it.”
Wilder blanched but wisely didn’t interrupt. It might have been his brother we were after, but this wasn’t the kiddie pool, and even with the aid of my warnings, he didn’t know how this game was played.
“It won’t be a matter of finance.”
So much for writing a check.
“I assumed it wouldn’t have a dollar sign attached.”
He grinned broadly. “You’re a smart girl, Genie. You’ll do that pack of yours proper justice one day if you decide to be queen. If they want what’s good for them.”
I bit my tongue. If I agreed with him, he’d know I’d been thinking about becoming queen. If I spoke on behalf of Ben’s claim, I would yield my own. It didn’t matter that Cain wasn’t a wolf. I didn’t need a mistake coming back to bite me later on down the road. I had no idea how things were going to play out, and I wanted my cards close to the chest where the pack was concerned.
“What’ll it be?” I asked.
Cain glanced towards Delphine, toying with the curls nearest her temple. His adoration for her was written all over his face. He loved her and didn’t care who knew it. For a minute it made me sad because not once in our year together had Cash ever looked at me that way, like I was something precious he couldn’t live without.
I knew what real love looked like. It was the way Cain stared at Delphine, or the blinding joy I saw whenever Secret’s husband watched her walk into a room. Some things like that couldn’t be faked.
“You be nice to her,” Delphine scolded, kissing him on the nose.
“I’m always nice,” Cain countered. “But nice and free ain’t exactly the same thing, are they?”
“That’s fine.” Once again I bit back the urge to ask him to hurry things up and get to the point. If Hank died while we sat here pre-negotiating, I was not going to be a happy werewolf princess.
“Life for a life,” he said finally. “If I give you the information to find your pack mate, and if you’re able to save him, I want the life of Timothy Deerling in return.”
“Wha—?”
“Done,” Wilder interrupted.
I shot him what I hoped was a menacing glare. This wasn’t his arrangement; he couldn’t agree to something like that on my behalf. Wilder didn’t look even remotely ashamed of himself.
“You want that son of a bitch dead, and so do I,” Wilder said.
Cain clucked his tongue. “You misunderstand me, son. I do want him dead. But I want to be there when it happens. You will bring him to me. Roughed up is fine. Bleeding is fine. But he needs to have a pulse so I can watch the flicker go out and see his last minutes of suffering for myself. Do you get what I’m saying?”
“Kidnap. Torture. But no murder.” I scrubbed my hands over my face, suddenly feeling exhausted beyond measure.
Now I had to find a way to keep this stupid bastard alive, when everyone around me wanted to see him dead.
Sure, okay.
I did say whatever the price, didn’t I?
Chapter Fifteen
Wilder was relentless.
He refused my suggestion that we get a couple hours of sleep before hitting the road. I tried to reason we would be sharper with some rest and be more responsive, but he was having none of it. Either we left now, together, or he’d go without me.
Cain had provided us with the information we needed, in spite of my misgivings about agreeing to his price. It wasn’t so much the life of Timothy Deerling I cared about. Given what he thought about my people and what he was planning to do to Hank…if there was a hell, he deserved to go there.
I just hadn’t planned on handing him the one-way ticket myself.
Wilder and I pulled into a gas station about forty minutes outside of New Orleans. I was wiped out, soul-crushingly exhausted, and getting more than a little cranky.
I’d have traded my left boob for a hot shower, a beer and about a hundred hours in a soft bed. What I got instead was a bumpy cross-state road trip on a motorcycle. Since we couldn’t exchange chitchat, we were both getting worn thin by the journey.
Lifting my cell over my head, I hoped I might pick up a scant amount of signal, but with no towers nearby it looked like I was shit out of luck. Too bad I didn’t know any spells that would give me four bars and free WiFi.
Maybe