Chapter 106

Art POV

"You are the worst company in the world. Tell me you can drive better than you can carry on a conversation?"

Nathan Lewis was holding onto his humanity by fangs and claws. I could smell the aggression coming off him in waves; I knew I was playing with fire trying to push him into a response, but I couldn't stop myself.

I'd always been some degree of masochistic.

"Lewis? Are you about to go all Wolf Man Jack on me? This is really not the time for a Lon Chaney special performance and you better not have an axe in your pocket."

"Now you're just being ridiculous. Who thinks they can fit an axe into a pocket?"

"The beast speaks! It's alive!"

I gave my best mad scientist laugh as Nathan accelerated to swap lanes on the interstate and pulled up to flank the rental car. He kept throwing glances over at the other vehicle, but I couldn't tell what he was looking for or checking on until he exchanged a nod with Adam, Tyler Wright's Beta and personal driver.

"Hold on."

Whatever part of me didn't already hate Nathan Lewis began to hate him when he suddenly jerked the wheel to the side, spinning us around and driving straight at the pursuant.

"What are we doing, Lewis? What's the plan here?"

Panic colored my tone against my will. I knew I was allowed to be upset because I had something Nathan Lewis didn't: a family.

My thoughts flew to my children as fast as our car ate up the highway. I loved all my children. My three boys and my girl. They had gotten their hugs and kisses before I took this assignment. I had been working for the Alpha Council too long to leave on an inspection without saying my goodbyes.

"Lewis?"

Lewis didn't answer me with words, but he pushed the accelerator more and the sedan roared forward. The car who had been chasing after us swerved out of the way, dodging into the next lane while the driver stared at us in shock as if he didn't have any idea what the Hell we were doing.

He wasn't the only one.

"Lewis, I swear to the Moon Goddess, if you don't tell me what's going through your head, I'm going to drive and you will really not like the way I drive."

Taking control of someone's mind was invasive and invasive could also be synonymous with 'painful.'

In the case of a mental invasion by Yours Truly, the experience was excruciating.

I'd made a demon cry once with my 'little gift' as the Alpha Council liked to call my telepathy. I wasn't above using the same talent on Nathan Lewis, but if he made me levitate the damned car with us inside it, I was going to make the experience especially excruciating just for him.

"Stop panicking. I'm making them go on the defensive. That rental can't outpace them. We can and we're in a car that's basically indestructible or didn't you notice before you got in?"

I knew about as much about cars as I did about speaking Swahili.

"No, I didn't notice. Why don't you explain while you 'offensively drive' the wrong direction on the fucking interstate!"

Lewis aimed the sedan at the other car, pushing it forward even faster until they were squalling their tires to change lanes, swerving away from us in more of a panic than I was in.

I had to hand it to him: All-American Boy could drive.

Lewis swung the car around and I breathed out in relief as we were at least going the right direction again.

We switched lanes to start fighting our way back to the car no longer chasing our companions, but rather just trying to get away from us.

"Talk, Lewis."

"Talk? Really? Right now? You realize this takes a lot of focus."

"I realize the alternative is I take over your mind, force you to pull the car into the emergency lane, and as soon as we stop, I'll force you to stop breathing until I can start again. You might live through it or you might not. Want to try me?"

Lewis pulled right up to the tail end of the Moonglow Pack car. He eased our sedan forward in a threatening manner -a predator playing with its prey- then backed off a touch to let them try to dodge into another lane to escape us again.

"The car is solid steel. Bulletproof glass. Reinforced doors, bumpers, tires, everything. It's a tank in a shiny package. My father wanted to get me one when I started driving. I'm an only child. He just wanted me to be safe."

"He evidently never drove with you or he'd have thought twice about letting you get your license or get a car or even, I don't know, ride in a car."

Lewis laughed at me before he floored the accelerator to bump the car we had on the run. True to what he'd said, our car seemed to take no damage at all. I barely felt the impact of steel to whatever the bumper of the Moonglow car was made of and I wasn't surprised when they lost control, spinning across the lanes to land against the guardrail.

We had two choices in this scenario: pull over to confront them or keep driving. There was unlikely to be another car sent from the backwards pack to chase us. Alpha Campbell had used his wife's death as an excuse to take away access to automobiles for his pack.

Isolation bred fear better than anything else.

Campbell was playing a long game with Moonglow Pack. He'd managed to make the whole pack afraid of outsiders to the point no one was protesting their right to venture out into the free world. He'd managed to convince all those wolves he was only looking out for them.

I wished I knew how he'd done it, too. He certainly wasn't using his consort's charms because Elodie was about as inviting as a hunting jackal.

Lewis accelerated again, swerving around the wrecked pursuit car, then darting in and out of lanes until we were one again right on the tail of our friends in their rental.

"What did your parents get you instead of the tank?"

I didn't really care. I just wanted Lewis to talk to me so I could distract myself from the smell of his sweat -salty the way his blood would be if I only leaned over and sank my fangs into his throat- and the sound of his heart beating too fast in his chest.

Lewis shook his head as if he was completely baffled by me -probably was since I tended to baffle everyone eventually, myself included- only to chuckle once. He went quiet which surprised me enough to keep me quiet myself. We both fell silent as we worked through our feelings post-chase.

No one really wanted to talk to me. There was no secret I gave off a certain air of danger. Intimidation was my best bet to keep people from asking me questions I couldn't answer. I wasn't sure how I felt being trapped in a car with a wolf I thought was one step away from total insanity.

My phone rang and I answered it without bothering to look at the caller ID, "Windsor."

Tyler Wright growled across the line at me, "What happened? Are we safe?"

"Lewis drove offensively. You're definitely safe. Take a deep breath, kiss your mate, and relax until we get back into the city."

I hung up before he could say anything else.

"Why didn't you ask about Rachel?" Lewis snapped, his tone ripe with rage, "Anything could have happened to her from the stress. They could have caused her to go into preterm labor. That's possible. You tried to make light of things, but a pregnant woman is more fragile than people want to admit."

Lewis kept driving, his hands clenched around the wheel with the grip of a man desperate to strangle another man to death. I would have been worried except I knew I could shut him down with a thought or, if I wasn't feeling up to using any of my 'little tricks,' I could have always overpowered him, sank my fangs into his throat, drained him dry, dry as the desert, dry as---

"What the Hell do you know about pregnant women, Lewis? I've got four kids. I was there from conception to birth for three separate pregnancies with three separate women of varying species. I think I know pregnant women better than you do."

I decided to push my luck to keep myself from going insane all on my own while thirsting for Alpha blood.

"Unless you got a lot closer to our Rachel than I thought you did. Is that it? Did you score with Wright's baby mama? Is that where you got all your insight on pregnant women?"