Still, she’d hoped to lead Caine as far west as possible. Once she managed to escape him, she wanted him convinced that she would be fleeing toward Kansas City. It would hopefully give her the necessary time to disappear before he could pick up her scent.
“You’re quiet.” Caine at last broke the thick silence.
She turned to meet his worried gaze, pasting a fake smile to her face. “I’m distracted.”
“And that’s all?”
She pressed her lips together, trembling with the effort to deny the powerful compulsion to leap from the Jeep and head north.
“Can we pull off here?” she rasped, pointing toward the narrow road just ahead.
He automatically exited, his brow furrowed as he studied the empty parking lot that framed a small park with public bathrooms and a handful of picnic tables.
He pulled to a halt beneath a shade tree, his eyes skimming the park in confusion. “A rest stop?”
“There’s something in the woods.” She pointed toward the distant line of trees. “Something you need to see.”
He jerked his gaze toward her, his jaw clenching as if sensing he wasn’t going to like what she had to say. “Me?”
She drank in the bronzed beauty of his face, memorizing every angle, every line and curve until it was branded on her heart.
“Yes.”
“What about you?”
“I need to stay here.”
He shook his head, returning his gaze to the empty countryside. “I don’t like this.”
“I’ll be fine,” she assured him.
“If something attacks I’ll be too far away to protect you.”
“Nothing will attack. It’s daylight.”
He didn’t look reassured. In fact, he looked downright pissy. “There are more dangers than just leeches.”
She trembled, struck by another urgent need to be traveling north. “Please, Caine.”
Clearly sensing her distress, Caine muttered a curse and reached beneath his seat to pull out a small handgun. “Here.” He pressed the weapon into her hand and wrapped her fingers around the grip. “Shoot anything that moves.”
Knowing that this was most likely her last moments with the man who would haunt her for the rest of eternity, she leaned forward to brush her lips softly over his mouth.
“Take care of yourself,” she whispered.
He nipped her bottom lip before pulling back with a rueful smile. “I’d rather take care of you.”
Oh . . . Lord.
She battled back the tears as she pushed him away. “You have to go.”
“Fine,” he sighed.
With one last scan to make sure the park was empty, Caine crawled out of the Jeep and took off at a swift trot. She waited until he reached the edge of the woods, knowing he would glance back before disappearing from view.
Once certain he wasn’t going to come charging back, Cassie hastily clambered into his seat and put the Jeep into neutral. She clutched the steering wheel, gnawing her bottom lip as she resisted the urge to stomp on the gas. Caine would hear the change in the engine even from such a distance.
Refusing to glance back, Cassie concentrated on keeping a straight line as the Jeep rolled with excruciating sluggishness across the parking lot and back onto the access road. Only when she was near the interstate did she offer a silent plea for the fates to keep Caine safe, and shoved the gearshift into drive, taking off with enough force to lay rubber.
Chapter 10
Despite being shifted into his wolf form, Caine could feel the panic claw through him as he reached the end of Cassie’s trail and realized that it had doubled back.
God dammit. He’d wasted nearly an hour running along the highway, desperate to catch up with the Jeep and massacre the bastards who’d kidnapped his female.
Now he was forced to halt and reassess his limited choices. With a snarl of impatience, he padded behind a hay bale and shifted, careful to remain hidden from the passing cars. For whatever stupid reason, humans were far more shocked to catch sight of a naked man standing in a field than a massive wolf.
Sucking in deep, shuddering breaths, he wiped the sweat from his brow and tried to think through his mind-numbing fear.
When he’d first heard the squeal of tires he’d been terrified that Cassie had accidentally knocked the Jeep out of gear. He’d burst out of the woods expecting to see her driving in circles around the parking lot or, gods forbid, crashed into a tree.
What he hadn’t expected was to find she was gone.
Just . . . gone.
The parking lot was empty, with no scent of any intruders and no sign of a struggle.
For long minutes he’d stood in the center of the parking lot, baffled.
If Cassie had been attacked, why hadn’t she fired the gun? Or at least screamed for help?
And why couldn’t he catch their scent?
Then, with a growl of sheer fury he’d shifted and gone in pursuit of Cassie’s rapidly fading trail.
What the hell did it matter who or how or why Cassie had been kidnapped? All that mattered was finding her before she could be hurt.
Now he had to wonder if he’d been deliberately led on a wild-goose chase.
And if he had, what now?
He was debating the question when there was a faint rustle directly behind him. With a snarl he whirled around, his teeth bared in warning.
The sight of the tiny demon with oblong black eyes and fair hair pulled into a tight braid standing in the hay field did nothing to soothe his desire for blood.
“You.”
“Yes, me.” Yannah smoothed her hands down her pristine white robe, her lips pinched in disapproval. “Although I don’t know why I bother. I specifically warned you not to be separated from the prophet. And yet, here you are with Cassie nowhere in sight.”
Why the aggravating . . . bitch.
Caine clenched his hands, too infuriated to care he was completely nude. Or that the hay bale was poking his bare ass.
Instead, he was savagely reminding himself this demon had enough power to destroy him with a thought. And as much as he might want to shake the tiny creature until her pointed teeth rattled, he couldn’t rescue Cassie if he was rotting in hell.
“Do you think I deliberately left her?” he demanded. “She disappeared.”
Yannah snorted. “It doesn’t matter how you were separated, only that you find her.”
“What the hell do you think I’m trying to do?”
Yannah shrugged. “It looks to me like you’re running in circles.”
Caine tensed. How the hell had she known he was running in circles? Unless . . .