“Don’t make me repeat it.” Noah groaned and lowered his hands. “I will hunt with you and help your mate keep you safe.”
And thus prove to the other wolves that their alpha had accepted her. “Thank you.”
Noah gave her a swift nod and turned on his heel. “Tomorrow night. I’ll meet you at the foot of the mountain.” He left without a backward glance.
“Well. That was surreal. Should I start looking for the cameras?”
Amara picked up her coffee. “Cameras?”
“Candid Camera. Jeez, what did Glinda allow you to watch on television? Gardening shows? This Old House?”
Well, those, but there were the other shows Glinda had allowed. Amara ticked them off on her fingers. “Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies, Tom and Jerry…”
“Thus explaining your strong desire to drop anvils on people.”
“Hey, it worked for Bugs.”
Amara tossed her empty coffee cup and waved goodbye to Rock. She was eager to start her night’s hunting, but first she needed to pick up Parker. She wrenched open the driver’s-side door of her jeep, eager to start.
“Hello, sweet.”
Amara screeched and slapped Parker’s stomach. “Don’t do that!”
Sitting behind the wheel, her vampire laughed and opened the passenger-side door for her. “In a hurry, are we?”
She ran around the hood and climbed in. She fastened her seat belt with shaking hands. “Shit. You damn near gave me a heart attack.”
“Sorry. Vampires tend to be good at the whole stalking thing. We can’t help it. It’s instinctive.”
She rolled her eyes and handed him the keys. “Fine. You’re in the driver’s seat. Drive. Base of the mountain, and hurry.”
His brows rose, but he started the jeep and burned rubber. “What’s going on?”
“Rock says Terri is hiding in some caves up on the mountain.”
“Ah.”
“If we can flush her out, we can use the forest to find her.”
He grinned.
“What? It’s a good idea.”
“I know. That’s why I mentioned it to Greer.”
“When did you see Greer?” Amara hung on to the grab bar and prayed for a clean death as Parker took a turn on two wheels.
“Tonight. He helped me in The Greenhouse with the heavy lifting.”
Her brows rose. “You wimp you.”
“I know. What can I say? Perhaps I should have my manly-man card taken away.”
“Oh, before I forget, I’m supposed to go hunting with Noah tomorrow. Eep!” Parker screeched around another corner, startling some fauns into running for cover.
“Noah, eh?” Parker’s tone was mild, but when he glanced at her, she could detect red glints in his eyes.
“He says he’s going to apologize to me publicly. He also offered to guard my back.”
“Good.”
“How do you think his pack will take that?”
“I really don’t give a flying fuck.”
Amara blinked.
“Okay, I could if I wanted to, but only with you. Noah doesn’t do it for me.”
She bit her lip. “Speaking of which, did you know the parking lot of the Sav-A-Lot has security cameras?”
“It does?” The jeep rumbled out of town, toward the forest and the base of the mountain.
“Yeah. Rock told me. I know these people. Our asses are going to be hanging out on YouTube.”
“Nah. Xtube.”
Amara groaned. “What the hell is Xtube?”
Parker grinned, showing his fangs “What do you think it is?”
“Oh Goddess.” She thumped her head against the seat. “What next?”
The road exploded in a shower of stones and dirt.
“Down!” Parker roared, ripping the wheel sideways and barely avoiding the poison sumac erupting from the ground. The treelike weed reached for the jeep, cracking the windshield faster than Parker could maneuver away. “Fuck!”
Amara ducked. At this speed there wasn’t much she could do, but she knew one thing for certain now: Terri was no longer hiding.
She glared at the sumac trees. “Oh hell. Floor it!” Creeping vines raced down the road after the jeep, leaping from the earth like dolphins in the surf. Parker cursed as the jeep surged forward in an attempt to stay ahead of the vines.
“If someone else comes along this road, they’re screwed!” Amara was moving so quickly she couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t commune with the plants alongside the road. As she made contact, the delicate thread was lost to distance.
If she was going to fight, she was going to have to get out of the jeep. “Stop the car!”
He glared at her. “Hell no.”
“I can’t fight if we’re moving at a hundred miles an hour!”
He snarled. “Hold on!” Parker spun the jeep, narrowly missing a tree. “Go.”
Amara leaped from the car and allowed her hamadryad nature to take over. Thick, flexible bark covered her skin. Leaves sprouted in her fiery curls. She grew three feet, and her clothes fell to shreds. Amara gave in to the fire burning inside her and roared, the sound a challenge and a call to the forest to aid its champion.
And the forest answered. Roots lifted, branches swayed as the forest came alive and prepared to do battle with the enemy. The trees raked at anything that came within reach, narrowing the field where the weeds could work to a thin section of the road that Amara could somewhat control. The underbrush kept the weeds from getting into the roots of the trees, protecting them from being destroyed.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Parker swoop out of the sky and rip into a vine. Bright blood dripped to the ground; he was wounded. The vines had thick, vicious thorns like the ones they’d fought before. They tore at his clothing, ripped into his exposed flesh. Too many wounds like that and he would go down or become lost in his beast.
Amara surged forward and ripped into one of the thorny vines, snagging a long, whiplike piece. She used it the same way she’d used a similar weed in Parker’s garden, scourging the plants, shredding them. She leaned down and got the thick trunk of one of the sumac plants and tore it from the earth. It was like watching an earthquake. The roots snaked almost twenty feet in every direction. She couldn’t get the leverage to get the damn thing out of the ground, no matter how hard she yanked.
“Give me that.” Parker grabbed hold and flew upward, pulling the sumac out of the ground and flinging it away with amazing strength. “I’ll deal with those. You handle that thorny son of a bitch.”
Amara nodded and turned her attention to the vine.
The yelp of a wounded wolf startled her. A huge black-and-gray wolf savaged one of the thorny vines, a tear in his shoulder dripping blood onto his dark coat. Amara grinned and turned back to her vine. Noah could handle himself.
“Holy shit! It’s resisting everything we throw at it!” Greer’s voice came up behind her. “Ash, you take the left. I’ll take the right. Mina, take center.”
“On it.” The dryads moved in sync, battling back the weed with flashing swords and ringing curses. Wherever those swords touched, weeds blackened and withered.
Where can I get me one of those? Amara flinched as a thorn came dangerously close to her vulnerable eyes. “Oh no, you don’t.” Amara grabbed and pulled, trying to ignore the way the vine wrapped around her arm. Those thorns could penetrate flesh but couldn’t dent the bark that covered her. With a vicious grin, Amara pulled it free of the ground and threw it, careful to avoid hitting one of her allies.
A deep scream of triumph shattered the night air. She glanced up to find Parker whirling the last of the sumac over his head. The vines were almost gone, the last pocket of resistance being slowly whittled away by Greer and Ash. Amara lifted her head and gave a triumphant shriek.