“You know that you can trust me, don’t you?” Dash asked, sounding exasperated.
“I know that I can trust you not to harm me. I know that I can trust you to follow the law and also to fight to the death to protect the welfare of shifters of any species. Unfortunately, I don’t know if I can trust you not to pass along information to your superiors, who may either be working with some very shady characters, or who may accidentally pass along anything that you tell them to the wrong people.”
“What kind of information?”
“That’s the thing. If I told you, you’d feel like you had to call up Warden Redthorne. I get that. I don’t blame you for it. But there’s a time-critical element here, and I just can’t risk it.”
Frustration was bunching up inside her. She really wished she could tell him and be done with it, and then see where things went between them. With this hanging over her head, Dash’s loyalty was torn and she couldn’t even blame him for it. He just didn’t have all the facts.
Arms folded across her chest, she began pacing their small motel room. Something had been nagging at her all night, but in her haze of lust, she hadn’t really tried to think about it too much. A vague, nagging worry…then suddenly it hit her.
“Thomas and Sally.”
“What about them?” Dash asked.
“Those humans who came looking for us. They were awfully close to the Hobo camp.”
“But they were only looking for you, weren’t they? Or for us.”
“We don’t know that for sure, though, do we? We’ve got to check on them. We really should warn the whole camp that Bradwell’s men might be in the area.”
Now she kind of wished that she hadn’t ditched all of her stuff. Thomas had a disposable cell phone with him, she could have tried to call him, although reception out in the woods was really terrible. She still had her wallet and cash, but that was it.
At some point in the near future, she was probably going to have to ditch Dash again, a thought which made her heart clench oddly in her chest.
She had to do it. Her mission was more important than her feelings. She needed to call her boss, check in with him and find out where they stood. To do that, she had to ditch Dash, buy another disposable cell phone, and be ready to go wherever she was needed at a moment’s notice.
First, however, she had to make sure that Thomas and Sally were all right.
Dash appeared to consider for a minute, then nodded. “You’re right. We can’t leave those kids in danger.”
They headed back onto the main highway and drove towards the Hobo camp. Dash parked on the side of the road by the woods, and grabbed a small bag which Isadora suspected contained a change of clothes in case he had to shift. When they got out, Dash slapped the handcuffs on Isadora’s wrist again, cuffing her to him. He’d been carrying his jacket in one hand; he draped it over his arm, hiding the cuffs.
“Until you’re willing to talk, I have to assume that you’re going to run off at the first opportunity,” Dash said. “Once we get to the camp and see that Sally and Thomas are okay, there’s nothing stopping you from running up the nearest tree and disappearing. I’m already going to be in enough trouble for not checking in with the Wardens; if I let you escape, they’ll have my head.”
“And you like having me cuffed to you.”
He winked at her. “That too.”
“I’m starting to sense some control issues here,” she grumbled as they walked through the woods.
“I’m starting to sense some trust issues,” Dash shot back.
“You’re just starting to sense them? And there I thought you were such a bright boy.”
They trudged through the underbrush. Isadora tried not to worry too much. Thomas and Sally where there with Thomas’s uncle, surely he wouldn’t let anything happen to them. Still, it would be best if he took them and headed out of town immediately. She’d tell him that when they got to the camp.
As they approached the camp, Dash slowed down.
“What is it?” Isadora glanced around nervously.
“I smell humans. They’re gone now, but they were here pretty recently; they could be close by. Screw it, I’m going to uncuff – hey!”
Isadora had stepped away from him. Her wrist was free of the cuff.
“What the hell?” Dash asked, staring at her in astonishment. “You mean you could you have done that at any time?”
Instead of answering, she shifted and ran towards the camp. He undid the cuff on his wrist, shifted, and ran after her.
They burst through the underbrush, to find an empty, abandoned campsite. The makeshift tents had been ripped from their cords. There were heavy boot prints in the dirt. Several suitcases had been dumped, their contents spilled onto the ground.
A duffel bag that had belonged to Thomas and Sally had been ripped open with a knife, and their clothing was scattered in the bushes.
Isadora and Dash quickly shifted back to human form. They stood there naked, their breath steaming in the chill fall air, hugging themselves for warmth.
“I don’t smell any blood. Nobody was injured here,” Dash said. “I recognize the scent, though; it’s the humans who tried to run us off the road.”
“Thomas! Sally!” Isadora cried out, looking around wildly. Her heart pounded in her chest. This was all her fault; she should never have left them. What if the humans had kidnapped them? What would they do to the children? “Answer me!”
Dash sniffed at the air. “They’re close by,” he said. “I’ll shift and track – oh, there they are.”
There was a rustling in the trees overhead, and Dash pointed up. “There’s Sally.”
A minute later, Sally scrambled down from the tree, and Thomas shot out from the bushes. They both shifted back to human form, and ran over to Isadora, who threw her arms around them. They were shivering in the cold.
Dash opened his bag. “I’ve got a sweatpants and sweatshirt you can wear,” he told Isadora. He quickly started pulling his clothes on.
Thomas and Sally started pulling their scattered clothing off the bushes and got dressed too, as did Isadora. The sweatshirt and sweatpants were huge on her, but she pulled the pants drawstring as tight as she could.
“You both gave me a freaking heart attack!” Isadora growled. “I thought you were dead!”
“She came back for us!” Sally said excitedly, pulling her clothes on. “See, I told you she’d come back for us.”
Thomas shrugged unhappily. “She’ll probably just leave again. Everybody does,” he said, as he stuffed their things back into their duffel bag.
“She’s standing right here,” Isadora said, gesturing at herself impatiently. “I left because I thought you had someone decent to take care of you. What the heck happened with your uncle?”
“Me and Sally went out to catch some rabbits for dinner last night, and when we came back, him and Delia were gone. Burke said that Delia had heard about some construction job in Ohio, and they decided to go check it out. Then this morning, before sunrise, we smelled humans coming, so we all took off. I don’t know where everybody else went.”
“What were you doing still hanging around the camp?” Dash asked.
Thomas sighed. “Sally wanted to come back and see if Isadora would come for us.”
“Told you she would.” Sally stuck her tongue out at him. He swiped at her, his hand quickly turning into a paw, but she ducked easily.
“Slow,” she taunted.
Isadora and Dash exchanged glances of dismay. “I can’t leave them alone again, Dash,” she said. “The shifter world is a dangerous one even without factoring in Colonel Bradwell. They need protection.”
Dash nodded. “Yes, they do,” he said. “There’s only one way that I know for sure to keep them safe. We’re going to Lonesome Pine.”
“Seriously?” Isadora stared at him. She’d never thought that Dash would surprise her, but he’d been surprising her plenty over the last couple of days. Ditching the Wardens, hiding out with her, giving her so many orgasms she’d lost count, and now, risking everything to keep these kids safe…clearly she didn’t know Dash as well as she’d thought.
The fact that Dash wasn’t normally a rebel or rule breaker made it that much more meaningful that he was willing to break the rules for her.
“Yes. We’ve got kids in the picture now, and we’re up against mercenaries, and you’re right, we don’t know who in the shifter nation is a traitor and who isn’t.”
“If you do this, you run the risk of being exiled, just like Steele was,” Isadora pointed out. “I could just take the kids to Lonesome Pine by myself. I can claim I escaped from you.”
Dash shook his head. “It’s too dangerous for you to travel alone. I’m not leaving you guys. I mean, I’ve already ditched the Wardens and I called Steele since I’ve been here. If I’m going rogue, I might as well go all in.”
“I smell something,” Thomas said suddenly, looking off to the east. Isadora quickly moved in front of him.
“I do too. Wolf shifter,” Dash said.
They waited, and a couple of minutes later a shaggy haired man with a scarred face, wearing stained, faded jeans and a plaid shirt, came trotting through the trees. “I know him,” Isadora said. “His name is Pyotr.”