Taking my backpack off, I hurry to the driver’s-side door, open it, and fall inside. Sosch squeaks when I swing the bag into the passenger’s seat, but there’s no time to see if he’s okay. This seems all too convenient to go off without a hitch, but I’m already committed. I shift the car into reverse, then slam down the pedal. Too hard. The BMW fishtails in the wet grass before its tires catch. I curse and ram the gearshift into drive.
The back windows explode the next instant. Glass rains through the air. I duck behind the wheel, blindly steering as bullets thunk against the car’s sides. I accelerate over uneven ground, away from the attackers and toward where the road should be, before risking a quick peek over the dash.
Aren’s there. I slam on the brake as he cuts down a vigilante who had a gun aimed at me. He fissures, reappears behind another armed man, and strikes again. Three more vigilantes replace that one.
This time, Aren moves more slowly when he attacks. Two of the newcomers get shots off. Aren stumbles back. He loses his footing, slips, and lands hard on his back.
Maybe I could have driven away if he hadn’t caught my eye just then. I freeze, one foot hovering over the accelerator. The vigilantes will kill him. I shouldn’t care. I should let him die—he’s killed hundreds of fae—but leaving him here is too close to murder. I can’t do that, not when I’m in a position to help.
Cursing my conscience, I slam down the accelerator. I ram into the two humans, hard enough to knock them off their feet. Before they have a chance to recover, I pull up beside Aren and shove open the passenger door. “Get in.”
TEN
“YOU OKAY?” I ask, even though I don’t care. Really, I don’t. I’m fulfilling my humanitarian obligation by giving Aren a lift. After we put a few more miles of asphalt between us and the vigilantes, I’m kicking him to the curb and he’s on his own.
I glance at him. His right hand is wrapped around the pommel of his sword and he’s huddled against the car door as far away from the radio and air controls as he can get. His edarratae flash erratically, and he’s noticeably uncomfortable. When tech messes with a fae’s magic, it disorients them. Not much, at first, and they can ignore the dizziness for a while, but Aren’s weak and he’s injured. His cuirass is mottled with dents, and aside from his other scrapes and bruises, there’s that hole in his shoulder from the vigilantes’ first assault on the inn. His armor covers it up right now, but blood trickles down his left arm, dripping off his elbow and staining the seat’s upholstery.
Carefully, he begins to loosen the cuirass’s laces. I tighten my grip on the steering wheel so I don’t give in to the urge to help him struggle out of it. It takes a while, but he finally manages to get the armor off and shoved to the back of the car. The effort takes its toll. His chest heaves as he leans back against the seat and closes his eyes.
Great. I can’t kick him out when he’s hurt this badly.
Well, he can stay in the car for all I care. Once we reach some type of civilization, I’m out of here.
“Turn the heat off?” he asks.
I’m already cold with the back windows blown out, and we’re both still soaking wet, but a deep frown creases Aren’s forehead.
I sigh and kill the heater.
“Your edarratae don’t look that bad,” I tell him as the last of the warm air vanishes. It’s only a half lie. The tech is obviously screwing with his lightning, but I’ve seen worse reactions.
“That’s because I’m not operating the vehicle.” There’s a soft squeak when he shifts in his seat. He frowns down at the floorboard.
Oh, no. Sosch.
“Is he okay?” I ask as Aren bends down to retrieve the kimki from my backpack. Sosch is alive, at least. He chirps when Aren holds him to his chest, but Aren doesn’t answer for a long time. Maybe Sosch would have been better off if I left him at the inn.
“You saved him,” Aren says.
His tone draws my gaze. The raw gratitude in his expression makes him seem all too human. That’s not good. It makes it hard to remember he’s a killer.
“I didn’t do it for you,” I snap, staring out the windshield again. Don’t they have road signs in this country? I haven’t seen a single one, and we’ve only passed one car. That was too close to where we started out, though, and I didn’t blink my lights or try to flag it down because I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a vigilante. Plus, I know more Fae words than I do German. Communication with the locals might not be so easy.
I glance at Aren, wondering just how badly the tech is affecting his magic.
“Can you fissure out?”
He hesitates before answering. “Yes.”
“Good. Do it.”
The way he looks at me causes a jolt of something to flutter through my stomach. Apprehension, I tell myself, because there’s regret in his eyes. He’s going to say something I don’t like.
“I still can’t let you go.”
Yep, there it is. I don’t like that at all. “You don’t have a choice. I’m driving, you’re the passenger, and I just saved your ass. Fissure out.”
He runs his hand over Sosch’s back, and a small smile tugs at his lip. “That doesn’t make us even.”
“I’m factoring in the fact that you kidnapped me.”
The bastard actually laughs. “Come on. It hasn’t been that bad an experience, has it?”
He’s got to be kidding. “I just got shot at.”
“I took care of you.”
Something clenches in my stomach again. I stare at the road so I don’t have to see the way he’s looking at me. There’s no desire inside of me. None. Zilch. Zero. And I am not thinking about what sex with the fae and their edarratae would be like. Hell, I haven’t had sex with a human. I probably couldn’t handle it with—
I shake my head and grip the steering wheel. Why the hell did I invite him into this car? He’s my kidnapper. I should be trying to kill him, not help him, but even now, I’m concerned about his injuries. That shoulder wound doesn’t look good, and even though he’s trying to hide it, I can tell he’s hurting. He needs a doctor or, rather, a fae healer.
Damn it. Why the hell do I care?
“Do you know where you’re going?” he asks.
“I’m following the road,” I answer tersely.
“Can the humans follow this car?”
I check the rearview mirror. “There’s no one behind us.”
“No,” he says. “With tech. Can they track us using tech?”
Oh. I study the panel of gauges behind the wheel. How can you tell if a car’s rigged with OnStar or something?
“There’s a second gate to the north of the inn,” Aren says. “Sosch can help us find it.”
He must not know exactly where it is. Without Sosch, we could walk right past it.
Wait. We? What the hell am I thinking? I need to ditch this fae. I’m about to insist he fissure out again when he pushes Sosch into the backseat, then takes off his shirt.
“What are you doing?” I swivel my eyes away from him and stare at the road, trying not to remember the way his body looked when his torso was covered in nothing but silver dust.
“Bleeding,” he responds. He tears the shirt down its center.
I give in to temptation and glance over when he tears the shirt again. He wraps the strips of cloth around his injured shoulder. His abs clench when he pulls the bandage tight. Damn.
I focus on driving. He’s not attractive. He can’t be, not when he’s covered in blood and bruises. And not all the blood is his, I remind myself. I don’t know how many humans he’s killed. That alone should make me want to get rid of him as soon as possible. The thing is, I’m comfortable with him sitting beside me. It’s insane, but he makes me feel almost as safe as Kyol always has.