Her father grimaced.
“Okay, when I let someone else kill her, and save Tristan, then we’ll have a traditional human marriage ceremony and you can walk me down the aisle. Deal?”
“Just that little amount of stuff, huh?” Scott grinned at her.
Love him. Her wolf grinned.
Me too. She smiled.
“You look so much like your mother right now.” Scott touched her face, on her cheekbone, gently.
The gesture brought tears to her eyes. “People always say that to me, but with my red hair and green eyes, I look like your mother, not mine.” Summer looked like their mother. She always had.
“I don’t mean your physical looks. Here,” He touched her on her jaw line again.
“I’ve loved you your whole life, since the moment you were born. But for the last, I don’t know, twelve years, you’ve seemed so lost. Oh, you pretended to be in love with Tom.
Maybe you even did love him a little, but you always seemed hidden, like you weren’t complete. Your mother, she has this inner strength—I know it’s her wolf. She’s unmovable, secure, complete in herself. When I look at you now, we’re in the middle of a terribly dangerous time, and yet you seem more you than you’ve ever been before.”
Ashlee never got the chance to answer her father as their car pulled up, and the apologetic driver, who couldn’t believe how long it’d taken him to get out of the parking lot, hustled them into the car.
Here we go, Ashlee told her wolf.
Good. Tristan.
Yes, we will save Tristan.
Tristan knew Ashlee wasn’t on the island anymore. Anger surged within him to such an intensity he thought he might explode. Coupled with the sharp needles, the bee-stings, and the burns all over his body—even though he couldn’t see the injuries, he knew they were there—now he had to contend with a woman who had disobeyed him. He had told her what would happen if she left. He hadn’t been lying.
He sniffed the air. Parker was still outside on guard duty. “Parker, my old friend, what is happening to me?”
Silence met his query for a moment before he heard a chair scrape backwards on the floor. “Prince Tristan?”
“Where is Ashlee? Why am I in this room? Has something terrible happened?”
Believe me, he silently willed to the guard outside the door.
“Prince Tristan, perhaps I should get your brother.”
Bad idea, Michael would see right through his act. “Please, Parker, don’t leave me in here.”
“You have been struck down by the curse that destroyed our kin thirty years ago.
Ashlee has left the island, maybe that’s why you’re feeling better.”
Good. Tristan jumped from foot to foot with excess energy. “Won’t you open the door, Parker, so I could get something to eat? I will not leave this room if you like, but I cannot stand to be caged up any longer after my ordeal in the zoo.”
“I will open the door for you, Tristan, and then I’ll go and get your brothers.”
Tristan nodded and tried to put on his most sincere expression for when Parker opened the door. He heard the latch turn on the lock and the door flung open revealing a smiling Parker in front of him. It was a good thing Tristan had earned so much loyalty over the years for being trustworthy and dependable, otherwise he’d never have gotten Parker to open the damn door.
Not wanting to risk his luck, as soon as Parker was fully visible, Tristan leaped on top of him. Being superior in strength and agility, he easily knocked Parker to the ground.
But his opponent was a dominant wolf, and an alpha-class at that, so he didn’t immediately relent to Tristan’s attack.
Parker shoved back at Tristan and soon they rolled on the ground, each one gaining and then losing position.
Kill him and be done with it.
“But he is not Ashlee. Killing him will not stop the pain, my Alpha.”
Parker got a good solid grip on Tristan’s neck and pinned him to the floor. Tristan noticed that Parker’s eyes had gone wolf. In a moment, he would shift. “Who do you speak to, Tristan? Who controls you in this madness?”
“No one controls me, Parker, or you’d already be dead.” The burn that plagued Tristan started to creep onto the skin on his neck. Tristan raised his knee and smashed Parker in the groin. It was a low blow, and Tristan knew it, but it stunned Parker long enough for Tristan to regain the upper position in their fight.
Now subdued, Parker groaned in pain. Tristan slammed Parker’s head into the wall and his opponent lost consciousness.
“I told Ashlee what was going to happen. She didn’t listen, so now this whole place goes up in flames.”
Tristan lifted Parker off the ground and swung his body over his shoulder. He wouldn’t let him burn to death. After all, there was no sense in wasting a perfectly good hostage.
Chapter Ten
Ashlee’s first look at The Institute for Personal Achievement and Growth knotted her stomach. She raised her head to stare out the car window as they approached. The building, made of blank tan bricks, looked to be at least fifteen stories high. Two red-brick smokestacks towered above the building and blended into the landscape behind it.
No signs adorned the outside, no indication of what the institutional building was, and no neighbors for miles to hear anyone inside should they scream.
If all had gone according to plan, Gabriel and Cullen would be twenty minutes behind and ready to break in and out of the facility when she called them by cell phone.
Ashlee swallowed her fear; there was no time for anxiety now.
She had a job to do, and a love at home that needed her to do it. Her cell phone rang and she stared at her father in alarm. Michael had given her this phone in case of an emergency. Her father maintained eye contact with her for a moment without speaking as the ring continued. Finally, her Dad nodded to the phone. She looked down at it and answered it.
She gulped. “This is Ashlee.”
“It’s Az. Michael asked me to phone you. Tristan broke out. He has a hostage and he’s going to burn down the place if you don’t return immediately. We’re doing our best to not let this situation get out of hand, but don’t dawdle.” Ashlee heard Azriel exhale into the phone.
“I have no intention of wasting time.” Don’t dawdle? What the hell did they think she had come to Mexico to do, sunbathe? “Tell Michael I’ve just arrived at the IPAG and I expect him to do everything he can to keep Tristan safe until I get back.” She clicked off the phone. Her wolf howled.
Alpha! For now.
Ashlee grimaced. Her wolf was right. Interim or otherwise, everything inside of Ashlee rejected the idea of speaking in any way disrespectfully to Michael. Tristan would hate it. But, the woman she’d been raised to be, despite her breakdown over Tom, would not let her back down. Michael’s top duty needed to be to keep Tristan safe until she returned with the witch.
Remorse flooded her system. She picked up the phone and called Azriel back. He picked up on the first ring.
“Ash?”
“I didn’t mean to be as rude to Michael as I came across.” Her father raised an eyebrow at her. He’d never understand her trepidation and that was fine. Ashlee needed her wolf to settle down before they got out of the car.
Az laughed. “I altered the message you sent slightly when I relayed it to him, sister.”
Ashlee smiled. Sister. She was, for all intents and purposes, Tristan’s wife, which would make them her family now. “Thanks, Az.” She deliberately used his nickname.