Laney and Hunter (4th in werewolf series)

Chapter Fourteen

Hunter and Laney didn't come out of their room until nearly noon the next day. When she had woken up that morning he had made love to her before telling her what Frances had told them the night before about the shelter. She had cried hard and for a long time. He had simply held her in his arms and rubbed her hair and her back.

When she had finally calmed down he had made love to her again. It was the only way he knew to give her comfort and she had clung to him desperately and begged him to never die on her.

He had known that if he promised her that he'd be lying so instead he had just kissed her for all he was worth and held her even tighter. Finally after several hours Laney wiped the last of her tears from her face and stood up.

"Let's go get something to eat." she said. Hunter followed her downstairs. The vampire in him was thirsty. When they got to the kitchen Jake was pacing and clearly agitated.

"What's wrong with dad?" Laney asked Joey who was sitting next to Lane at the table.

"Raquel, Evan, the twins, the baby, Jordan, Kent, Alex Bethany, Greg and Kaitlyn all took off last night. They left a note telling Jake that Saraphine wasn't after them and they didn't want Jake worrying over them at the house so they had gone somewhere else to stay for a while. He tried tracing them but Lane said that Bethany learned as a teenager how to hide a trail from Jake."

"Jake, you need to calm down." Angela said laying her hand on his arm.

"Why can't this bitch just come face me! I'm the one that killed that blood sucking son of a bitch and given the chance I'd kill him again! You didn't do anything." He said to Angela. "No one else in this room did anything to help kill Vladimir."

"Are you mad that they left?" Rebecca asked her son. He shook his head.

"Hell no. I've been trying to get them to leave." he replied. "I wish the rest of the you would leave too.. If you hid she'd have no choice but to fight me. None of you need to be fighting or dying because of something I did years ago."

Lane slammed his fists on the table and stood up his blue eyes flashing with anger. Everyone looked at him in shock. It wasn't like Lane to really get angry.

"That's a hell of a thing for you to say to us!" He shouted and even Joey moved away from him a little. "How many times have you risked your damn life and fought to keep all of us safe! How many times have you saved my fucking ass because of things I've done? And they weren't noble things that I had people after me for like you! People were always trying to kill me because I gambled away their money, or had sex with their woman or beat them in a car race!

"You never turned your back on me no matter what. You never backed down from a single fight and I'll be damned if I'm gonna turn my back on you now!" Lane had his fists clenched at his side and was breathing hard as he glared at Jake.

Jake just looked at his little brother as if seeing him for the first time. He looked around the room and saw that everyone seemed to feel the same way as Lane. Jake nodded.

"Okay then." he said.

"Laney, go get your tick something to drink he's looking a little thirsty." Lane said as he sat back down and went back to eating his sandwich. Joey scooted back over to him and wrapped her arm around his.

Laney walked over to the fridge and pulled out the gallon jug, poured some into a coffee cup and put in the microwave to warm it up. When it was done and she turned back to the table she saw that Lane and Joey were gone. "Where did they go?" Laney asked as she sat down next to Hunter. He shrugged.

"Lane stood up, grabbed her by the arm and literally drug her up the stairs." he replied taking a long drink from the coffee cup. Laney saw his eyes glaze over momentarily the way they always did when he tasted blood. But she was happy to see he didn't seem to get nearly as much pleasure from that blood as he did when he drank hers.