LITMIR.BIZ

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“I asked what in the hell was going on here?” He flashed his badge once again, then quickly stuck it back on his belt. No reason to point out he wasn’t a cop in this state and had absolutely no authority here.

      “I don’t know what you mean,” the man said, looking very confused.

      “You attacked those people.”

      “What people?”

      Mark stared at him. He hadn’t really said that. “The man and the woman in the truck. I saw you, both of you.” His eyes flickered to the man in the passenger’s seat, whose mouth was hanging open in shock. “Yes. Both of you. I should haul you both in for assault right now.”

      “What people?” the man in the passenger seat echoed with disbelief thick in his voice. He glanced furtively around the parking lot, searching.

      Their audacity was annoying the shit out of Mark, but the unbelievable part was that they actually seemed sincere. He talked to a lot of people, some good, some bad, some just out-and-out stupid, and his liar meter was top-notch. And these guys weren’t tripping it in the least bit.

      “What about the cuts and bruises on your face and hands?” he demanded.

      The driver held his hands out in front of him as if seeing them for the first time. “I don’t know, Officer. Really, I don’t. We just stopped for a bathroom break. Honest.”

      Mark didn’t have time for this shit. “For both your sakes, I’d better not see either of you again.”

      “Yes, sir,” the driver said.

      “Yes, thank you,” his partner echoed, his relief thick in his voice.

      Disgusted, Mark turned, got into his car and drove away. They were acting just like that one guy he’d managed to catch leaving Ruby’s shop the other night. Denied having been in there, denied having touched a thing.

      What in the hell was going on around there?

      * * *

      Malcolm drove the next shift while Celia slept. In his mind, he kept running over and over what had happened at the rest stop. Together, he and Celia should have been able to take two Abatu. But they hadn’t. He was getting weaker and so was she. Other than last night, it had been too long since he’d changed. As he tried to recall the last time he’d run through the forest, he realized he couldn’t. A few sporadic changes here and there in so many months were not enough to maintain his strength. He knew that, and yet he’d let himself grow weak.

      He’d been too caught up with the problems of the Pack, fighting with Scott and Jason. Working his schemes, setting traps, being a complete all-around idiot. Now he was paying the price in more ways than one. Without transforming, his body was losing power and he had started to age again, the process resuming where it had cut off the first time he’d changed as a young adult. He was becoming more human and losing the magic of the wolf. He only hoped Celia hadn’t been as foolish.

      She looked like an angel as she slept, her face soft and worry-free. He used to love to watch her sleep. It had been the only time her defenses were down and her watchful all-seeing eyes weren’t upon him. She knew him so well, his passions and strengths, but now she couldn’t see past his flaws.

      If only he’d married her long ago when she still loved him, when she still saw the best in him. But that chance had long since passed him by. He’d managed to destroy her trust and all that had been good between them. He remembered when they’d been teenagers. She’d stolen his breath, sapping it up with her energy and excitement. She’d had a wild streak that burned bright in her eyes and kept him chasing after her from one end of the Colony to the other. He’d tried to tire her out, to see how far she could really go. She’d not only kept up with him but pushed him even harder.

      She’d been amazing. They’d made their transformation together and had been connected physically and spiritually ever since. Back then, they’d burned so hot, he was surprised they hadn’t self-combusted. But then suddenly he hadn’t been enough for her. She’d broken his heart and moved on without him.

      He’d hardened after that, wrapping a shell around himself and never letting her or anyone else get that close to him again. They’d grown up. Life went on. And somehow they’d found their way back to each other. Lessons were learned and lost the hard way, but through it all they’d never stopped having that connection to each other.

      Until she’d gone away to Sedona.

      Not feeling her or sensing her near after all these years was something he didn’t know he’d miss. Now he understood what his heart had always known, what he’d been so certain of way back when. She was the one for him. The one he couldn’t live without. The only thing that mattered in his life.

      Only once again, she wouldn’t have anything to do with him. She didn’t feel the same as he did; she didn’t mind being away from him. From all of them. In fact, she preferred it. Tension squeezed his insides. She wanted to live without him, and now that she’d walked out of his life for good, he had no one.

      The thought was sobering and hard to admit, but the truth was he’d pushed her away. He’d make it up to her. He’d make it up to everyone for all his scheming, for the ridiculous plot and warring with Scott that had got Jaya killed and put the Pack in danger. He scraped a hand across his face as he realized none of it would matter if they didn’t make it back to regenerate the crystals. The fate of all the shifters rested on them, and they still had so far to go.

      Celia sat up in the backseat, her hair a mess and her eyes droopy with sleep, and still she’d never looked more beautiful.

      “How are you doing?” he asked.

      “All right, I suppose,” she said, and stretched. “Stiff.”

      “You’ve been asleep for a long time.”

      She looked around her. “It’s good to see all the trees.”

      He grinned. “We’ve been pretty much alone on this highway for a while now, and I was thinking once the moon rose higher in the sky...”

      “Yeah?” she asked, interest gleaming in her beautiful dark eyes.

      “That maybe you’d like to go for a run with me.”

      She looked around her, weighing his words. “You think it’s safe?”

      “There is no one around. And the truth is, it’s been a long time since I’ve changed. Since I’ve run. I think that’s why the Abatu got the better of me today. We can’t take that chance again. We have to strengthen ourselves.”

      She gave him a wry smile. “I could tell.”

      He turned to her, his eyes locking on hers. “Yeah?”

      “You’re going gray.”

      “I am not.” He leaned forward and peered into the rearview mirror. But she was right. There were thin streaks of gray at his temples. How long had he been aging? How much time had he lost?

      “Run with me,” he said as desperation tore at him. “Last night was the first time I’ve changed since...” Since the night Jaya died. “Since I don’t know when.”

      “Why not?”

      “I don’t know where my head was,” he said quietly, but it wasn’t true. He knew too well.

      “Hmm, I don’t know, Malcolm, but taking a guess, I’d say headstrong, unrelenting ambition got in your way. You could have been a great Pack leader.”

      He smiled. That wide, charming smile that he wore like a protective shield. “Tell me what you really think, babe.”

      “Harsh, I know, but you need to hear it.”

      “Trust me, it’s not anything I haven’t heard before, but that doesn’t matter to me now. Being Pack leader doesn’t matter to me now.”

      Her face filled with surprise.

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