“Suck it up, Ven.” Flashing a grin, Mac attacked another rogue.
“Easy for you to say.”
Course set to intercept, focus riveted on a bright-blue Razorback, Venom rocketed over a high-rise. Stone dust flying in his wake, he reached out and grabbed the tip of the male’s wing. Enemy claws raked his chest. Venom clamped down, ignoring the pain along with the Razorback’s freak-out routine and… crack! Bone snapped, disabling the asshole as his wing’s webbing tore.
“You don’t have…” Already looking for his next target, Venom sent the bastard into a free fall and growled, “… teeth stuck in your scales.”
Mac laughed.
Sloan streaked past, chasing a pair of rogues.
“Ven,” Wick said. “Heads up. I’m getting off the road.”
“Headed into the park?”
“Going to lose ’em in the trees.”
Good plan.
With Razorbacks in full swarm, and only four of them to hold the line, finding a safe place to hide the female sounded about right. Excellent strategy—really, it was—but for one teensy-weensy problem. Wick lived to fight. Hated to be left on the sidelines. Which meant… what? His friend would be hard-pressed to stay put while he and the others cleared the sky. The knowledge gave Venom a bad case of indigestion. But then, that tended to happen with a male as unpredictable as Wick in the mix.
J. J. woke up like an astronaut shooting into outer space, with gut-wrenching velocity. Surging awareness sliced through her. Sensation cut deep, making sound explode inside her head. Somebody cursed. Something high-powered rumbled. And the wind. God, it was howling, whistling against…
She frowned. Where the devil was she exactly?
Good question. With her sense of bearing shot to hell, she couldn’t tell. Too bad, really. She could’ve used a clue, particularly since she kept getting jostled. Each sway rolled her forward, then back. Surge and release. Bump. A lot of noisy rattling. More bone-jagging shudders and—
Her stomach clenched. Ah, crap. Not again.
The nausea, though, didn’t care what she wanted. The sick feeling spread, scalding her insides, tightening her throat, making her stomach heave. An awful taste washed over her tongue. J. J. gagged, but refused to give in. Nothing but pain lay in that direction. Raising her hand, she cupped one hand over her mouth. Bad decision. With her arm raised, her side squawked and agony swirled, joining the party, pulling at her ribs, forcing her to remember…
Everything.
The attack at the prison. Her injuries, all the stitches, the god-awful drugs, and something else too.
A guy. There had been a man at the hospital. A stranger, an angel with a compelling voice and calming presence.
J. J. frowned. God, that voice. Deep. Sure. Beyond incredible. Something about it called to her, making awareness spike and her interest turn. She wanted to hear it again. Needed the rich timbre to ground her in the here and now. Maybe then her mind would clear. Maybe then coherence would return. Maybe then she would remember.
Concentrating hard, she chased the soft sound of his murmur through her mind, hunting for the truth. Recall played a cruel game of keep-away. She dug deeper, needing to know. Fragmented pieces bubbled to the surface. J. J. shook her head. None of it seemed real and yet she couldn’t dismiss him. He’d been so warm. So powerful. So present and potent that the impression he left clung like seaweed in sun-warmed shallows. He’d done something to her. Saved her somehow. Soothed her while he took the pain away. And, hmm, that had been nice. The rush of sensation. The warm curl of comfort. The intense heat of his body along with his scent as he carried her away.
J. J. drew a soft breath. Carried her away? Now wait just a minute. Was she imagining that or—
A low curse interrupted her train of thought.
The scraping sound came next, then the bumping thump over something big.
She cracked her eyes open, and… wham! Instant recognition. Not to mention full-on alarm. Holy moly. She wasn’t in the hospital anymore, but in the front seat of an SUV. The backrest cranked all the way back, she lay curled on her side, snug inside a leather jacket with a blanket covering her legs, facing…
An angel. A man she now remembered with total clarity.
Odd, to say the least. With the drugs mucking up her mind, she’d doubted he was real when she saw him in the corridor. Now, with the effects of the Demerol gone, lucidity returned, helping her catalog the details. J. J. licked over the cut splitting her bottom lip. Tall. Strong. Amber-gold eyes set in a too-handsome face. Big, bad, and brawny. He owned them all, sporting each one like a junkyard dog wore spikes, razor-sharp teeth at the ready.
Ignoring the discomfort, J. J. swallowed past her sore throat. “Wick.”
“Shit.” He glanced sideways at her. “You’re awake.”
“Not an angel.”
His mouth curved. “Not even close.”
Good to know. Better to remember. Why? Something about him wasn’t quite tame. He was too intense to be considered safe. But even as instinct squawked, warning her of the danger, J. J. couldn’t muster an ounce of fear. He wouldn’t hurt her. Crazy to believe it? Probably. But for some reason, the observation didn’t change a thing.
She wasn’t afraid of him.
“Where are we?” Excellent question. One that needed answering—fast—considering her companion and his lead foot. Jeez, he was driving at breakneck speed… heading God only knew where. Glancing out the side window, J. J. forced her eyes into focus. Tree trunks raced past, galloping in the opposite direction. The engine roared. Wick cranked the wheel, spinning the truck around a tight corner. Dirt flew, spraying the undercarriage. Moonlight pierced the darkness as branches raked the SUV like gnarled fingernails. “Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere safe,” he said, eyes on the road, big hands on the wheel, expression set. “Go back to sleep.”
“Can’t.” More insistent now, anguish throbbed against her side, working its way down her leg to beat on her broken ankle. “I’m hurting.”
“I know. Hold on, vanzäla. I’ll get you help.”
Not soon enough. It wouldn’t be soon enough. She needed something right now. A something she knew from experience he could give her. “Can you…”
He arched a brow. “What?”
“Hold my hand?”
Throwing her a startled look, he shook his head. “No.”
“Please?” She hated to beg—she really did—but touching him would help. Or, at the very least, get her through. Did it matter he was a stranger? Or that he didn’t want to touch her (yeah, that came through loud and clear), but… no. Forget logic. Only one thing mattered. She needed him, for some bizarre reason. So like it or not, he was going to hold her hand. “It’s getting worse, and I think touching you will help.”
A muscle twitched along his jaw.
“Please, Wick?”
Agony tightened its grip, snaking around her rib cage. As she gasped, silence stretched, one second lengthening into the next. J. J. drew her knees closer, curling into a fetal position, tucking her face into the collar of his leather jacket as she struggled to waylay the pain. A no-go. Brutal sensation told her all she needed to know. The last of the Demerol had worn off, leaving her unable to do anything but feel. Fighting the onslaught, her teeth started to chatter.
“Fuck.”
The growl swirled in the cab a second before his hand left the steering wheel. He held it aloft a moment, poised in midair, then laid his forearm across the SUV’s center console. J. J. didn’t hesitate. She reached out and, with a whispered “thank you,” slid her hand into his much larger one. Skin on skin, his unbelievable heat spread. Warm prickles ghosted up her arm, chasing her chills away. She sighed in relief. Wick flinched and, white-knuckling the wheel, cursed again.