.
She froze in place, but it was hard to tell whether that was because
of the possibility that I might be fast enough to shoot her, or if it
was because Tiffany looked like she wanted to tear someone's head
off.

"Get
back in the car!"

"No,
I want what's coming to me."

"What's
coming to you is a coffin if you don't do what I say."

"Are
you going to put me down now? After all we've been through together?"
Mohawk stepped into Tiffany's space. It was time to intervene.

"Tiffany
isn't going to have to put you down."

"Why?
Are you feeling lucky, little woman?"

"Actually
I am, but I don't fight peasants. I've got more than forty people
sitting in the cars you see parked around us. If you really think
that they aren't listening right now you're sadly mistaken." I
called out a single name without breaking eye contact. "James!"

More
than half a dozen doors opened in unison as my people exited their
vehicles. James was at my back before anyone else could move. "You
called, Adri?"

"Yeah,
Mohawk over there is deciding whether or not she wants to be
difficult. She insulted Donovan and then had the gall to be offended
when I withdrew my offer of hospitality."

James
stepped around me as though fully ready to go head to head with
another hybrid on nothing more than my say-so. Mohawk tried to step
forward to meet him, but Tiffany was there.

"Don't
do this. He doesn't have to take you on by himself. For all intents
and purposes we are in their territory right now. You can't win a
fight against three or four of her people and the last thing we want
is to bring half a dozen burly guys down here where Lori will have an
easier time of influencing them. Don't throw away everything we've
spent the last few weeks trying to accomplish."

Mohawk
shook her head. "The slut won't do anything—Tasha still
has Everett locked up."

I
put my hand on James' elbow to stop him from continuing to close, but
my eyes never left Mohawk's face. "I agree with Tiffany. There
is no need to further inflame things. Get back into your vehicle and
we'll pretend this never happened."

She
wanted a piece of me, of anyone really, but me most of all. For a
heartbeat I thought she was going to resist the order, but then she
finally realized that I was planning on getting into that same SUV
with her and driving away from James and the rest of my supporters.

Her
smile as she got back into the SUV was a cruel thing, but I was still
several steps ahead of her as I turned back to Tiffany. "You
have anyone else you'd like to give a break? Preferably someone with
more sense and less of a chip on her shoulder."

Tiffany
waved one of the women from the backseat out. "Go get some sleep
in the RV. While you're in there toe the line and do whatever the
butler says."

They
both nodded, but I held up my hand, stopping them before they could
go to the RV. "I want a promise from each of you that you will
obey Donovan for as long as you're enjoying my hospitality."

Once
I had their promises I waved them in and nodded for James to follow
them. Mallory appeared at my elbow. "I don't think this is a
good idea, Adri."

Tiffany
shook her head. "She'll be safe. Really, we've just exchanged
hostages—nothing's going to happen to her as long as she's got
two of my people in that RV."

I
gave Mallory an inquiring look, but I wasn't surprised when she
finally gave me a reluctant nod to indicate that Tiffany was telling
the truth. The Del Rio hybrid wasn't the type to bow and scrape, but
she also seemed to play things pretty straight.

"Tiffany,
if you can drive I'd like to get started—we're running even
further behind schedule now."

I
opened up the door closest to me and sat down in the middle bench
seat next to Lori. I would have rather sat down in the back seat next
to Tiffany's fourth hybrid, but that wasn't the right way to start
out what was probably going to end up being the most important
negotiation of my life.

Lori
was in obvious need of a shower and a hairbrush, but that somehow
just managed to highlight how incredibly beautiful she was. It seemed
like every second girl I ran into made me feel like an ugly duckling,
but most of them had to do their hair and makeup to look that
mind-blowing. Lori, on the other hand, just looked like she was
slumming.

Her
wrists were handcuffed together and her ankles were manacled to the
chair frame beneath us. If Tiffany's group had been pulled over on
their way east they would have ended up having to decide between
killing a cop or spending the rest of their lives in jail, but Lori's
condition wasn't entirely surprising.

They'd
apparently stopped drugging her and she looked like she was at least
getting something to eat, but that was as far as they'd been willing
to go. It actually should make my job easier, but that didn't mean
that I liked anyone being treated in such a manner—even the
girl who had tried to seduce Alec.

I
couldn't really blame Lori for ignoring me when I scooted onto the
seat next to her as best I could with only one working arm. She was
probably expecting me to take the opportunity to beat her with a
baseball bat.

"Where
are the keys to her restraints?"

"You're
not freeing her!"

The
protest burst out of the woman behind me with a force that said she
was having a hard time believing that
anyone
would consider freeing Lori to be a good idea.

"Adri,
meet Polly; Polly, this is Adriana Paige, our…patron. Go ahead
and give her the keys."

"I
don't care if she's the patron saint of leprechauns; I'm not giving
her the keys."

"You'll
do it or you'll be walking home. As much as I don't like it, it
appears that she's the one in charge here. Graves backed us into a
corner and we don't have much of a choice but to go along with
whatever he's got planned."

Polly
turned her head like she was going to spit, but then looked at the
upholstery and changed her mind. "I'm a free woman, I've got all
of the choices in the world."

"Yeah,
you have the choice to let your daughter starve—or worse. You
know as well as I do that we're screwed if Graves doesn't continue to
give us cash. We left home with little more than the clothes on our
backs and as long as this war is going on it's not like we're going
to be able to settle down and work steady jobs."

"So
we torture the whore and get at the money she and her daddy have
stashed away."

"Yeah,
good luck with that. Everett is no Alec Graves. He doesn't come from
old money and the tithe from the pack was never enough to really get
excited about. Besides, I'm not going to torture Lori, so you'll be
on your own."

Mohawk
shrugged without looking back at Polly, Lori or I. "Not on her
own—I'd help."

"Yeah,
which just means that you'd kill her after three hours instead of
six. Neither of you know enough to do it properly without killing her
before she breaks. Hell, you don't even know how to properly restrain
her."

"Oh,
I don't know, the cuffs seem to have worked just fine."

I
cut into the conversation before it could go any further. "Yeah,
cuffs and leg irons are just fine if you want to cut her hands off.
You're lucky it wasn't a full moon or she might have lost control and
bled out."

Mohawk
gave me a dark smile. "You're coming at this from the wrong
angle, Polly. If we want money we should be torturing the gimp
princess rather than the whore. I'll bet that Graves would pay tens
of millions to get her back in one piece."

Tiffany
looked back at me by way of the rear-view mirror, but she didn't
speak up. Apparently she wanted to see how I was going to handle
myself. I shook my head at Mohawk. "Alec won't pay a single
penny to get me back because he doesn't negotiate from a position of
weakness. What he will do is take time away from the war with the
Coun'hij to hunt down anyone who hurts me."

"That's
no big deal, Polly and I have both been on the run before."

"Not
from Alec Graves you haven't."

This
time I'd slid my gun into the sling holding up my left arm rather
than into my pants. My hand was already gripping the handle. Mohawk
was on the far side of the car from me, I figured I had a decent
chance of taking her out before she could reach back and hurt me,
even assuming she was one of the relatively rare hybrids who could
manifest a partial shift. The real problem was Polly, but she was
sitting directly behind Lori, so I would probably have time for at
least one shot. Polly was going to kill me, but not before I got
Mohawk. It wasn't how I would have chosen to die, but not many humans
could say that they took out a hybrid in the process of dying.

"Stop.
You're not going to kill her or I'll make sure this car is ripped
apart."

It
took me longer than it should have to realize that it had been Lori
who had finally spoken, but that was at least partially because
Tiffany slammed on the brakes with so much force that my butt
actually left the seat for a second.

Sometime
over the last minute or two we'd entered the city limits and moved
off onto a smaller road with stoplights and crosswalks, but that
wasn't why we had to stop so abruptly. We'd stopped because more than
half of the cars around us had come to a stop and even now people
were getting out of their vehicles and approaching ours.

Polly
had a knife at Lori's throat. "Release them!"

The
slender length of steel had already drawn a thin line of crimson
across Lori's tanned skin, but she seemed remarkably unconcerned
about the possibility of dying.

"Right
now you're all thinking that you didn't know I was capable of
influencing people who hadn't gotten a good look at me. You're
wondering what else I can do that you didn't know about, but what you
should be worried about is the fact that those people out there are
now close enough that they can see inside our vehicle. They can see
that you're holding a knife to my throat, and they don't like it.
You've now missed your opportunity to kill me. If you hurt me now
you'll have a riot on your hands."

I
looked around at the people pressed up against the van windows and
realized that Lori was right. There were a few men who had their
phones out as though calling 911, but most of them looked like they
wanted to take matters into their own hands.

"Get
your knife away from her throat!" I hissed the order at Polly,
but she didn't move until Tiffany nodded at her. Even then she didn't
obey very quickly, obviously unhappy that Lori had been able to turn
the tables so completely on them.