Dark Lies (Magic Side: Wolf Bound 3)

I stood and hurried to the open door, where I crouched and motioned for Jaxson to speed up. “I’m going to jump!”

I saw his lips move, and I assumed he was saying, “Are you insane?”

“Do it!” I screamed, though I doubted he could hear.

The truck accelerated, but the van swerved again, and I had to cling to the side rail with my bound hands for dear life.

As we straightened out, Jaxson punched the accelerator and roared ahead. The swinging doors of the van clanged off his hood, and I leapt.

I landed on the hood with a loud thump, fear clawing at my chest as my hands grasped for a hold in the gap below the windshield.

Jaxson began to deaccelerate, but the van slammed on its brakes, and we had to swerve around it.

I dug in my fingers, but my grip slipped, and I flew off the hood.

Everything went in slow motion.

Pain ripped through my body as I hit the pavement and tumbled to the curb.

Jaxson braked hard, and Tony’s Jeep flew around the other side of him and ricocheted off the driver’s door of the white van. The van screeched to the right, then accelerated to top speed as the Jeep pursued in a hail of gunfire.

I climbed to my knees. My shoulder was out of place, my arm ached, and my head was ringing, but at least we’d slowed to half speed by the time I’d been thrown off the hood.

Standing up, I winced as my shoulder wound began to burn.

Suddenly, a woman’s voice gurgled behind me. “You think you’re free? Dragan is coming for you. You won’t escape.”

I spun.

It was the backwoods woman who’d first attacked me in Belmont. Blood poured from the laceration in her neck where she’d torn her own throat out in Jaxson’s jaws—several weeks ago.

I screamed.

Then Jaxson was there, hauling me to my feet. “It’s okay. You’re safe, Savannah. Are you hurt?”

The ghost was gone.

Either I was being haunted, or my brain had finally stepped off the deep end. I trembled in his arms. “I think I’m probably concussed, but I’m alive.”

He regarded the magicuffs on my wrists, anger hardening his features. “We need to get those things off you.”

Turning, he retrieved something from inside the truck—a pick. He jammed it into the side of the left magicuff, causing it to open.

I winced as my shoulder popped back into place, and the fracture in my forearm began to heal. “I’m going to cut out their fucking souls for this.”

Jaxson shook with rage, and his claws ripped out of his hands. “Not if I get to them first.”

“Hot tip: it was the jerks from the bar.”

He growled, and I could hear the deep anger and self-reproach in his voice. “I should have sent more wolves with you.”

Sam stepped up and slapped me on the back. “Damn, that was badass, Fury.”

“What? The part where I got abducted again?” I muttered bitterly.

“The part where you nearly fought off an ambush of four wolves, tore your way out of the back of a steel van, and then jumped onto a moving truck during a high-speed chase.”

“Oh. That.”

Jaxson gave me an approving nod, which sent butterflies spinning in my stomach. As much as Sam had come to mean to me, that small motion set me on fire.

“Is Tony okay?” I asked.

“They left him the moment they had you. He’s after them now and looking to redeem himself,” Jaxson said.

I put my hand on his arm. “Tony did what he could. This wasn’t his fault.”

He was a bit of a spook, but he’d fought for me.

“I know. This is my fault. I hold myself accountable,” Jaxson growled. His expression turned savage as he glanced up the deserted road, and then back at Sam and me. “Let’s get you home and cleaned up.”

Having just skidded across the pavement at high speed, I was scraped, bruised, and coated with blood, dust, and grime. I couldn’t imagine how bad I looked.

“Casey is going to lose his mind,” I said.

Jaxson shook his head. “Not the LaSalles’. My place.”

I tensed. “But—”

His eyes flashed gold. “You’re a wolf. Until this blows over, I’m not letting you out of my sight. Period.”

I sucked in a sharp breath as Jaxson’s alpha presence hit me like a sledgehammer. It wasn’t a gentle push, but rather an iron-hard directive, fueled by his rage.

Normally, I would have fought back, but I was so battered and bruised and drained that I just melted into it. For a moment, it was good to have someone else make decisions. And in all honesty, I didn’t know what to say to Casey. Or my aunt and uncle, when they got home.

There’d be so many questions I wasn’t ready to face. So many that I needed to ask—but that required a clear head, one thing I didn’t have.