River Cast: Part Two in the Tale of Lunarmorte (11 page)

“
And Phoebe
has asked to involve another lykan whom she trusts. Rose
Bronson.”

He felt like he had been
sucker punched.

Rose. Rose was
here?

Yup. There she
was.

The statuesque redhead
came almost galloping into the room, and as soon as her brown eyes
spotted him, she broke into a wide smile and launched herself at
him. His body automatically caught her, although his mind was still
in shock.

“
Rose,” he
murmured and she pulled back, her citrusy scent bringing with it a
rush of memories.

He had met Rose two years
after he had left the pack. She was a Rogue Hunter he’d met and
he’d stayed with her pack for three months. Three months in which
they had engaged in a passionate affair before he had to break her
heart by telling her he couldn’t mate with her. He had never been
able to explain the reason, and she had told him she would never
forgive him. Her hatred over his betrayal had made it easier to
walk away... but it had taken him a long time to get over
her.

“
Lucien,” she
breathed, holding his face between her hands tenderly, “I
understand now,” she whispered.

She knew about Caia
then.

Caia!

Lucien glanced down beside
him to see how she was reacting, but her gaze was on the floor, her
long hair hiding her expression from him.

He managed to put Rose at
a physical distance without hurting her feelings; she just kept
smiling at him and holding on to his arm.

“
You two are
acquainted?” Marita asked softly.

His head snapped up at her
tone, and he knew… he knew just looking at her eyes, slightly round
with innocence, that she had done this deliberately.

Phoebe MacLachlan didn’t
know Rose Bronson; their packs were on different sides of the
country. Marita had brought Rose here as a distraction.

He stilled the growl in
his chest.

Whatever was going on
here, he was going to get to the bottom of it.

8 -
Consequences

He couldn’t remember when
he had had this much fun.

The daytime drive hadn’t
seemed so long with her beside him, cracking jokes, teasing him.
Sparring with Jaeden had him strung out... but in a good
way.

Almost like
foreplay.

He clenched his hand
around the steering wheel at the thought, but there was no getting
around the fact that he was extremely attracted to the now senior
Jae, with her gorgeous smile and caustic wit. The truth was, he
wasn’t known for sticking with one female, and he had a pretty
colourful past as a player. Thoughts of having a respectable young
female like Jaeden in his bed were enough to have him strung up.
But the scary truth was... he had never been this comfortable, and
yet this attracted, to a female in his life...

Could Jae be his
mate?

His heart
stopped.

Dimitri was going to kill
him.

Ryder sighed
heavily.

“
You OK?” She
asked quietly, and he could feel her curiosity. That much hadn’t
changed about her anyway: as curious as a cat.

He nodded, throwing her a
weak smile. Yeah, he was cool. Just getting a little ahead of
himself, that was all. For Gaia’s sakes, they hadn’t even kissed
yet. Hey, not to mention the fact that he still didn’t know what
the Hades she was hiding; which brought him back to another
dilemma. They were having such a good time together, and he didn’t
want to spoil it, but if he was going to consider ‘courting’ Jaeden
then he needed to know everything there was to know about
her.

He cleared his throat.
“Soooo... question.”

Not unexpectedly, Jaeden
groaned. “Why, Ryder, why? We were having such a pleasant journey
together.”

He chuckled and glanced at
her, enjoying the cute way her nose wrinkled at him in distaste.
“I’m curious, that’s all.”

“
And you know
what they say about curiosity.”

“
Good thing
I’m a wolf and not a cat then, huh.”

She blew out a dramatic
breath, asking in a beleaguered tone, “What’s the
question?”

“
How on
Gaia’s green earth did you end up with a bunch of
vampyres?”

“
Oh.”

Ryder grunted, turning his
head away from the road to catch her expression. She looked caught
off guard and... embarrassed?

“
Well,
there’s definitely a story there.”

She shrugged at him, and
then frowned. “Watch the road.”

“
Are you
going to answer the question?”

“
Yeah, but
dying won’t get it out of me any faster.”

“
OK, I’m
watching the road!” He exclaimed, determinedly staring straight
ahead.

Silence.

“
Jaeden...”

“
OK, OK. I
ended up with vampyres because I met one on the bus who told me he
ran with a group of hunters, and it would be a good way to work out
all my aggression.”

“
He?” Ryder
did not like the sound of that.

“
Reuben. He
was cute and funny, and I think he’s older than he lets on because
he’s very intuitive; he seemed to know there was something wrong
with me before I even opened my mouth. He started telling me that
maybe doing something as worthwhile as hunting down killers, and
saving a few people, would help.”

“
This random
guy approaches you and you just, what… move in with him? I’m
confused; I thought schools started teaching ‘stranger danger’ from
kindergarten?”

“
Reuben is a
good guy,” she replied defensively. “He has amazing intuition. I
didn’t tell him all that much until we knew each other better, and
even then I didn’t really explain the full scope of my
‘
issues’,
” her
voice lowered. “He was a good friend to me. I feel bad about
leaving without saying goodbye.”

“
Was that all
he was? A friend?”

Oh Artemis
that’s all he better have been.

“
Yeah. He
wanted more but... to be honest I wasn’t even a very good friend to
him, never mind anything else. It’s weird...”

“
What?”

When she didn’t say
anything he pinned an unrelenting narrow-eyed gaze on
her.

“
The road!”
She pointed at the windshield, unimpressed.

“
Say what you
were going to say.”

“
You know,
Lucien and my dad are going to be so interested to know that you
threatened my life numerously on this little retrieval of
yours.”

Ryder shrugged, even
though he knew Dimitri would tear him a new one if he found out
about Ryder’s interrogation techniques with his only
daughter.

“
Fine,” she
snapped, and he reluctantly pulled his gaze away from her and back
to the road. “When I was staying with the gang, I didn’t feel
anything. I mean, I didn’t allow myself to feel close to them, just
as much as I didn’t allow myself to feel anything about the pack.
But...”

“
Yeah?”

“
But... as
soon as we left the city, give or take a few hours of your
incessant, and terrible singing, I had all these... emotions...
guilt for not being a better friend to Styx, Reuben, all of them.
And relief. To be going home.”

He could tease her about
how that meant he’d somehow opened her up again, melted some of
that ice she had been building as a defence around her after
everything that had happened, but he knew this was an important
moment for her. She would hate him for teasing, seeming to belittle
something that in fact made him more convinced that they might be
mates.

He was the truth she
couldn’t hide from.

It was kind of
overwhelming… but kind of nice.

“
That sounds
stupid doesn’t it?” She sounded so young and unsure.

Reaching out, he clasped
her small hand in one of his own, and watched with pleasure as she
blushed at the intimate contact. “Not at all. It sounds just
right.”

She smiled shyly at him,
and got caught in his heated gaze. Abruptly, her gaze dropped and
she pulled away mumbling, “Watch the road.”

Ryder laughed, and
indicated left, pulling into the motel he had been driving towards.
It was dark and he was hungry, and she was probably fed up of being
cooped up in the truck all day.

“
We’re
stopping?”

“
Yeah, let’s
get a couple of rooms and some food out of the vendors.”

“
Oh goody, Ho
Hos and chips. You certainly know how to show a wolf a good
time.”

“
Shut it, and
get out.”

They walked across the
barely lit lot to the motel reception, and all the while he
surreptitiously watched her. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. How
had this happened?

“
Evening
folks,” the young guy at the counter said without even looking up.
“How can I help?”

“
Two
singles,” Jaeden replied curtly.

At the sound of her
throaty voice the guy looked up, and his eyes widened along with
his smile, while he drunk her in. “Uh...”

“
Two
singles,” Ryder echoed, and watched with satisfaction as the kid
took in the size of him, and determinedly kept his eyes off of
Jae.

“
Uh... we
have a slight plumbing issue at the moment. I have one room with
two twins.”

“
That’ll
do.”

“
But-”
Jaeden’s mouth dropped open in protest.

Ryder sneered, “I’ll try
not to give you cooties.”

She huffed at his side
whilst he paid and grabbed the keys; he had to physically usher her
across the lot to their motel room. It wasn’t so bad. Yeah, it
would suck being stuck in the same room with the object of his
misguided desire, but he was a Rogue Hunter for goddess sakes. He
had taken down a pack of three rogues by himself. One little slip
of a female couldn’t be that bad.

She threw her bag on the
bed nearest the bathroom. “This place is disgusting. You would
think with the amount of money the pack have they could have
financed the journey home.”

“
They
did.”

“
And this was
all it paid for?”

“
What part of
‘you broke a major Coven law’ translates into five star hotels and
room service?”

“
So, this is
punishment? This room... with you?”

He grabbed his chest.
“Baby, you gotta stop with the love, it’s embarrassing.”

“
Funny.”

“
I try. Now,
move your ass back out of here... the vendors are over the
lot.”

She grumbled a little bit,
but he had her back to laughing at his inane jokes whilst they
collected a small picnic from the vending machines and walked back
to the room. Later, he was going to blame his new found infatuation
with her on the reason why he didn’t pick up the disturbance in the
air, and the thick coppery smell that clung to the door of their
motel. Instead he stalked inside, looking back at Jaeden, laughing.
The door crashed, closing them in, and he felt the cold press of
metal against his temple. Jaeden gasped, seeing the presence he
felt beside him in the dark with her wolf eyes.

“
The light,
please,” a nasal voice rumbled in his ear.

Jaeden reached to the
wall, and with a click the room was flooded with bad
lighting.

He couldn’t believe this!
He couldn’t effin believe this! And he couldn’t move... there was
no coming back from a close range bullet to the head, even if he
was a lykan.

Jaeden stood stock still,
completely stolid, as her eyes drifted from him to his
captor.

“
Vampyre,”
she said quietly for his benefit so he would know who had a hold of
him.

“
Yes,” the
voice sneered, “You stinking lykan bitch.”

Ryder bristled, and
immediately felt the gun press deeper into his temple. “What do you
want?”

“
To kill you.
Whilst she watches. And then kill her.”

“
How
succinct.” Jae’s mouth twisted in distaste. “Can I enquire as to a
motive?”

“
Cora.”

“
I’m sorry, a
what now?”

Ryder muffled his
laughter. Goddess, she was something, wasn’t she. Cool as a
cucumber, even though she was probably petrified inside. He glanced
around the room, looking for a suitable weapon against the vamp.
There was the television set... it could cause a distraction. If
only he could communicate this to Jae with his eyes.

“
Cora!” The
vampyre yelled. “My Girlfriend! My girlfriend for thirty years,
until you came along and cut her head off!”

Jaeden shrugged casually.
“I’m sorry but I’ve cut the heads off of quite a few vamp whores
who slaughtered humans.”

“
Cora. She
was blonde. Beautiful. You left her to die in a cemetery a few days
ago.”