The Problem with Promises (18 page)

Who moaned?

Me?

Dust had indeed flown, and earth too. It was in my mouth, on my tongue. Sprinkled across my eyes. I blinked against the grit in them until my vision cleared.

I’m still upside down.
Something dug into my stomach. Something pressed my head.
Trapped.
My heart started slamming in my chest. I hung from my seat belt. Head tilted at a ninety-degree angle, neck awkwardly twisted toward the blown-out passenger window, knees jackknifed to my waist. My intestines felt deeply bruised, probably because somewhere during one of the Ford’s revolutions, my seat belt had moved from low on my belly to high across my waist.

“Trowbridge?” I croaked.

Someone moaned. Low in their throat.

“Trowbridge?” I repeated, louder this time.

I smelled sweet peas.
Blood. Mine.
Anxiety squeezed me, telling me that there wasn’t enough air; there wasn’t enough space to breathe; I was probably hemorrhaging and they’d need the Jaws of Life to get me out of this coffin of metal.

I’ve got to get out.

I moved my leg then hissed when my right knee hit something solid and jagged. Dashboard? Engine part? I wanted to turn my head to see, but something hard and unyielding was pressed to my left temple. Boxing me in.

So much metal.

All around me.
Don’t throw up.

Why couldn’t I move?

Neck stiff, I slanted my gaze toward the driver’s seat.

Sweet heavens, it was the roof.

It had pancaked inward when the vehicle finally ceased rolling and had come to a rest upside down. What had once been a spacious cab now was a crushed sardine can—one that had been crumpled by the fist of a furious giant.

“Cordelia?” I called, my voice rising. “Anu?”

Listen for their heartbeats; there should be three besides my own.
I strained to catch them—caught one beating very rapidly, and then another slower and farther away, but I couldn’t count them all because someone was hyperventilating in what remained of the backseat—their panicked breath coming out in short gasps.
“Huh-huh-huh.”

Anu. Alive and well enough to pant.

But I can’t hear Trowbridge’s heart. I can’t even sense his heart.

No. Not today. Not yet. There was too much to do. Rescue Lexi. Save the world. Make babies.

“Trowbridge!” I screamed.

My wolf grew large inside me, her hackles raised in an attitude of protection. Metal tore at my calf as I struggled to pull my right leg up to my chest.
I will kick the windshield out if need be. I will tear this sardine can apart with my magic and my will.

There is too much to do. Too much to live for.

I will not die like this.

“Hedi! Talk to me!”

Relief surged over me. So strong I almost peed my pants.

*   *   *

“Trowbridge?” Hearing his voice wiped out any care about halflings or kill lists or wolves that should be taken out and shot.

“You okay?” he said, sounding hoarse.

“I’m alive.” Though I couldn’t see him, my ears told me he was on the other side of that flattened roof. “Are you hurt?”

He grunted, then there was the sound of tearing metal. “I’m good.”

“Is Cordelia okay?” I asked. “And Anu?”

“I’m here,” said Cordelia, sounding bored. On the heels of that, a stream of Merenwynian erupted from what used to be the backseat. So. The four of us were accounted for.

Thank you, Goddess.

A movement out of the corner of my eye.

A second later, the ferret poked its head through a hole. Its whiskers tickled my cheekbone. “Go away,” I said. I could have sworn it smiled at me before Anu yanked it back to her side of the wreck.

Five alive then.

Yup. Happiness. It surged over me, and for about two seconds, I was the girl with the winning lotto ticket, the miner with a pan of gold.

I wasn’t even that worried about being trapped anymore. Yeah, I was squeezed in the mangled framework of the car, but I was among Weres. Strong, healthy,
unhurt
wolves. Give them a pry bar and enough motivation and they’d get me out. We’d shovel up the witch. Get the ward broken. Collect Lexi. Everything was doable. I was poised on the edge of euphoria, making half-solemn promises—
henceforth, I will never tell another lie
—and then all bonhomie was shattered by a sound that can be summed up in one single four-letter word.

Bang.

Not like a car’s backfire or a smack of meaty fist on metal. Nope. “Bang” as in “bang-bang, you’re dead.”

“Who’s shooting?” I whispered.

“Be quiet, Hedi,” hushed Cordelia from somewhere to my left.

There was a short pause, followed by two more bangs; the interval between the gunshots frighteningly deliberate. Like someone was taking their sweet time to aim before firing.

The one upside/downside to the way my head was tilted toward the blown-out passenger window was that I had a partial view of the road above us. I watched it, heart going thud-thud, thud-thud in my chest, and sure enough. Someone walked to the lip of the road above our wreck.
A human rescue person?
The wind caught his aroma and brought it to me.

Crap. He smelled like a Harley.

A biker? That had to be bad. Had they found out about Itchy and Gerry already?

Crap, crap, crap.

The overpass’s lights provided me with some helpful details. For instance—I could see that he wore motorcycle boots. Square toes with a faint upward curl. Oh man, was the whole gang after us? Was another biker creeping on us from behind?

I’m trapped. Cordelia’s trapped.

“Trowbridge,” I whispered.

“Shhh.” From the backseat—
not
Trowbridge.

I strained to listen. What was the biker doing up there? Taking stock of the situation? I heard a hollow metallic click—a sound effect that needed very little interpreting if you’ve ever watched
Reservoir Dogs.
My stomach clenched. The shooter was reloading.

No, no, no.

That’s when it occurred to me that if I could see the shooter, he could see me.
Hell, no.
I fumbled with my belt, scrabbling for the release button. Found it. Jammed two fingers inside it. And then, just as I saw his knee flex—
he’s assuming the firing position
—I caught a glimpse of Trowbridge slinking up the incline, ready to tackle him.
He’s got a gun, Trowbridge!

I tensed for the weapon’s report.

There was a long, spine-chilling scream of air brakes. Rubber being burned on the pavement, and then, horribly, the squeals of terrified pigs.

It happened so fast.

The man in motorcycle boots spun around, then the biker was gone—becoming a grill ornament to the semi that whizzed past us, its long silver pig hauler balanced on one set of wheels.

Enough. I closed my eyes again.

I had no wish to see pigs fly.

*   *   *

Open your eyes. If you can’t stand what you see, you can go to Threall.

“Hedi?” I heard my mate softly say.

I peeked. Trowbridge, crouched outside my window. From my point of view, upside down. Shirtless. Grimy. Stubble on his jaw. Eyes fierce. “Hey,” he said, touching my face with two very gentle fingers.

“Hey.” That came out rusty sounding—my mouth was so dry—so I worked my tongue against my teeth, then asked, “Who shot at us?”

“Bad guy.” His hand was checking me over; sliding along my arm, moving to my ribs.

“Biker bad guy,” I corrected. “How many bikers are in a gang? Are we done yet?”

“Does anything hurt?”

“My gut hurts, my neck aches, my wrist is…” Quick alarm flared in his eyes so I threw him a bone. “My mouth doesn’t hurt.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” he said, tenderly touching my lip. But his face wore a big, relieved smile, and I knew that he’d been as afraid for me as I’d been for him. Matter of fact, despite his calm voice his eyes were fierce. And his scent? My, oh my, it was bristling with male pheromones.
My mate’s feeling protective.
My inner-bitch stretched her spine to luxuriate in the heady pleasure of me-mine-us.

“Is everyone all right down there?” some random human called. “Do you want me to call an ambulance?”

Go away.

Trowbridge hollered, “We’re good.”

“Is that the truth?” I searched his face. “We’re all good?”

“Yeah. I got Cordie and Anu while you were passed out.” He tested the door handle, then shrugged, evidently having low expectations of success.

“I didn’t pass out.”

He canted his head to the side. “You were out, Babe.”

I was?
“What about the shooters in the van?”

“Dead.”

“Who shot them?”

“Cordelia doesn’t miss when she aims a gun.”

“Even when she’s aiming from the backseat of a skidding car?”

“Nailed one, left the other needing life support. I finished him off.”

That’s a relief. I thought of something that made me frown. “Did you just call me Babe? I’m not a Babe, a baby, or a—”

“Hey, Tink,” he said with a wink. “Just testing. You hit your head.”

“My head’s fine.” I thought it was anyhow. Though my cheek was sticky. Automatically, I patted my chest for Merry, and felt another blip of awful when all I encountered was boob. Where was she? She’d been feeding when we rolled; her chain spooled in a golden puddle on a pine bough before we were hit.

“I can’t find Merry!”

“Calm yourself.” Cordelia’s feet walked into view. “She was thrown clear. I’ve got her. We have declared a partial truce.”

“Now, close your eyes,” Trowbridge said, “We’re going to pry open the door.”

“Hey, Trowbridge,” I said before I did.

“What?”

I felt my lips curl into a beatific smile. “I didn’t go to Threall—if I really did pass out, I stayed here. In this realm.”

“One problem down, ninety-nine to go.” Trowbridge gave me a wink. “Give us a second, and we’ll get you out of there,” he promised, gripping the car door as if he was prepared to tear it open himself—a display of supernatural strength that would have gone viral on video.

He can’t be thinking right.

*   *   *

“We’ve a minor setback,” he said, once I was out. “Not the end of the world—we’ll just have to—”

“I want to see.” Glory be. What a sight waited for me when Trowbridge had helped me hobble up the ditch’s incline. Carnage, death, and hogs gone wild.

A cloven-hoofed porker trotted past me, snout lifted, little piggy eyes fixed on a tempting clump of vegetation. Mr. Pig was not alone. There were at least a dozen examples of liberated porcine, many of whom had already spread out on the highway, in search of grub.

The hauler was some fifty feet down the road, on its side, still attached to the jackknifed cab. The biker’s broken body was caught beneath it. Through the crazed glass of the semi’s enormous windshield, I could see the driver standing upright in the overturned cab, trying to push open his door like it was the emergency hatch on a space capsule.

Slowly my gaze traveled back to where Natasha’s body lay prone, a small dark whale draped across the dotted line painted on the road. A lank hank of auburn hair floated on a pool of crimson. She was dead.

My mouth was dry. “Did we hit her?”

“No, she was shot.”

I remembered the biker standing at the lip of the road. “Why did they kill the witches?”

Trowbridge didn’t know. “Could have been a deliberate hit. Could have been a case of wrong time, wrong place.” He shrugged. “Bikers don’t like witnesses to their drive-by shootings.”

Elizabeth.
I turned. Oh Goddess. More devastation. A human crouched by the Impala’s twisted wreck. As I watched, he rose, shaking his head. The sick look on his face telling me all I needed to know.

Two dead witches.

How would we break the ward now? We’d have to track down the rest of the coven, and shake them like a bunch of castanets until they spilled their magical beans. But that would take time. Lexi had three days and no more before the temporary bond became permanent.

“How do we find their coven?” I asked him.

One side of his mouth pulled down. “I’ll have to make a few phone calls.”

“How long will that take?” I asked.
If we can’t break the ward, I can’t cross the portal. What will Lexi do when I’m not there at Daniel’s Rock? He’ll think I gave up on him, he’ll think this Stronghold broke.

“Not too long. We’ll get there, Tink.” Trowbridge’s arms tightened, and I felt the weight of his chin on the top of my head. His heart, which had been thumping hard, picked up for ten beats then slowly leveled out.

“Come hell or high water,” I said. “We will.”

Underneath the underpass, the van’s running lights glowed, the engine idled. Spectators were clustered there—the three or four people in the cars that had been behind us on the road, who’d watched us going through that underpass as if we were the thread going through the eye of the needle.

Trowbridge murmured, “I want another look at their van. I want to know why Whitlock’s going to all this trouble.”

“I’ll come with you.” But I didn’t immediately lift my ear from his chest, and he didn’t release me. “Trowbridge?”

“Yeah, Tink.”

“I want my Tear back.”

“Stay here with the others.” Trowbridge kissed my forehead—warm lips that belong on mine. “I’ll get it for you.” Then he left. The crowd gathered near the van parted at his approach. Altogether, not terribly surprising when you considered that the Alpha of Creemore wore an expression that would have scared the snot out of Billy the Kid.

*   *   *

Anu sat on the grass, my ex-roomie sat on a rock. Cordelia lifted her head at my approach and gave me a fierce nod. But Anu was hunched over, crying quietly into her hands. Her ferret was curled in her lap, its normally inquisitive expression set into one that damn near looked like reproach. I looked away, and then stared at the top of my niece’s head, wondering what to say, what to do. Noted that her part wasn’t straight, and that she had the same cowlick at her crown that my twin had.