Chapter 5
Adam leaned back in the driver’s seat as Ally sat next to him. She squirmed in her seat, glancing into the rearview mirror as if the cabin would come into view at any moment. He smiled at her, but didn’t turn in her direction. She could feel what he did, and he could feel her emotions. So, he knew she was overcome with worry. He knew that she was contemplating what would happen if she jumped out of the car at that exact moment.
“We’ve been on the road for twenty minutes,” she mumbled under her breath while glancing behind her once more. “How long is this going to take?”
“Another twenty,” Adam answered with a laugh. “If you can’t take a couple of minutes away from them, how are you going to deal with doing this every other day?”
She let out a small noise. “I don’t know. It’s only for five hours. That’s not that bad, right?”
“Seven hours if you include the ride there are back.” Another noise escaped her mouth as panic came off her in waves. “Hey,” he said in a calming voice, “at least you don’t have to worry about living on campus.” He paused for a moment, glancing at her quickly before turning his eyes back onto the road. “How did you get out of that?”
Turning in her seat, she faced him completely. “I have three children at home, and am emancipated. I have no legal guardian, no husband, nothing. Who is going to take care of my children all the time if I’m required to live on campus?”
“They bought that?” He asked with a snort. “Those children never have less than two sets of eyes on them at all times. How’d you get me out of it?”
“You’re over the age of twenty-one,” Ally said her voice a little too nonchalant, “and you own this lovely cabin in the woods not far from campus.”
As a stop sign came into view, Adam eased on the breaks. “I don’t own the cabin, Ally. What did you do? You messed with their minds, didn’t you?”
Turning to face away from him, she shrugged. “Maybe a little bit, but you do own the cabin.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, turning towards her completely. With the car at a stop, and his foot securely on the brake, they weren’t going anywhere until she answered his question.
She looked down, staring at her hands. “You know Sebastian asked me to marry him.”
“Yeah,” he said slowly, wondering where she was going with this.
“Can’t you drive while I talk?” she asked while glancing up at him. “We’re going to be late.”
“Ally.”
“Fine,” she snapped. “I put the cabin in your name, because I want you to have it.” Adam opened his mouth to interrupt her, but she shook her head at him. “Just listen for a minute. That cabin, it has bad memories in it. You might not view it as I do, but that was where Blake died. That was where Marcus brought me to be safe, when no one could be safe with him knowing where it was. I just want my own place. Somewhere that nobody knows where it is. Sure, my guards will, and even those that I’ve come to truly trust will.”
“Then how is that an unknown place?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “It will be more unknown than the cabin.”
“How far away are you going to move?” he asked, feeling the slightest bit of panic. He didn’t want Ally leaving them, didn’t want her to go.
“Drive,” she said with a small laugh, “and I’ll tell you.” He let off the brake, but motioned for her to continue. “It will be in running distance. The main thing is that I’m going to have more security provisions. With my children, and how frightened some are of them, I can’t be too careful. I know that I could just add it onto the cabin, but I want to start over. Plus, there aren’t enough rooms in the cabin for each of my children to have their own rooms.”
Adam snorted. “There is plenty of room.”
“Maybe now,” Ally said with a smile in her voice, “but not in a couple of years.”
His head snapped towards her, his eyes narrowing. “What do you know?”
She ignored his question. “Plus, the cabin should be yours, seeing as you’ll be the one training any new guards.”
“That’s not my job,” Adam argued, letting her bring his attention off their earlier conversation. “Zeke trains the new guards. It’s his job as the second-in-command.”
“Zeke,” she said with a sigh, “doesn’t like to stay in one place for too long. Sure, with Charlie having a boy Zeke will want to stay home more often, but Zeke’s son will be an exact replica of him. The boy is going to want to be on the move as much as Zeke.” Worry flew from Ally as she paused for a moment. “Never mind all of that. What I meant was that Zeke wouldn’t be happy being my second. He’s an enforcer. Always has been, always will be.”
“Ally,” he interrupted, knowing what she was going to say next. “I’m not ready to be a leader. Make Ned do it. That man was born to lead. Or Barron, Barron could teach people how to fight.”
Ally smacked him in the arm. “Teaching someone how to fight isn’t the only thing a second has to do. If it were, I would have made Barron be second long ago. You were meant for this Adam. You were meant for great things. Blake should have taught you that.”
He looked towards her, his eyes narrowing in slight anger. “Do not bring him into this.”
“You can’t forget what he told me, Adam. You can’t forget what he whispered in my mind right before he died. He did what he did because he knew you were meant for more. He saved you for a reason.”
“And that reason is to be your second-in-command?” Adam asked with a laugh. “What if I don’t want the job?”
She sent him a look that let him know that she knew exactly how he felt. “Then you would be lying. You have so many ideas in that mind of yours, ideas that you’ve kept locked up for a long while now. I know how you are, Adam. I know how you think. So believe me. No one can make a better second than you.”
“When?” he asked, knowing that this was one argument he would have to win later.
The smile in her voice made a smile of his own form on his lips. “In about four months. About a month after their son is born, and they’ll both be ready to hit the roads. Don’t worry,” Ally said, sensing Adam’s emotions. “That little boy will be very mature for his age. With a father like Zeke and a mother like Charlie, he’ll have to be.”
Another stop sign came into view. Pressing his foot to the brake, he turned and smiled at Ally. Opening his mouth, he went to tell her that they were almost there with twenty minutes to spare. Something stopped him though. It may have been the way that Ally’s eyes calmly shifted to look behind them, or maybe it was the way that she reached out and shoved him into the driver’s door. Either way, as the truck behind them smashed into their vehicle and the air bags broke free around them, Adam had no choice but to leave his words unspoken. That didn’t stop anger from coursing through him.
Flicking his wrist, his claws ripped into the airbag blocking his view of Ally. As the air left it, he paused as she came into view. With a smile, she sent him a tiny wave as he stared at the object between them. “A knife,” he growled. “If you wouldn’t have pushed me that would have been lodged in my head, or worse, in yours.”
“Adam,” she warned, her voice taking on a demanding tone. “It was an accident.”
Ignoring her, he nodded towards his door. As it flew off the hinges, he jumped from the vehicle. He didn’t care if it was an accident. Whoever was careless enough to risk Ally’s life deserved to be punished. Making his way to the truck, surprise hit him as a human came tumbling out. Pulling herself to her feet, the woman sent him a shaky smile. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice wobbling slightly. “Are you okay? Is the woman with you okay? My brakes,” she rushed. “They weren’t working. I don’t know what happened.”
Adam stared at her watering blue eyes. He could tell that she was on the brink of tears, could tell that she was doing her best to keep it together. Shaking his head, he turned to look at her truck. Her windshield was in tacked; her side windows were rolled up. With the way she wobbled slightly on her feet, he knew that she was shocked herself. So, if not from the human, where had the knife came from?
“Adam!”
His head snapped back in Ally’s direction. “What?” he snapped.
A growl only loud enough for him to hear vibrated in her chest. With her eyes on his hands, she narrowed her eyes. “Calm down. It wasn’t her fault. None of this was her.”
He looked back at the woman, noticing that she was now standing tall. Regret was still etched on her face, but she looked as if she would walk into battle if she had too. “Fine,” Adam whispered as he took a deep breath. His claws retracted as a bit of reality came back to him. “Come on,” he said while turning towards Ally, “we’re going to be late for class.”
“Wait!” the woman called out. “Don’t you need my information?”
Adam just kept walking, ignoring her as she called out to them. Reaching in his pocket, he dialed Zeke’s number. There was only one man who could see the future, only one man who could have warned Ally about the knife, Zeke.
“Hello,” Zeke mumbled on the other end.
Adam let out a small, angry growl. “You deal with the car. Ally and I will walk.”
He snapped the phone closed just as Ally stepped beside him. Holding out his book bag, she sighed. “You know the car still works?”
“Yes, but I need the walk.”
She wrapped an arm around him, pulling him into a side hug. “I know,” she whispered before laughing. “Plus, making Zeke come all the way out here is a little revenge on your part. He’ll have to pick us up too.”
“Ally,” he mumbled with a sigh. “What was that? If it wasn’t the human trying to kill us, who was it?”
She let out a sigh of her own. “I’m not sure. All I know is that someone cut her brake line, and planned to use that distraction. Where the knife came from, I don’t know. Why it was there, I don’t know. I just don’t know, Adam. One thing that I do know is that it wasn’t that woman’s fault. She had no idea that she was being used.”
Adam shook his head at her. “Why do I have a feeling that you could have stopped that from happening?”
“Because I could have,” she admitted, “but why mess with fate?”