She timed the Coyote patrols and learned how to fool them. The brain could do miraculous things when it had to. She had learned how to place herself in that state between sleep and awareness, in a place where her brain was aware of every move, every sound, every scent that drifted around her.
Humans were very much capable of certain animal awarenesses. She could hear Tanner walking; she had no idea the tunnel he had taken, but several long minutes after he’d dressed and left the room, she heard the scrape of stone. Faint. The sound was so faint it took precious moments for her brain to identify it, and even longer for her to force herself to awaken.
She slid from the bed, blinking at the lights that flared around her as she bent to retrieve her clothing from the floor.
The velvet pants were on the other side of the bed table, the top at the bottom of the bed. One sock was under the bed; the other had her gritting her teeth in frustration before she found it tucked at the bottom of the mattress.
Tanner really was going to have to start taking more care with her clothing.
Jerking the socks on over her feet, she moved for the tunnels. A smile tilted her lips as she found what she was looking for.
Tanner was definitely a Breed, but he had forgotten one major rule. Always watch for anomalies. Tanner had missed one. The very faint dusting of loose dirt on the stone tunnels.
She now had the faintest impressions of footprints, so faint she would have missed them if the day before she hadn’t found the small flashlight hidden in the supply room.
She had spent days working on the tunnels, breaking loose the packed dirt, scattering it here and there, one tunnel at a time, and checking for footprints.
Second day and bingo. Her luck was looking up.
This was escape day, she told herself. Today, she was getting the hell out of there and finding the nearest phone. Jonas would be waiting on her call now; he would know something had f**ked up bad.
She pushed back her sorrow at the thought of leaving Tanner. Especially like this. But she had to find Jonas and give him the information she had; then she would deal with Tanner. First things first. She couldn’t trust this easily. She refused to let herself trust this easily.
Once she got out of the caves, she could get her bearings and avoid the Coyotes. They were around the cabin, and she had studied the area where that cabin was located extensively over the years. The caves would have to be located away from the general area of the cabin, because it took Tanner much too long to return after his excursions out of the caverns.
And if they weren’t…She breathed in deeply. She would solve that one once she got her bearings and figured out the location she was in.
Biting her lip, she followed the trail, faint though it was. She nearly lost it more than once, and each time found her heart in her throat as fear rushed through her.
She had to get out of there and find Jonas because she was caving bad where Tanner was concerned. She could feel it. She was within days of giving him anything he wanted; however he wanted. And risking everything.
She was falling in love with him.
Accepting that was one of the hardest things she had done. Because it wasn’t like loving Chaz had been. With Chaz, there had always been something missing, something not quite complete within herself.
There was nothing missing with Tanner, and that terrified her. Because she knew if he had used sex to question her, then she would have caved. She would have folded and told him everything he wanted to know.
All he would have had to do was withhold one orgasm. Made her wait, and then asked her anything. The lives she would have betrayed could be gone forever, because she was weak.
Her father was right the last time he had buried her. She was too weak to live. Too weak to survive in the world she had been born into.
Breathing out wearily, she kept her gaze on the faint impressions of Tanner’s hiking boots through the tunnel, until they turned and stopped right at the stone wall.
Her eyes narrowed. He couldn’t walk through a wall, dammit.
Reaching out, she ran her hands over the wall, frowning at the feel of it. It looked like stone, it almost felt like stone, but with a difference. Moving her hands from side to side, her fingers finally found the faint depression on one side. Hooking them into it, she tugged, surprised at the faint scraping sound as a rock-lined panel slid open.
This was the scraping sound she’d heard when he left. A false wall opening, and she hadn’t been able to find it. It was narrow, short, barely five and a half feet tall and maybe three feet wide. Tanner would have had to tuck and turn to pass through, but he could have easily done so quickly.
She paused there, knowing she would find an exit on the other side, somewhere. And she had to force herself forward. Force one foot in front of the other as she tightened her lips and moved into the next tunnel.
She felt the regret tearing at her now, a sense of loss. Had she ever felt as safe, as secure as she had felt cocooned in those caverns with Tanner?
She knew she hadn’t. She had found a haven in his arms, below the earth, and letting go of it was surprisingly difficult.
She felt as though she were letting go of Tanner. As though by finding that hidden panel, she had betrayed him. Hadn’t trusted him.
Shaking her head, she had to force herself to keep going. She wasn’t betraying him, she assured herself. She was saving him. If he wasn’t the spy, she was saving his family and his pride nephew. She wasn’t betraying anyone but Cyrus Tallant, and God above knew he deserved the betrayal.