In a perfect world, we would run away together.

  In a perfect world, I would be able to finish my degree.

  Taking out my political science textbook, I stared at the cover, running my finger over the coloured Post-It notes I’d stuck in the pages. They marked important things I was supposed to remember—quotes, facts, ideologies. The scientific study of governments and their politics and policies; otherwise known as the subtle art of bullshitting your way into a position of power.

  Why was I still carrying my books around? The moment Chaser turned up at the Sailor’s Arms was the moment the life I was trying to make for myself dissolved into a dumpster fire. Then the part where I turned into a wolf cemented it. How could I go back knowing what I knew about the world? Vampires, werewolves, witches. I couldn’t.

  Slamming the boot closed, I locked the car and clambered down the rocks, my boots scraping all the way to the water’s edge.

  When I came back into view, Chaser straightened and watched me with interest.

  Staring out across the lake, I clutched the textbook against my chest. This felt like one of those pivotal moments in a Choose Your Own Adventure story. One path would lead me to certain death, one would be fraught with danger, and another would transport me right to the happy ending. I didn’t know which fork I was about to take, but I knew I couldn’t go back.

  Twisting to the side, I swung with all the strength I could muster and hurled the book into the air. It flew with surprising height and speed, then cannonballed into the lake, hitting the surface with a slap. The impact sent water everywhere, giving away that my werewolf strength had stuck around after the full moon had subsided…at least a little.

  “What did you do that for?” Chaser asked, raising an eyebrow. “I thought that book was important to you?”

  “I’ve been fooling myself,” I said, watching the water rise and fall in miniature tsunamis around the impact zone. “Thinking I could have this amazing life if only I believed… It’s a lie. No one’s going to give me a medal for participation in the human race.” I threw my hands into the air. “I don’t even belong to the human race anymore.”

  Sitting beside him, I sighed, not in the least surprised when he had nothing to add to my heartfelt declaration of despair.

  “Can we pretend?” I asked, my cheeks heating with embarrassment. “Just for today?”

  Chaser frowned, his brow creasing. I caressed his stubbled jaw, my heart aching. In a way, it felt like goodbye. I was giving up my dreams and resigning to a fate I couldn’t escape. Betty was making a comeback, and Sloane was crawling into her coffin.

  He didn’t move away at my touch. He stayed frozen in place like an elegant marble statue with glowing hazel eyes.

  “Just for a few hours…” I whispered.

  “Just for a few hours…” Chaser echoed.

  “I don’t get you sometimes.”

  “I thought we were pretending?”

  “The only thing we’re pretending is the nature of our road trip,” I retorted. “This… The way I feel when we’re together… I’m not pretending.”

  He said nothing, which didn’t surprise me.

  “I have no idea where we are anymore,” I said, staring up at the clouds. “I lost track somewhere around the border, but that already feels like it happened a week ago.”

  “That was yesterday,” he drawled.

  “You’re taking the long way on purpose.”

  “Yes…and no.”

  “You’re just trying to shake the tail of our mysterious pursuers,” I muttered, my heart cracking directly down the middle.

  Chaser tensed but didn’t offer any more of his mysterious thoughts. He really was pretending then.

  The lake had swallowed my future but hadn’t saved me from my fate. A werewolf who could turn at will, hunted by vampires and wolves alike. Why? What was the point?

  “All glory is fleeting,” Chaser whispered like some kind of mantra.

  So was love, by the looks of it. Flirtation, companionship, trust… It was all as fleeting as a fart in the wind. One pungent whiff and it was torn away in a stiff breeze so abruptly, you were never quite sure if you’d truly smelt it at all.

  “Is this unrequited?” I asked, knowing I was giving him an ultimatum. “Am I wasting my time?”

  “Are we still pretending?”

  I tensed. God, I was such a moron.

  I’d gone and gotten feelings for a vampire with over a century of emotional baggage—baggage that he’d avoided by turning off his humanity. I was a lost cause.

  “Forget about it,” I murmured, looked out across the water. “Forget about everything.”

  Chapter 20

  Chaser

  I stared at the lake and the gentle ripples on the surface, but I didn’t see it. Not really.

  Everything Sloane and I were doing was borderline suicidal, and it had nothing to do with the vampires on our tail.

  I glanced at her, fighting between telling her everything and saving her from a lifetime of punishment.

  I hadn’t expected her when I’d walked into that seedy pub or the feelings she’d stirred up since, and it felt like a betrayal to those who came before.

  Don’t disappoint me, Chaser. You know what happens when you do. Marini’s words came back to me with startling clarity. I was so screwed.

  “Sloane.”

  Her chin tilted up, and when her gaze met mine, I could see all the things she was trying to hide.

  She didn’t want to be like her mother—ending up tied to a man just as bad as her father had been. I rolled with Fortitude, and no matter my reasons, it was all the same to her. She’d done everything in her power to escape that life, and here I was, delivering her back to it.

  She was pushing me away without knowing the truth. I didn’t have it in me to explain, either. I wasn’t even sure she’d understand.

  Once our road trip was over, the fantasy would dissolve and be nothing but a memory. I would never see her again, she would never forgive me, and I would go back to the same mindless slavery I’d been living for the last century.

  “What?” she asked, glaring when I didn’t answer right away.

  “You can’t tell your father about us.”

  Her eyebrows rose.

  “He’ll kill me on the spot, and I’m not ready to die just yet.”

  “You said that without even twitching,” she drawled. “Just when I think I’ve got you pegged, you ruin everything.”

  “So?”

  “So, you just keep breaking my heart.”

  I frowned and turned my attention back to the lake.

  “You’re doing it again.”

  Pushing to my feet, I tossed her boots in her general direction.

  “Put your boots on,” I commanded, my mood souring. “We’re going.”

  She opened her mouth, and I turned before she could speak. I didn’t want to hear it.

  I didn’t want to hear anything.

  Chapter 21

  Sloane

  I spent the rest of the afternoon sulking—for lack of a better word.

  We were back in the car, my Poli Sci textbook floating somewhere in a lake behind us, and I was still drowning in an emotional limbo the size of the outback.

  We were driving through a long, flat expanse of nothingness. We were alone. No other cars or trucks had passed us for some time, and if I had it in me to pretend, then maybe Chaser and I would be the only two people left on the planet. I wished the world had ended and everyone else was gone.

  I could do it. I could survive in a world like that. The brutality of it was more romantic than the life waiting for me back at Fortitude.

  Alone in a long, flat expanse of nothingness. It was an epic metaphor for my current state of mind. Our pitstop back at the lake had been magical…until Chaser had switched off again.

  Push too hard and you could lose everything. Those were some words of wisdom right there.

  “I wish you’d tell me what is going on,” I said, studying the horizon. “It would make me feel a lot better.”

  “You keep asking, and I keep saying nothing,” Chaser drawled.

  “Don’t remind me. I feel like I’m on a merry-go-round I’m not allowed to get off.”

  “Full disclosure?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  My hopes raised. “Full disclosure.”

  “We’re being followed.”

  “Huh?” I twisted in the seat and looked out the back window. Sure enough, a black car was trailing us. It was a fair way behind, so I couldn’t see who was driving or how many people were inside, but it was there. “How do you know?”

  “I’ve been watching them for the past hour.”

  “An hour? Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

  Chaser grunted. “Because you don’t need to know the details. You just need to sit there.”

  “If that’s what you think I’m going to do, you haven’t learned a single thing about me,” I muttered. “I didn’t turn into a wolf to sit on my arse.”

  They were here for me. It didn’t make me feel any better that Chaser was here with his macho alpha bravado. He’d already killed four supernaturals to save my life, but this time was different. We were on an open road in the middle of a dust bowl.

  So much for taking the back roads to shake them off our tail. What a place to die.

  “So what do we do?” I asked, scowling. “Outrun them? Turn and fight?”

  “We’re on a secluded highway, and the closest town is kilometres away. We can’t outrun them in this car,” he replied. “And this isn’t the Wild West.”

  “So we’re screwed?” I turned, watching the dark-coloured car loom behind us.

  “That’s a matter of opinion.”

  “That’s just great. Who are these guys? Vampires or wolves?”

  He sighed. “I’m a vampire, not Superman.”

  I felt the car slow and my heart jackhammered in my chest. “What are you doing?”

  “They’re gaining on us,” he replied. “They’re making their move.”

  “Shit.” I turned and recoiled when I saw the black car quickly close the gap. “Chaser, I don’t like this…”

  “Stay calm, and do what I say,” he commanded.

  I didn’t mind his alpha mode right now. If it got us out of this alive, then he could turn the dial right up to a million if he wanted.

  “Sloane?” He glanced at me, then at the rearview mirror.

  “Yeah?”

  “Hold on.”

  The car lurched as we were rammed from behind. My head snapped forwards, and I jammed my palms on the dash to steady myself.

  “Tighten your seat belt, and cross your arms over your chest,” Chaser commanded. “If we roll, it’ll protect you.”

  I swallowed hard and did as he said, my hands shaking. “Chaser…”

  “It’ll be okay,” he murmured, glancing in the mirror. “It’ll be okay.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath and held on for dear life, putting all my trust in him, the man I wanted. I’d used the word love a few times in the confines of my own thoughts but never out loud. Did I want to say it? Did I want him to know? Was love what I really felt for him or was it just Stockholm syndrome?

  It was so not the time for an existential crisis.

  Movement caught my gaze, and I looked past Chaser, right into the eyes of a man in the other car. They’d flanked us, and now they were right there, and the man in the passenger seat was aiming a gun out the open window at us.

  “Get down!” Chaser roared.

  I slid down in the seat, screaming as the driver’s side window shattered. We swerved to the side as the black car sideswiped us, scraping metal jarring my ears. Chaser wrenched the wheel, trying to break away, then he jammed his foot on the brake before accelerating hard.

  I flew forwards, the glowing red taillights of the black car filling my vision as I was flung backwards. Tyres squealed as the other car braked, and before Chaser could correct our forward motion, they clipped us.

  The nose of the car went up in the air, and we spun. I screamed, unable to hold on to my terror.

  We landed on the roof and the windscreen cracked and shattered as we continued to roll. I tightened my grip around my body and tried to ride it out, but I felt a stinging pain erupt all over.

  Then…

  Groaning, I lifted my head off the ground, my vision blurring as the world came back into focus. Overhead, the sky was streaked with fire and blood. The sun was setting.

  How did I get here?

  I could see the car lying beside the highway in the distance. It was a hunk of twisted and broken metal, and behind it was the black car that’d rammed us.

  I must’ve lost consciousness when the car flipped, because I didn’t remember being flung out the window at all.

  Smoke rose from the twisted wreck, and the engine hissed and clicked in the silence. Where was Chaser? He couldn’t be dead. I wouldn’t let him die.

  My head throbbed and I rolled over with a groan. Red dirt stuck to my arms and coated my T-shirt. Spitting, I cleared the grit from my mouth. Nothing felt broken, but that didn’t mean much. Lifting my hand, it was coated with blood and I began to shake.

  This was shock, right? I was going into shock.

  Trembling, I checked my arm. My flesh was shredded—gravel rash—and I almost threw up, but the pain began to fade as I laid there.

  I risked another look at the grotesque graze and had to do a double take. My skin was healing, the flesh knitting back together, and then my arm was back to normal as if nothing had ever happened. The wound was gone and my head… All the pain had vanished.

  Bloody hell. I’d made the right call turning. It’d just saved my life.

  “It’s time to give her up, William.”

  I paused as a gravelly voice echoed across the distance. Raising my head as my faculties returned, I realised I’d been flung a startling distance from the car—about twenty or thirty metres into a ditch but I couldn’t be sure. It was far enough that they hadn’t found me yet, and I was good with that. I still had a chance.

  I couldn’t see anyone on the road or in the scrub either, which meant they must be standing on the other side of the wreck.

  The gun. I knew Chaser had put it in the glove compartment after things had started to ease between us. He’d trusted me, knowing I was stuck to him—he knew things about werewolves I needed to survive. Did he, though? Did he realise how deep my feelings ran?

  Shaking my head, I pushed to my knees and crawled towards the car. He either cared or his humanity was gone. Either way, knowing his true intentions wouldn’t help me now.

  Crawling towards the car, my gaze darted around, looking for signs of the mystery men. If they were vampires, I’d have to be careful. Move as silently as possible. Maybe they’d already smelled the blood, but there was a chance Chaser was bleeding, too—maybe it’d mask my location.

  Nothing stirred, so I kept moving, gravel digging into my palms. I’d made it to the road unseen. Through the broken window of the car that’d taken us three-quarters of the way across the country, I spied the glove compartment. It was within reach and all I had to do was…

  Two men loomed on the other side of the wreck, and I hesitated.

  Chaser was on his knees, his head lowered. An unknown man stood over him and the gun in his hand steadily pointed at Chaser’s temple.

  My heart twisted, and I forgot all about vampires, werewolves, and my stupid father.

  Reaching into the car, I popped open the glove compartment, wincing as the sound echoed. There was a rattle as whatever was inside scraped across plastic.

  “I won’t ask again,” the man said. “Where’s the girl?”

  “Woman,” Chaser replied, his voice rasping. “She’s a woman.”

  “A debt has to be paid, William. If you deny us now, I wonder how long it will take for Fortitude to find out what’s really going on here. How long will it be before you die?”

  “Not long at all,” Chaser declared. “You’ll have to shoot me before you take me alive, and you’ll have to shoot me before you lay a single finger on her.”

  Holding my breath, I picked up the gun and pulled my hand back through the broken window.

  Checking the magazine, I counted my lucky stars—it was fully loaded—and edged away from the wreck.

  How was I going to do this? The man’s finger was on the trigger, which meant if I shot at him, he could pull the trigger and kill Chaser. Even if I hit the guy, he could still fire. I saw no other choice.

  I had to kill him before…but how? Chaser was on his knees, which meant I had to go for the headshot, or at least the torso. If the man didn’t drop on the first shot, I had to be prepared to fire again. No hesitation.

  God, help me.

  Rising from behind the car, I aimed at the man and fired. A boom echoed across the desert, and I stumbled back as I failed to absorb the kickback through my arm and shoulder.

  The man stumbled and clutched his shoulder, turning towards me with a grunt.

  I recovered, adrenaline searing through my veins and stabbing my heart. I fired again, and this time, the bullet found its mark.

  It imbedded in his chest, splattering red, and he dropped the gun with a surprised grunt. Falling to his knees, the man’s skin withered, his veins bulged, and his entire body turned grey before he fell face-first onto the road.

  I’d gotten him in the heart, the wooden bullet putting an end to him.

  “Sloane.”

  I jumped as I felt Chaser’s hand curl around mine. He untangled my trembling hand from the gun and clicked the safety on, then he turned me away from the road and the spreading death.

  “We have to be careful,” I muttered. “There could be more of them.”

  “There were two,” he replied. “I got the other one.”

  I stared at him, shock setting in. He’d moved so fast, it hadn’t even registered.

  “Are you okay?” His eyes sparkled in the twilight, and I was almost fooled by the panic I saw in them.

  “I was thrown from the car…” I glanced over his shoulder at the outback beyond.