Through the Ether (Force of Nature Book 5) - Amber Lynn Natusch Page 0,44

magic. His eyes were still glowing, and I wondered how long it would take before his wolf would take a back seat to the man. I moved to climb in beside him, but Foust gently pushed me aside, casting me a look of warning.

“Tread lightly, Piper,” Brunton said as he opened the back door for me.

Kat jumped in and cozied up next to Jagger, who’d gotten in on the opposite side. I filed in after her and Brunton followed, slamming the door shut behind him. The six of us sat there for a minute in silence.

“What now?” Foust asked Knox. He made a point not to look directly at his alpha, especially when Knox snapped his attention to him, eyes blazing.

“We go home. We send the bloodsuckers to pick up those traitorous little shits, and then we go back to the Ether.” His voice was clipped and harsh and devoid of any of its normal warmth.

“Understood,” Foust replied. He pulled out his phone and sent a message to someone—likely the ‘bloodsuckers’—then put it away.

Silence reigned yet again.

Kat leaned into my ear and whispered, “I want you to steer clear of him when we return. Nod if you understand.”

I nodded once and looked up to find Knox glaring at me in the rearview mirror.

“Is it secret time?” he asked, blowing through a red light because he refused to look away.

“No,” I said with a smile. “Kat just suggested that I give you some space when we get home, which makes sense. You need some rest, unless you want me to heal you—”

“I don’t need you to heal anything,” he growled. Brunton edged forward in the seat, and Kat put her hand on my knee in warning.

“Of course you don’t,” I replied in the same placating tone I’d used with Merc when he’d been under Kingston’s control—the one I’d adopted for years to defuse situations in order to survive. “I just thought it might speed things along.”

“Or do something else entirely,” he muttered to himself. He leveled his eyes on the traffic in front of him, and I sat there, holding my breath, hoping that was the end of it. And it was for the rest of the ride home. The only words uttered were the ones Knox rambled quietly to himself. I caught very few, but the tone was still angry.

The rest of us kept our mouths shut.

When we arrived at the mansion, I couldn’t get out of the vehicle fast enough. I bolted for the entrance and hammered in the code so hard my fingers hurt. I needed to get to Merc and let him know what had happened before Knox opened his mouth and started a war with the vampire king. Any progress the two of them had made would be lost in an instant. Merc was already concerned about Knox’s overtaking of the New York pack. Whatever had happened to him that night—whoever he’d become—would certainly do nothing to assuage Merc’s fear. If anything, it’d be the nail in the coffin.

My not-so-subtle, panicked entrance was loud enough to wake the dead—pun not intended—and I soon found Jase and Dean rushing down the steps to greet me.

“Foust sent us a message to pick up the New York pack,” Jase said.

“We were just getting ready to leave,” Dean added. “What happened?”

I shook my head and pointed for them to go back the way they’d come. The look on my face must have been explanation enough, because they turned around and climbed the stairs, waiting for me at the top.

The others entered the mansion as I caught up to the brothers and took them by their arms to lead them down the hall. “Where’s Merc?” I whispered, picking up the pace.

For once, neither of them bothered to interrogate first and move second. Instead, they stormed down the hall toward the vamp in question’s room. I decided to forego the formality of knocking and barged right in. Merc turned and quirked a brow at me, his cell phone to his ear.

“Keep me apprised of her progress,” he said, then hung up. Dean closed the door and locked it, then ushered me deeper into Merc’s suite.

“Something’s up,” he said. “Tell him, Piper.”

I scrunched my face and looked up at Dean. “Thanks for the intro, but I think I’ve got this.”

“Got what?” Merc asked.

“That’s what we’d like to know,” Jase replied.

“Well, if someone would let me talk, you would.” The three of them looked at me expectantly, and I jumped right in, doing all