"I'm not going to let him escape," Damien said. "Be careful. Try not to make a lot of noise. You know what their hearing is like."
"I know," Julia whispered. She peered out of the front door, her heart pounding in her ears. "Okay, I'm going to go now."
"Call me when you're out and safe," Damien said. "Julia?"
"Yes?"
"I love you." His voice was kind and full of worry.
"I love you too," Julia said.
Opening the door as quietly as possible, she stepped out onto the porch. The old board at the end of the steps always creaked, and she was careful to step over it. She couldn't afford to be heard. If Damien was right, if Kyle was dangerous...
The view to the driveway from the woods was blocked for the most part by the house, and Julia stepped lightly but quickly as she walked down the path to where Kyle and Katherine had parked their car. Her heart was beating so loud that she thought they might hear it from where they were standing guard. She bent down next to the front right tire and reached her hand under the fender. Nothing there. She bit her lip and slid her hand along the underside of the fender. Finally her fingers bumped into something hard. She pulled out the small metal case with trembling hands. Going around to the driver's side of the car, she fumbled with the clasp. It didn't open. She bent her head over the case and dug her nail into the gap, pulling hard.
The case opened with a snap, and the key fell to the pavement with a loud clang. Julia scrambled to pick it up and unlocked the car door.
"Julia? Hey! Hey!" Kyle and Katherine emerged from behind the house. Julia jumped into the car. She shoved the key into the ignition. She locked the doors.
"HEY!"
Kyle began to run towards the car as Julia turned the key. The engine roared to life, and she shifted into drive. Kyle slammed his hand down on the trunk just as she pressed the gas pedal. He ran alongside the car as she accelerated. His hand knocked against the window once, hard, and then she careened around the corner, tires squealing, and left him behind her on the road.
In the rear view mirror, she saw Kyle running towards the woods, shifting into wolf form as he did. Katherine joined him a second later. They would try to cut her off. She sped up, heedless of the speedometer needle as it crept towards sixty miles per hour, then seventy on the small, two-lane highway. There was no way they could catch her, not at this speed. After a minute of driving, she began to let up on the gas, relief washing over her. She flicked on her headlights as darkness fell, the sky a dusky gray.
Julia pulled out her phone and dialed Damien's number.
"Julia? We're almost there."
"Kyle and Katherine already left," Julia said, her voice shaky and a bit more high-pitched than usual. She breathed deeply to calm herself down. It was over. She was safe. Then she had a sudden thought.
"Granny Dee!" she cried. "They might go back to get her. She was just going to get groceries."
"I'll wait for her," Damien said. She heard him giving Jordan directions to turn left. "We'll meet up afterward."
"Okay," Julia said, pressing the phone to her ear as she went around a curve. She could not see far ahead, and she hoped that she would not hit any of the deer that often came out during dusk to graze. There was a car behind her, the headlights glaring. "Damn."
"What is it?" Damien asked.
"Nothing, just some guy tailgating me." The SUV's lights shone directly into her rear view mirror, coming closer and closer. "There's really nowhere to pass on this road. Hold on, let me—"
The SUV crashed into her bumper. The phone went flying. Julia slammed into the steering wheel as the impact pushed her back, then forward. She clutched the wheel, trying desperately to stay on the road. Kyle. How could they have found another car so quickly?
"Julia? Julia!" Damien's voice sounded tinny coming from the phone's speaker. Julia did not want to reach for it. She had to keep a hold of the wheel.
"Damien, he's here! He's in a car! It's ramming into me!"
Another jolt shocked her body and the car swerved into the other lane. An oncoming truck blared its horn as Julia just barely yanked the car back into the right lane. She pressed on the gas. If only she could outrun him.
"Julia!"
The shock of the impact came at the same moment as the sound: metal on metal, grating harshly. The wheel ripped out of her hands as the car skidded sideways under the momentum of the crash. She raised her hands. The car flew over the side of the road. Trees loomed in front, illuminated by headlights. There was no stopping it. Time stopped as the front of the car made contact with the branches in front. The airbag exploded in her face. Glass shattered and Julia realized that the screams she heard were her own.
Then everything was still.
CHAPTER EIGHT
"Julia!"
Damien listened helplessly to the violent crash, his hand gripping the phone.
"What's going on?" Jordan asked. Damien held up one hand to silence him.
"Julia?" he asked. There was a sound of a car door being opened, and a moan. Julia's voice.
"Hello? Can you hear me?" Damien said.
"I can hear you just fine."
Damien's heart stopped beating at the sound of the deep male voice on the other end of the line. Not Kyle.
"Who is this?" he asked.
"Don't try to find the girl," the man said. "She's ours."
"Who are you? Why are you after her?"
"That's none of your business, wolf. You need to keep your nose out of the fight. Else you'll lose something more valuable than your eyes."
"Where are you taking her?" Damien asked. "What are you—"
The line was dead. He called again, but the call went straight to voicemail.
Jordan pulled into the driveway of Julia's house, clicking the headlights off.
"What was that?" he asked.
"We have to find her," Damien said. "Someone... they've taken her."
"Who? Kyle?"
"It wasn't Kyle, at least not on the phone. I don't know. Somebody else." Damien was panicked. If he couldn't find Julia...
"We have company," Jordan said.
"Who?" Damien sniffed the air. There were no wolves around.
Jordan rolled down the window. The cool night air blew through the window.
"Where's my granddaughter?" The old woman leaned into the car, her voice strident and accusatory. "Where have you taken her?"
"Someone else has her," Damien said. "We're going to go get her now."
The grandmother sniffed.
"You're not telling the truth," she said. Before Damien could reply, he heard the car door open. The old woman slid into the back seat behind Jordan and buckled her seatbelt.
"You can't... you can't come with us, Mrs... ah, Mrs..." Jordan stammered. Damien hesitated. It would be bad to leave the old woman on her own, without any protection. Especially if Kyle and Katherine came back.
"Call me Dee," Julia's grandmother said. Her voice was frightened but firm. "And you'll need my help to get her back from the other pack."
Both Jordan and Damien turned back to Dee.
"The other pack?" Jordan said.
Damien frowned.
"Did Julia tell you—"
"Of course not, you pups! They've been searching for us for some time. Now let's go. There's no time to waste, and my granddaughter is in danger. They'll be taking the northbound highway around the town. We can take the main street up that direction as a shortcut."
Damien's mouth dropped open.
"Damien?" Jordan asked him. He snapped out of his brief shock.
"Do what she says," he agreed.
Jordan turned the headlights back on and pulled out of the driveway, driving in the direction Dee had indicated. She sat quietly in the back seat.
"Are you... is Julia... what's going on here?" Jordan asked. "If you don't mind me asking, that is, ma'am."
"You're a shifter?" Damien asked, still reeling in disbelief.
"I am," she said.
"And Julia?" His mouth was dry. He'd never thought it possible.
"Yes."
"Forgive me, ma'am—"
"Please, call me Dee."
"Dee, right." Jordan coughed. The wheels hummed under the car as they sped along the curves of the highway. "But you can't be a shifter."
"Oh?" she said. Damien could hear the dry archness in her tone. "And why is that?"
"We would know!" Jordan said. "You don't have a scent. And you're old! I mean..."
"Old, am I?" Dee said.
From the backseat came a low growl, and the car was flooded with the smell of a foreign shifter. The hair on Damien's neck stood on end, and it was all he could do to keep himself from shifting. The itch to fight strained his will. Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the scent was gone. Disappeared. As though it had never been.
"How did... how did you do that?" Damien asked softly.
Dee leaned forward and put a hand on his shoulder. He felt her warmth through the fabric of his shirt, and her fingers were not frail.
"Tell me something," she said. "Are you Called to my granddaughter?"
Damien swallowed the lump in his throat.
"Yes," he said. "We share the connection."
"Does she feel it?"
"Not as strongly as I do," Damien said, growing more confident as he spoke. "But she feels something. She felt it the first time we met."
Dee leaned back in her seat.
"Then I was wrong to tell her to stay away from you," she said. "I'd thought you were like the others."
"What others?" Jordan asked.
"You told her to stay away from me?" Damien repeated, his words hollow.
Dee took a deep breath.
"Stay on this road for a while," she said. "We have a ways to go before we reach their territory, and we're not likely to catch up to them until it's completely dark. I will tell you as much as I know, and then we will find them. And Julia."
CHAPTER NINE
Red. The world was red.
Julia lifted her head up and gazed out of the window. Trees rushed past her, the stars behind them shining red. For an instant, she had the gut-wrenching feeling of falling sideways, and dizziness overtook her. She put a hand to her head and touched wetness. A shooting pain made her recoil from the touch.
"Ohhh," she moaned softly.
"The girl's awake," a voice said. Julia looked up and saw a man with light blond hair, almost white, sitting in the passenger's seat. He looked back at her with dark eyes illuminated by only the dashboard lights. There was a hunger in them that set off warning bells in her mind.
She was in a car. Alright. Testing her ability to move her head, she turned and looked around her. She was in the backseat of an SUV, a seatbelt across her chest. The world came into focus.
"We're nearly there. Then we'll wait for Trax to come," the driver said. A low, growing voice. Julia could not see him, but he seemed a bit shorter than the passenger, with dark hair.
"Should we? We could start with her ourselves. Nobody would have to know."
"Idiot." The driver's arm shot out and smacked the passenger across the head. "And when the litter is born and it's not purebred?"