Heart of Vengeance (Alice Worth #6) - Lisa Edmonds Page 0,151

had hidden his motorcycle. Esme climbed onto my shoulder and yawned, her eyes half-lidded. Daisy trotted at my side. Malcolm floated along behind us. Having him near me again made the obstacles we still faced seem a little less impossible.

“I don’t see how we’re going to ride with you,” I said as we followed Ronan through the trees and undergrowth. “Malcolm can make the trip in my arm cuff and I might be able to coax Esme into my backpack, but it’s not like Daisy’s going to fit in one of your saddlebags.”

“Daisy can run, remember?” He led us directly to his Harley, which was parked under a tree. Despite being outside for two weeks, it was shiny and clean. “She’s a wolf, and wolves love to run.”

Daisy showed us all of her teeth.

I worried about her, but I also knew my wolf could take care of herself. “Okay,” I said finally. “Let’s roll, then. Malcolm, ready to go for a ride?”

My ghost eyed me. “So, we’re not going to talk about that?” He pointed at my abdomen.

I covered my stomach, not that my hand hid the death magic from him. “Not right this minute.”

He floated back and forth, clearly unhappy. “All right. See you back at our Northbourne, then.” He turned to Ronan. “You turned out to be an okay guy after all, Easy Rider.” He held out his fist. Ronan bumped it with his own.

“Contain,” I said. Malcolm vanished. His crystal in my cuff buzzed.

After some initial resistance, I talked Esme into getting in my backpack, leaving it unzipped enough for her to poke her head out if she wanted to. I didn’t dare tell her how cute she looked peeking out. Cats had their pride, and I imagined that went double for cat-dragons.

Ronan took a black helmet from one of his saddlebags and handed it to me.

“You ever ride on a motorcycle before?” he asked, swinging his leg over the bike and settling into the seat.

“No.”

He put on leather gloves and tightened them. “A virgin. Mmm, my favorite.”

I scoffed. “Liar.”

He grinned. “It’s true—I prefer a woman who knows what she likes. I don’t mind showing one who’s inexperienced how good it can be, though.”

“Ass,” I muttered. He chuckled.

I put on the helmet, secured my battered backpack, and climbed onto the Harley behind him, my thighs around his hips. It would have been sexy as hell if it didn’t make me miss Sean so much.

He put on his own helmet and started the bike. Its throaty rumble sent a little thrill through me, despite my worry about the knot in my stomach and how long I’d been gone.

Ready? Ronan asked in my head.

I wrapped my arms around his waist. Ready.

With a happy growl, Daisy took off through the trees in a golden blur. I smiled.

The motorcycle wove slowly through the forest until we got to the road. As we passed Lucy and her jeep, she waved us to stop and ran over with my half-empty bottle of Charles’s finest moonshine. Ronan wrapped it in a T-shirt and stored it in one of his saddlebags. I blew Lucy a kiss. She winked.

As soon as the Harley was on the road, Ronan accelerated with a roar of horsepower and headed north, toward the mirror-door and home.

30

For nearly sixteen hours, we rode straight through to the ruins of Northbourne. We stopped only for fuel, food, and a short nap under some trees in a park when the pain in my stomach and my exhaustion got to be too much. Ronan gave me a blanket from one of his saddlebags and kept watch while I slept for about an hour, wrapped up like a burrito beside him. When I woke in the middle of a nightmare, his hand was resting on my shoulder, comforting me.

Despite her very vocal disapproval at the idea of riding in my backpack, Esme nestled inside it and slept for almost the entire trip. I tried not to think about how she’d looked when Typhon’s monster tore her nearly in half. Instead, I remembered how her much-larger cousin had responded to her call for help and tenderly healed her wounds.

I had no idea what Ronan thought about during our journey. My own thoughts bounced between a dozen topics, from the death magic in my belly to Sean, Valas, and everything we’d seen and done in the Underworld. I had many hours on the back of the Harley to think about all those things and make plans about some