Gypsy gave her a small facsimile of a smile, but she couldn’t promise to talk later. She couldn’t promise she would even see the girl later. All she wanted to do right now was run. She wanted the silence of the desert enfolding her, the solace she’d always found in the wild, barren land surrounding her to sink inside the ragged wounds that were being uncovered in her heart.
Laying her clothing on the bed, Gypsy faced the man who seemed determined to claim her now.
“Where’s my motorcycle?” She was shocked at the ragged edge of her voice as she smoothed her hands over the material of the shirt covering her hips.
“If you need to go somewhere, then I’ll take you.” He stood relaxed, but his eyes watched her too closely, and she was very much afraid he saw far too much as he held her gaze.
“How long do you think that will work, Rule? How long do you think I’ll stand for you taking my independence and choice away from me? I want my cycle in the front of this hotel in thirty minutes, and you will allow me to walk out of here alone. I need to see my parents.”
“Not alone.” His voice deepened, the growl that had seen her backing down earlier echoing in his chest again.
That growl didn’t scare her any more than she would allow anything else to scare her.
“Don’t make me run, Rule,” she warned him instead. “I promise you, neither of us will enjoy the experience.”
Fury gleamed instantly in his gaze. The whites disappeared beneath the full blue, the black pupil dilating, and she knew she was facing a Breed who was more animal than man.
“Run.” He was suddenly in her face, daring her, challenge evident in the animalistic rasp of his voice. “Go ahead, mate, run. I’ll enjoy the chase and when I catch you, I promise you I’ll make damned sure you never consider such a f**king foolhardy action again. Do you understand me?”
She backed up before she meant to. It wasn’t fear that filled her, but nerves.
Because this man, this Breed, would keep his word in ways she was sure she would never forget.
CHAPTER 22
Exhaustion had seeped into Gypsy over the hours she and Rule had engaged in a silent, nerve-racking standoff in his room. The meeting scheduled with her parents was canceled. No surprise there, she thought painfully as Rule and Jonas discussed the option just after Ashley left.
Finally, desperate to find a moment to breathe that didn’t include his too-intent stare, she’d retreated back to bed.
She needed to think, to consider how to work around what she couldn’t go through. Rule would employ whatever means it took to keep her from leaving the room. That meant she would have to find a way to slip around him and make her way to her parents’ home.
God help her, what was in her mother’s mind to take such a risk? What had she done, Gypsy wondered, to make her mother chance her very life like this?
Where had she messed up?
Gypsy knew she had to have done something, she had to have made a mistake somewhere. What had she done to give anyone a chance to use her mother in such a way? And no doubt it was her fault. Her mother would do anything to protect her children after she lost her oldest child, and Gypsy knew her mother had suspected for years that there was a reason her elder daughter continued to attend the desert parties and clubs that had initially given the Coyotes the chance they’d needed to draw Mark out and kill him.
Would she now be responsible for her mother’s death? Were her actions risking the rest of her family despite all her precautions?
Could she bear to lose anyone else she loved to her own reckless decisions?
Huddled beneath the blankets, dry eyed, aching, she stared into the slowly darkening room, unaware of the moment her eyes finally closed and sleep claimed her. There was rarely peace to be found in her dreams, though.
Especially at night.
Gypsy had made a habit over the years of remaining awake until dawn began lightening the sky. She’d learned that if it wasn’t dark, then the nightmares didn’t come near as often.
The room was only just darkening as sleep took her this time, though, and that darkness began spreading through her, dragging her into memories she’d forced to the furthest depths of her mind.
Her parents had taken Kandy to New York with them that week. It was her sister’s first visit and teenage shopping trip. They’d left Gypsy with her older brother, Mark. Ten years older, strong, always laughing, he spoiled her, but he watched out for her. Everyone knew if they messed with Mark McQuade’s wild baby sister, then Mark would come calling.
That night she and Khileen Langer, the Wolf Breed Lobo Reever’s stepdaughter, had planned to attend a desert party that many of Gypsy’s school friends were attending. But it was also an adult party, and Mark always attended those with her, or she didn’t go.
“Mark.” She stepped into the living room, where he was working intently on his computer. “I’m going out with Khileen to a party in—”
His head jerked up, his green eyes feverish, making her wonder if he’d been drinking that night.
“No!” The harsh denial shocked her.