In a matter of minutes, everything had changed for the worse. My days of blending into crowds were over, and I’d be lucky if Marc ever spoke to me again. And it would take a miracle to keep him from trying to kill Jace the moment he had time to indulge his rage.

Two long, tense minutes later, we turned from Malone’s street onto the narrow, badly maintained road that cut through the woods and up the side of the nearest hill. “About a mile and a quarter,” Marc said. “On an overgrown trail on your right.”

Jace nodded acknowledgement.

“What did you do to Dean?” Marc asked, and I twisted in my seat to face them both, horrified all over again by the purple swelling taking over the right side of Jace’s head.

He hesitated, as if he were considering his answer. Finally, he exhaled heavily. “Let’s just say Colin Dean and the Joker now bear more than a passing resemblance.”

Marc nodded curtly, then stared out his window. I tried to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t look up, though the tension in his posture said he knew I was watching him.

Several minutes later, we turned right and pulled to a stop behind the rented Pathfinder. We scrambled out of the car and I transferred all of our stuff while Marc put the rest of his clothes on and Jace tossed Lance into the cargo hold, still bound and unconscious, but breathing. We shot him up with one of the tranquilizers to keep him quiet. Then we backed out of the drive and onto the road, this time with Marc behind the wheel and me in the passenger seat.

As we pulled onto the highway, I tried to touch his arm, but he jerked away from me, and my heart broke all over again. And guilt was like salt rubbed in the wound.

“Are we going to talk about this?” I asked, and Jace went still in the backseat.

“No.” But a second later, Marc’s fist slammed into the dashboard, leaving a sizable dent and a smear of blood. “Fuck! You two have incredible timing.”

I swallowed thickly, wincing over my bruised throat, and refrained from reminding him that it was actually Dean’s timing.

Marc stared out the windshield for several minutes, his hands so tight around the wheel that his knuckles were white. His neck was tense and flushed. I stared at my lap, my stomach churning, my heart one big, hollow ache. I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know if there was anything I could do to make it better. Or at least not make it worse.

Finally, Marc glanced in the rearview mirror, and I twisted to see Jace returning his gaze steadily. “You’re getting out as soon as we cross the border,” Marc growled through gritted teeth. “If you’re lucky, I’ll stop the car. I want you off the ranch by the time we get back with Kaci.”

“No…” I began, but Jace spoke over me, his voice calm and firm.

“That’s not your call.”

Marc growled again and dug in his pocket. “Fine.” He dropped his phone in my lap. “Call your dad. Let’s get his opinion.”

“Marc, please don’t do this.” I wiped tears from my eyes with my jacket sleeve, flinching at the sting in my cheek. “Don’t drag everyone else into this. Not now. Think about the good of the Pride.”

“Is that what you were thinking about?” He demanded, and the speedometer crept toward eighty-five. “Are you thinking about the good of the Pride when you’re fucking him?”

I glanced at Jace, and the car lurched forward again—Marc’s temper directly affected the weight of his right foot. “It’s not like that,” I said finally. “It was only once.”

“I knew something was different.” He punched the dash again, and a new dent appeared, with even more blood. “But I never thought you’d go that far…” Marc ground his teeth together so hard I could hear them over the road noise, and I cringed. “And you told Dean about it?”

Jace huffed, and the wheel groaned beneath Marc’s hands. “Alex made a lucky guess.”

“And now the whole world will know,” Marc spat.

I felt my face flush. He was right. Malone would use my infidelity against my father, and against our entire Pride.

“Marc, I’m so sorry.…”

“Save it,” he snapped. “We’re going to concentrate on getting Kaci back for now. But after that, we will deal with this.” He glared into the rearview mirror again, and Jace nodded firmly.

“Looking forward to it.”

Twenty-Nine

We drove in miserable silence for nearly two hours, exhausted, angry, and tense beyond words. And to say that I got the least of the physical pain would be putting it mildly.

The gash on Marc’s left side was nasty. Not as long or as deep as my arm had been, but much worse than my cheek.

Jace’s head was still swollen and discolored, and he moved stiffly, trying to spare his ribs from any unnecessary movement. I turned to check the dilation of his pupils every fifteen minutes or so. I also kept the music cranked and my window cracked, hoping the cold and the noise would keep him awake until I was sure he didn’t have a concussion.

In spite of our injuries—or maybe because of them—we didn’t feel safe enough to stop for first-aid supplies until we were more than a hundred miles from Malone’s property. And even then, we hesitated, both because we were still in the heart of enemy territory and because none of us was exactly presentable.

In the end, we decided Jace should do the shopping, because with the bill of his hat twisted to cover the side of his head, he was the one least likely to prompt a call to the authorities. Marc’s wound had bled through his shirt, and I had a cut-up face, a sliced-open top, and finger-shaped bruises around my neck. If we were seen, some kind stranger’s concern could end in a call to 911.