Zach drove the old truck as fast as he dared.
It was a new acquisition to replace the one Laura had demolished. He hadn’t yet had time to give it the full work over. It still handled more like a bucket on wheels than a vehicle.
It was almost a relief to have to slow down for the city. Entering the densely populated area was no longer as painful an experience as it used to be. He’d worked pretty hard over the last two weeks and gotten damned good at building walls.
Because his talent wasn’t gone, as he’d at first hoped. It was, if anything, more honed. Easier to focus. If he dropped the walls, he could pinpoint a target to read, even in a crowd.
As he’d requested, the Weres had stayed away. So, curiously, had Cara. His request to keep Cryptid business out of his life had put their relationship on hold. He missed her. But if she couldn’t come without the baggage, he didn’t know where that would leave them.
He had one last bit of unfinished business to attend to. He’d been waiting for Kitani’s delivery.
Jessie would be at Cara’s with Kitani. He knew it. And if she was there, Kade would be too. Zach dreaded seeing them, but it had to be done. Kitani would need his help to make it through this. He wouldn’t deny her, just to avoid Jessie. But this was going to be hard as hell.
He turned off Archibald Street and glanced at his companion. “So how does this work?” he asked.
Buffy stared at him and blinked.
“Okay. One blink for right? Two for left?”
She blinked twice. Zach turned left. Minutes later, he pulled up at Cara’s house. Turned off the truck. Sat for a moment with his heart thundering in his ears.
Buffy meowed at him.
He shoved a few more bricks onto the wall and climbed out. Buffy ran ahead of him, scaling the fence rather than waiting for him to open the gate.
“Show off.” He pushed through.
With his walls as solid as he could make them, he walked in the back door. Voices in the kitchen fell silent as he appeared among them. Cody and Ryan, along with a small, attractive woman—Millie. They were boiling water. Every pot in the place had been hauled out.
One Were refused to participate in the distraction duty. Kade sat upright at the table. His eyes flared gold when he met Zach’s.
“Zach.” He nodded.
“Kade,” Zach replied. “Are they upstairs?”
“Yep.”
Zach walked through the kitchen to the stairs. One down. So far, no voices in his head telling him what to do.Showing him what he was missing.The thought came, unbidden, from somewhere deep inside him.
No.Kade and Jessie were bonded mates. That was the beginning, and the end, of things.
As he climbed the stairs, Kitani’s pain lanced straight through his walls. He held them together, barely, as he entered the room on the second floor.
Pale-gray eyes met his own. Eyes that pierced his heart, and his soul. For just a millisecond he connected with Jessie, and it was as though his entire body came alive.
Electric.
For her too. He felt it. But then her eyes flared silver, and her beast looked out at him.
She wasn’t his. She and Kade were together.
Kitani groaned, and Zach wrenched his gaze away. The Sabre lay on the bed, propped up with pillows. Cara was kneeling between her knees, the sheet arranged tastefully to block anyone’s view.
There was no mistaking the trouble the Were was in, though. Her exposed belly writhed and rolled.
“Hurry, Zach,” Cara said. “They’re shifting. I can’t hold them back.”
Zach sat on the bed and met Kitani’s eyes. When she nodded, he placed his hands on her belly. And dropped the wall. It was like throwing a switch and letting the world flood in.
