Then she looked up from under her lashes. Her gaze caught his, holding it while his gut squeezed with guilt. Fiery hells, she’s beautiful. And she had no idea what he was. She was running away from one kind of killer and accepting help from another.
And right when Nicholas Ferrel was back in the picture. It was like Mark’s nightmare was unfolding again, and he was helpless to stop it.
Well, he’d get her settled in Seattle, and that would be it. There were other agents there who’d keep an eye on her if he asked. This didn’t need to be complicated. It couldn’t be.
Just then, Jonathan ran over, flopping into his mother’s knees with a giggle. Bree laughed, too, her waves of honey-gold hair swinging with her as she scooped her son into her lap. The sound eased the tension in Mark’s gut. If she could still laugh and Jonathan could still play, there was hope for them.
His cell phone rang. Mark rose, walking out of the playroom to get away from all that domestic bliss. He thumbed it to life. “Winspear.”
“Hey.” It was Kenyon.
“You have something?”
“I’ve just gotten started, but before I go any further, I have a photo for you to look at. Is this your girl?”
Mark’s phone pinged. He tapped the photo and it filled the screen. He felt his eyes going wide. It was Bree, but looking very different. Her hair was the same, but she wore a lot of makeup and a very tiny sequined dress. He was tempted to head back to the playroom for a detailed comparison of all that smooth, white flesh. What would she feel like, warm and alive, half-naked and in his hands? He felt his fangs descending, his mouth suddenly filled with saliva.
He sucked in a deep breath, crushing those thoughts. “Yes, that’s her.”
“Holy hair balls,” Kenyon groaned.
“Why?”
“You pick ’em, Winspear.”
“I don’t pick anyone. What are you talking about?”
“If there’s a train wreck within a million miles, you’ll put yourself on the scene.”
“Stop talking and say something,” Mark growled in icy tones. “Who is Bree?”
“Brianna Meadows. Daughter of Hank, also known as Henry Meadows of Henry Meadows Films.”
Mark knew the man’s work. Gorgeous sets, huge budgets, historical epics of doomed courage and noble sacrifice. Genius stuff, if you liked that sort of thing. Having lived the real deal, Mark didn’t.
“And of course that’s only the half of it.”
Mark waited through a beat of silence. “Which means what?”
“Don’t you ever watch Gossip Quest TV News Magazine? She’s the ex-mistress of Crown Prince Kyle of Vidon. That kid of hers is rumored to be his illegitimate son. She’s unofficially on the Vidonese most-wanted list.”
Chapter 6
Vampires were not made for road trips.
The red Lexus IS F Sport luxury sedan had specially tinted windows to block the sun, climate control, a V-8 engine that did zero to sixty miles in five seconds and a sound system calibrated to please extrasensitive hearing, but it was still a metal box on wheels. Mark needed to be outside, with the wind and sky. Free. Alone. He’d lost a good deal of patience along with his humanity, and what remained had been whittled away by the centuries that followed his Turning.
Speed was his only consolation, and the 416 horsepower motor of the Lexus was begging to give it. Except there were humans in the car, too fragile to risk on the twisting roads. Bree was dozing in the passenger seat next to him. Jonathan, wide-awake but silent in the back, clutched a stuffed duck.
Mark hadn’t let on how much he knew, or that he was taking them straight to the Company safe house in Seattle, where they could be protected. Explaining about the Company without revealing the existence of the supernatural was a delicate business, and he wanted the right environment to do it. Bree had to be convinced the safe house, with its guns and rules and guards, wasn’t a jail. If he got it wrong, she might bolt at the first gas station they stopped at, her ailing child in tow.
Mark cast a glance in the rearview mirror. The booster seat—pilfered out of the hospital lost and found—brought Jonathan just into view. The child met his eyes in the mirror. Mark was struck again by the watchful intelligence in that gaze. The kid didn’t miss a thing.
He tried to see Prince Kyle in the boy’s face. The dark hair and brown eyes were similar, but that was inconclusive. Maybe the shape of the eyes was the same, or the way his hair fell across his face, but he didn’t exactly have a poster of the Crown Prince of Vidon taped to his locker door. He couldn’t remember every feature.
Mark made himself smile at the boy and turned his attention back to the road. The sun was up but it was still early, the world fresh and tipped by frost. The rolling land was a rumpled blanket of evergreens patched with gold. The sky was a rich autumn-blue. It was going to be one of those fall days that seemed a parting gift from summer—and all that sun was giving him a splitting headache.
Mark had used the night to get Larson ready for his flight to Los Angeles and to attend to the files on his desk. Larson would be fine—at least from the bullet wound—but the hospital administration might perish from shock when they saw the completed paperwork the next morning.
The wait had served two other purposes. It gave Bree and Jonathan a real night’s sleep, and surveillance teams were less likely to see them leave during the morning shift change. Mark had remained on the alert, but had seen nothing suspicious. If their pursuers were watching the hospital, hopefully they’d given them the slip.
Bree opened her eyes, stifling a yawn. She was still pale with fatigue, the freckles across her nose standing out. “Where are we?”
“We just passed through Sequim.” He focused his attention on the ribbon of highway, ignoring her soft, female smell. Or trying to. He was getting horny and hungry, and wasn’t sure which impulse was in the lead.
She turned around in her seat, checking on her son. “We should find a drive-through for breakfast.”
The scent of woman was one thing. Tantalizing, dangerous, but good. Mark imagined the stench of human food trapped inside the car, and nearly shuddered. “No.”
“Kids need to eat.”
“Kids are sticky.”
“He’ll be hungry.”
“I’m the driver.”
Bree gave him a sharp glance that reproached him and acknowledged his position of power at the same time. “Fine. It’s your car.”
It was. With a dove-gray leather interior. And she’d managed to make him, a centuries-old monster, feel bad about it. He winced. “We can stop at the Gleeford Ferry. There’s better food in town than just drive-through.”
She sank back, turning her face to the side window until all he could see was her long, waving hair. Even it looked disgruntled. “This road we’re on is barely a highway. Wouldn’t it be faster to pick up the I-5?”
“Someone put Puget Sound in the way.”
She made a small noise of impatience. “I guess we’re farther out than I expected.”
“We’ve only been driving an hour.”
“It feels longer.”
He realized she was nervous, but it was coming across as demanding. He stifled a growl. Being alone on his island was much easier. “There are fewer cars here. I can spot someone following us on this route.”
With no further comments, Bree