Alec nodded and twisted in his seat. «Carmen, honey? We’re here.»
«I’m up.» She blinked and lifted her head, the red imprint of the seat standing out on her cheek. «Yeah, I’m up.»
She was rumpled, red-eyed and entirely disheveled, and it was adorable. Endearing. Less endearing was the fact that he was a forty-four-year-old man thinking words like adorable in the middle of a damn crisis. Get a grip, idiot. «Don’t have to stay up for long. It’s not even five. I’m sure no one will mind if we sleep for a couple hours.»
«I used to be able to do this,» she said ruefully. «Now I have regular shifts with occasional call. Working for Franklin has spoiled me.»
Nelson laughed. «Jake and Frank have gone soft. All this nice, cushy civilian living. I could tell you some stories from back in the day…»
God only knew what Franklin had already told her about their less-than-glorious days as supernaturals hiding in a very human army — or worse, their even less glorious days as guns for hire. «Thought you needed to get to California.»
Carmen chuckled as she gathered her bag and rose. «Mr. Nelson, if you consider them soft, then you must be far scarier than you appear to be.»
Nelson flashed her a flirtatious grin that had Alec’s fingers curling toward his palm. The urge to hit him didn’t diminish when he affected a southern drawl so «good ole boy» it even out-did Jackson. «Well, ma’am, that’s ’cause all that growlin’ just lets people know they’re comin’.»
Alec bit back a growl — barely. «We’ll call you.» Then he got the hell out of the plane before he punched his friend in the face.
Luciano climbed out of the first pickup, bleary-eyed and unshaven, and stopped short when he got a good look at Alec’s face. «Welcome to Wyoming. Got the guesthouse all set up for you.» He nodded to Carmen. «Ma’am.»
«Carmen Mendoza.» She held out a hand.
Luciano glanced at Alec again, a quick, almost furtive look, before shaking her hand quickly. «There’s room for all of us in this truck, but Dr. Mendoza’ll have to squeeze into the backseat.»
Shoving her into the back wasn’t the polite thing to do, but it would put her farther away from Luciano, and the boy wasn’t a fool. After thirty-six hours together, Carmen had Alec’s scent on her skin in a way a shower wouldn’t erase, and his temper was legendary.
Plus, he had kidnapped the kid and locked him in a cage.
Everyone was watching him, waiting for a response. The wind held a bitter edge, a hint of snow even in mid-April. The most important thing was getting Carmen someplace warm. He took her bag and his own and dropped them into the bed of the truck. «I’ll be fine in the back.»
«Your legs are longer,» she urged. «Sit in the front.»
Luciano ignored them both in favor of climbing into the truck, and Carmen followed suit by opening the half-door that led to the tiny backseat. Once in the truck, Alec did his best to polish up his manners. «Thanks for letting us come up here with no notice.»
Luciano laughed. «I thought Michelle as much as ordered you up here.»
«She lit a fire under Gus’s ass, but I wasn’t sure if that was on purpose.»
The other man’s humor faded with a quick look at the rearview mirror. «I think it might have been, yeah.»
So much for that hope. Alec forced a change of topic to keep his fear from growing strong enough for Carmen to sense. «I tried to call Nicole before we left, but it went straight to voicemail. I’m guessing Kat couldn’t talk Nicole and Derek out of flying down there to check on her?»
«They left yesterday. Last night.»
He wished Kat all the luck in the world talking her cousin down. At least it would keep her out of trouble…and he wouldn’t have to deal with Nicole’s smartass commentary on his too-obvious concern for Carmen. «What about the Alpha?»
«Someone escaped from Conclave custody, Jacobson. The Alpha flew back to New York to deal with the fallout.»
So the disappearance of Kat’s attacker was being taken seriously. One less thing he had to worry about. «Michelle didn’t want to see us right off, did she? I could use a couple hours of shut-eye.»
«She’s asleep.» This time, he looked away from the rough ranch road long enough to turn back and smile at Carmen. «Late breakfast around ten?»
«Thank you,» she murmured.
Five hours to get some sleep. Alec could only hope that would be enough to deal with whatever came next.
Michelle Peyton Maglieri didn’t look like she’d been up all night with a two-week-old baby.
Carmen never would have known, except that the proof of it lay beside Michelle in a white bassinet, drowsing as she sipped her herbal tea. He was small, maybe too small to have been delivered at term, but he looked healthy. Strong.
She forced her attention back to the Seer. «You didn’t have to see me so early, but thank you.»
Michelle smiled, warm but a little worn around the edges. «He’ll be up in a while anyway, and you would have heard him from the guesthouse.»
«He’s beautiful.»
«I think so.» Michelle set down her cup and reached out to smooth the edge of the blanket before touching her son’s cheek. «I admit to my share of maternal bias. But you didn’t come all this way to see my son.»
«No,» she admitted. «I’m here because of magic I didn’t ask for and know nothing about.»
Michelle faced Carmen. A tiny crease appeared between her eyebrows as she narrowed her eyes. «Yes. It’s still tangled around you. Powerful magic, and reckless. I was afraid of that.»
How could she explain the lengths to which her father had gone, whatever his reasons? «Is it…dangerous?»
«Yes.» Gentle, but uncompromising. «Trying to make a shapeshifter with magic is no safer than trying to turn a human through violence. It’s a hundred times more dangerous when there’s already magic involved. In your case, more than one kind of magic.»
Carmen willed her hands to wait until she’d set her cup aside before they began trembling. «Dangerous to me or to others?»
«Potentially both.» Michelle held out her hands. «If you let me, I can put shields in place. A temporary measure, but it will protect you and the people around you until I can figure out how to unweave the spell.»
The Seer was a brand-new mother, and a closer look revealed the beginnings of dark circles of exhaustion under her eyes. «Will it wait?»
«For a day or two. Mahalia is still here, and she has experience and finesse that I lack.»
The spell her father had paid for was fractured, broken. It would take a Seer and another witch, one Alec had talked about with deep respect, to dissolve the shards of magic that could still make her bleed.
Carmen knew she should be frightened—needed to be — but all she felt was numb. «You and your husband are very kind for having me here.»
Michelle’s lips pressed together, and the first hint of emotion broke through her excellent shields — pain. «Our society seems to have no boundaries in how far it will go to protect status and prejudice. My child lost his father, Alec lost his wife…and you could have died. Anything I can do to stop them is more selfish than selfless, believe me.»
«Whatever your reasons, I’m grateful.»
«It’s noth—»
A tiny cough drifted up from the bassinet and, in one heartbeat, the confident Seer melted away, replaced by a frantic new mother who lifted her son into her arms with an expression that bordered on panic.
The baby fussed at being woken so unceremoniously, and Carmen watched Michelle for a moment before rising from her chair. «May I look at him?»