of it out on her own, way back when. He trusted her to keep his secrets. “I’ll always have guilt.” The cries of the dying at the Battle of Culloden reverberated in his soul, the pain so deep it could never completely dissipate. He was immortal and one of the most powerful of his kind, and even he hadn’t been able to save his people or even his immediate family.
He wouldn’t fail again, and that meant being prepared for this attack. “Benny? Let’s get going, drop off Jacki, and pick up the explosives we’ll need.”
Ben nodded. “I know, I know. We have too short a time to get things into place, and based on intel I received a few days ago, the Cyst might know we’re coming.” He turned on his massive boot to head back to the vehicle. “I’m driving.”
Adare looked down the empty roadway, where Grace had gone, and then strode toward the back seat of the SUV. “You can have the front, Jacki.” He stretched inside, wincing as his knees hit the back of the front seat.
The door across from him opened, and she gracefully moved inside. “I’ll sit beside you. We should catch up a little, don’t you think?”
“On what?” He slammed his door.
She sighed. “You can’t still be mad at me. It’s been eons and eons.” Her red lips pursed. “Perhaps longer. Time does fly.”
A time they could’ve spent together if she’d made a different decision. The branding on his hand ached, and he glanced down, surprised. A marking appeared on a demon’s hand when he found his mate, and his hadn’t appeared until he’d held Grace. During all the time he’d spent with Jacqueline, the marking hadn’t appeared.
Since he’d bitten Grace the night before, his hand had ached as if he’d never used the brand. There was so much about mating that he’d never learned. Did contact make the pain go away?
“Adare?” Jacqueline asked. “Answer me.”
“What did you ask?” He had to get his brain back where it needed to be.
She tightened her lips. “I asked why you need this kind of firepower. Aren’t you working with the Realm these days?”
He wiped snow off his shoulders. “No. We’re not working with the Realm, and this mission is secret. That’s all I can tell you.”
Benny drove down the road with the finesse of a bulldozer, crashing through the median snowbank several times. “We gave you a good price for the explosives, and that was to ensure your discretion, as always.” He looked into the rearview mirror and jerked his head. “Adare’s mated, but I’m not, you know.”
Adare barely kept from rolling his eyes. “You’re propositioning her while we’re supposed to be getting ready for a mission? Again?”
Benny lifted a mammoth shoulder. “We’re probably gonna die, and you know it. I wouldn’t mind a decent sendoff like you got last night.”
He’d only gotten a bit of what he’d wanted last night. “Ben, if we’re going to face death together next week, it’d be smart if I didn’t want you dead.” He said the last on a growl. Even though he didn’t care what Jacki did, he didn’t like Benny’s teasing tone of voice. The time for levity had passed.
Benny lifted a hand in mock surrender, instantly piling the SUV into a berm of snow on the right side of the road. “Sorry. I give up.” He used both hands to jerk the vehicle free, sending it bouncing over ice and rocks and forcing Adare to grab onto the door handle to keep from falling over.
Adare tried to regain control of the situation. “When are we going to transfer our explosives to the Ladonis? I’d rather everyone didn’t know the location of our safe house.”
“Oh, they’re in the back of the SUV already,” Benny said casually.
By all that was holy! Adare pulled the Max out of his boot and pressed the barrel against Benny’s neck. “You’ve been driving like a maniac for the last ten minutes, and there are explosives in the rear of this thing?”
Benny’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Well, yeah. Why do you have a gun to my neck?”
Hadn’t there been enough explosions in the last twenty-four hours? “Stop the SUV and pull over, or I swear to all the fates that I’ll shoot you through the head,” Adare growled, his ears ringing with the heat rushing over his skin. “I’m driving.”
* * * *
While the snow gently fell, Grace set out across the state of Colorado, letting the navigation in her phone