On the Run

I wiggled my hips, trying to hoist myself a little higher on Lucian's back. "Sorry, I keep slipping," I muttered.

"At least you stopped telling me to mush," Lucian shot back.

"Only because I believed you when you said you'd drop me."

Lucian snorted and tightened his grip around my thighs.

It had taken all of half an hour of fighting our way through thorny bushes and tall weeds and mud, and more mud, before he'd rolled his eyes, stopped, and leaned over so I could climb on — and another thirty seconds before I pissed him off.

But hey, in my defense? I honestly wasn't trying to be a jackass.

I thought maybe what we needed in this situation was a little humor, so sue me.

Note to self: alphas had no sense of humor about dog jokes. To be fair, I probably should have been able to work that one out on my own.

"You still not getting any signal?" he asked.

I pressed the button on the side of Lucian's phone, where I had it awkwardly poised in my left hand. My right arm was wrapped around his chest.

The screen lit up, but there weren't any bars. "Nope."

"Huh." He ducked under a branch, but not quite far enough, and it whapped me on the top of my head.

"Hey!"

"Don't know any sled team commands for ducking under branches, Landon?"

I bit down on my tongue and held the button to restart the phone. Maybe it just needed to refresh its connection, or…something. What I didn't know about cellular communication could fill a whole phone manual, and probably did, except that I didn't have one.

Lucian's phone had lost service somewhere between the store and the creek we'd ended up following for a while.

Unless he'd suddenly and coincidentally gotten cut off for non-payment of his bill — which, okay, on any other day would be likely enough — someone had cut him off on purpose, either with magic or with more mundane fuckery at the phone company.

We couldn't call Jace. We couldn't use GPS, although Lucian didn't seem to need it, luckily.

And we couldn't check the news or social media or anything to see what the fuck was going on, which was a bigger problem. It was kind of amazing how pathetic we were without our technology, even though I had magic and Lucian was magic.

There was probably a Millennial joke in there somewhere, if I'd been feeling ironic enough to make it at my own expense.

We were heading for the Reese territory, although it was going to take us a while to get there at this rate. And while Lucian was determined to get home — some werewolf instinct telling him to get to his pack at all costs — I wasn't so sure.

I'd been trying to work through it in my head while I jounced along on Lucian's back.

Nearly everyone in the store, with the exception of a couple of kids and a stoner staring red-eyed at a shelf of crispy pig-skin snacks, had seemed to recognize us. And want to get the hell away from us.

Then the cops came, probably called by an employee the minute we walked in. So whatever was up, it wasn't just a supernatural thing. As far as I knew, neither of us had committed any normal human crimes recently, so — at least one of us was suspected of something we hadn't done.

Something fucking awful, to merit that level of response.

And something that made us dangerous to everyone around us, since all the normals had clearly been told to keep their distance. And the supernaturals, too; the gnome had panicked when he saw us. Oh, this was bad. 

So, where did the local authorities, normal and not, get that idea?

Occam's razor suggested the Kimballs, or whatever faction of the Kimballs had kidnapped me, but I wasn't sure what they stood to gain.

I could easily turn around and tell the police about the kidnapping, after all. Did they think they could get me out of police custody and into their own if they used the town's PD to do the dirty work of catching me in the first place?

And okay, maybe they could, depending on who they had in their pockets, or if they had pack members working for the department.

I had no idea, and I was cursing myself now for staying out of local affairs as much as possible after my father died two years before.

Then, it had seemed like a logical, self-protective move. I simply couldn't deal, and I didn't want to. I'd been basically a prisoner for so long. wanted to live a quiet life, get laid on the weekends, do some freelance magic Monday through Friday.

Well. That worked out just fucking great. I should've moved to Idaho or something. Too late now.

"Hey, Lucian?" He huffed at me. "So, I really think heading back to the pack isn't the best —"

"I'm getting to Jace. Get down and walk somewhere else if you want."

I flinched.

Thankfully he couldn't see me, and I hoped he couldn't feel it. I didn't want him to know how much that hurt.

"Fine. Put me down."

Lucian's hands tightened around my legs. "Shut up, Landon."

"Seriously! You said I should get down and walk somewhere else if I want, and I want to. We're heading into a trap. How do you not see that?" Because we had to be.

Where else would Lucian go, pursued by the police? And where else would I go, but with my mate and protector? "Let me down or I'll —"

"I'm not scared of your stupid finger lightning —"

"Oh like fuck you're not, I saw the look on your face—"

"That was a surprise, and by the way, your sleeves made you look like a total toolbag —"

"Oh, go fuck yourse—"

"And here I thought it might be hard to find you," a light, cheerful voice cut in. Lucian ssed me off his back into a bush, spinning and snarling, his claws and fangs already out. "But all we had to do was follow the juvenile insults."

I struggled to my feet, my hoodie catching in every single grasping branch.

Since Lucian had placed himself right between me and whoever was there, I sidled over a little and peered around his shoulder, ignoring him when he tried to push me back.