He had his arms draped across his chest and his hard green gaze fixed firmly on her. Waiting for an answer, so she provided one. “I can’t ask you to take a road trip with me.”
He studied her, his expression inscrutable. “Where are you going?”
“Maybe nowhere.” She deliberately turned her back on him and fixed Julio with what she hoped was a nasty glare. “Why not?”
He met her glare with a bland look. “Because I’m busy. Gotta hold down the fort while Carmen and Alec are in New York, dealing with the rest of the Conclave.”
It was a bullshit excuse. Andrew and Julio shared the same damn job, keeping the world running while Alec and his wife danced circles around the Conclave who led the wolves. If Andrew could take a few days off, Julio could too.
Unless he didn’t want to.
Kat held out her hand. “Can I have my papers back, then?”
He turned them over readily. “You gonna do what the email says? If I can’t go, that leaves Andrew.”
Yes, it left the man who stepped out of the doorway and plucked the papers from her hand. “What’s all this about, Kat?”
The human she’d known wouldn’t have waltzed into a conversation and seized control of it. He wouldn’t have assumed he had a right to know her plans. She’d avoided Andrew so successfully since he’d become a wolf that she had no idea who he was anymore.
Maybe it was only fair. The Kat he’d known wouldn’t have snatched the papers back, but she had no trouble doing it. “Someone has information I need, but they won’t give it to me unless I bring one of you along. They want protection from the Southeast council.”
Something flashed in his eyes—a bit of frustration, maybe anger. “The council protects those who need it. This person wouldn’t be trying to buy that protection unless he knew he couldn’t reasonably ask for it.”
She wanted to disagree, but how could she with the world cult plastered all over every page? “Yeah.
He or she might not be a stand-up guy. That’s why I’ve got a friend tracking them down.”
Andrew rubbed the heel of his hand over his forehead, a gesture she recognized as one that meant he was thinking hard. Considering all the possibilities. “When do you want to leave?”
Just like that. No questions, no conditions. They’d barely spoken in a year, and the bastard was ready to climb in a car and drive across three states on what was, in all probability, a wild goose chase.
God, she wanted to hate him.
Chapter Two
Sometimes, Kat was impossible.
They’d already passed Biloxi and she still hadn’t spoken to him, so Andrew took the next exit off I-10 and pulled over at a service station. “Can we talk now?”
“Sure.” She typed a few more words and closed the lid of the tiny laptop balanced on her legs. “My friend wants to know if there’s anything in particular you want him to track down about this lady we’re meeting.”
“I’m not talking about that.” He squinted against the glare of the morning sun and sighed. “Does your cousin know you’ve been turning over rocks, trying to find information on your mom?”
“Derek’s busy being married. And I’m not seventeen anymore. I don’t need his permission.”
“It isn’t about permission. It’s about someone having your back.”
Kat turned away and stared out the window, though there wasn’t much to look at beyond the whitewashed gas station wall. “He practically lives in Wyoming now. Even if he knew about this, there’s not much he can do from there.”
Not much, except help her find a way to navigate the psychological and emotional minefield she was tap dancing on. “Are you sure you want it? Whatever information this contact might have?”
“No, I’m pretty sure I don’t want it. I’m also almost completely sure I need it.” Her voice held a rough edge. “There’s something damn scary inside me, Andrew. You of all people know that.”
His hands twitched into fists on the wheel before he could stop them, a reaction to the flashes of memory that punched him in the gut when he thought about that night.
They’d come for Kat, and he’d tried to stop them. Tried, in his own weak, ineffectual way, and they’d nearly killed him. So Kat had opened herself to darkness to save his life, and it had nearly cost her her sanity.
She stiffened and flashed him a guilty look. “Shit, I’m sorry. That wasn’t—that has to be even worse for you. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“What happened with the strike team wasn’t your fault.” It was mine.
“It’s not—” She sighed. “I don’t want to play the shapeshifter blame game. You guys spend so much time fighting each other over who gets to be the biggest martyr. Isn’t it exhausting?”
If only that knee-jerk alpha reaction was the only reason he claimed responsibility for that night. “It’s like a marathon that never stops. Now, tell me about this woman.”
“Peace Kristoffersen.” Kat popped the computer back open and lifted one hand to shade the screen from the early-morning sun. “Forty-three, born in Seattle. Her parents dropped off the grid when she was five. Resurfaced in rural Alabama. From there it gets a lot less pretty.”
“Survivalist stuff?”
“I guess. A lot of DHR reports, but I haven’t read them all. That’s most everything until she got a GED when she was twenty-four and went to college. Nothing to say if she’s a psychic or spell caster or what, but that just means if she is one of us, she was smart about hiding it.”
He glanced over as he started the car again. “What’s DHR? Like child services?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how much of use is in there.” She still wasn’t looking at him, though now her body language seemed more nervous than hostile. “Usually I could dig this stuff up on my own, but it’s not as fast as some people think. So I called a friend. He said he could send anything you want, up to her bank records or last dentist’s appointment.”
Having the wrong person digging around like that could spell disaster. One bad move could draw the kind of attention no one wanted. “So she’s involved—or has been—with this cult.”
“I guess. Some of the reports make it sound like there was some crazy backwoods militia stuff going on, but I don’t know what my mom would be doing running with a cult in Alabama. Maybe the growing-up stuff was the normal human variety of crazy and this lady got mixed up with the psychics later.”
She needed to hear what this contact had to say, but she also had to prepare herself for what was to come. “It could be bullshit, you know,” he murmured. “A wild goose chase.”
“I know. It could be bullshit, or she could be crazy. I could be crazy for wasting your time.”
The sadness in her voice made his chest ache, and he regretted his harsh words. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to see you disappointed.”
If anything, sadness sharpened. “Disappointment’s not the end of the world.”
Plenty of people lived through that and worse every day, but it didn’t ease the pain she’d feel—or the way his own traitorous instincts would react to it. “We’ve got time to stop and eat if you want.”
“If you’re hungry. I’m fine.” She eased the netbook closed and set it on the floor between her feet before rubbing her hands against her jeans. “This is all kind of spectacularly awkward. I’m sorry you got stuck with it.”
Because their relationship for the last year or more had been one of constant awkwardness. Once upon a time, she wouldn’t have hesitated before coming to him for help, and he wouldn’t have felt the bone-deep need to warn her away from potential pain. He would have seen it through and picked up the pieces.