Chapter Eleven
Cullen kept Ivy close as Ty leaned back in his seat, clasping his hands loosely in front of him. “Before we start talking about war, you should know that Ivy has leveled a serious charge against you.”
“Oh, let me guess. She claims I killed my wife.”
“Did you?”
Garland crossed his legs. “She was nothing. Less than nothing. By the laws of the Lookout Mountain clan, I had the right to cull a weak wife.” He gave a shrug. “So, I did.”
Ivy shuddered and turned her face into Cullen’s shoulder, while he fought to stay at her side. He wanted nothing more than to “cull” this weak, bullying excuse of a bear.
“You admit it?” Mia’s shock shrilled her tone and paled her face.
“Skins have no rights in my clan,” he told her, making her pale further. He gave her a once-over and, like before, decided she was insignificant. “If you can’t shift, you have little value. I had hoped with Bayleigh I’d get cubs that could shift, since they’d be three-quarters bear, but it was not to be.”
“So, you killed her?” Mia exclaimed, taking a step away from Ty.
Her mate grabbed her wrist and hauled her into his lap. Once she was settled there, a mutinous expression on her face, he looked at Garland. “You need to watch yourself here. We don’t subscribe to the same disgusting points of view that you and your clans have.”
Garland shrugged. “Makes no difference to me, you do or you don’t. When I ended Bayleigh, I didn’t break any laws.”
“And your purpose for pursuing Ivy here? You lookin’ to mete out the same measure of punishment to your daughter?”
“You mean Eden, don’t you?” Garland shot a look at her, disdain written in every line of his ugly face. “Don’t matter a-tall what you’re callin’ yourself, girlie. You fucked up. Give. Me. My. Daughter.”
Cullen saw Ty tighten his grip on Mia when she opened her mouth, probably to call out this bastard for cussing. Well, she’d better get used to it for the next few minutes, because Cullen was about to let loose, too.
“I think Ivy has been more of a parent to Bella in the last week than you’ve been the entirety of that poor girl’s young life.” Cullen narrowed his eyes. “And if you don’t start treating her and my Itana with some fucking respect, you won’t like what happens.”
Fur rippled along Garland’s cheeks. “You threatenin’ me, cub?”
“He is,” Ty said. “As am I. We do things differently here in Grayslake, and one of the things we do differently, I guess, is that we protect and cherish our females and cubs. The strong always protect the weak. Always. They never prey on them, especially when they’re members of their own clan.”
Cullen sensed Ivy’s discomfort and tightened his grip on her hand in a show of support. No wonder she’d taken Bella and run. Garland Scott was mean, and dangerous, and obviously wouldn’t think twice about ending the two females’ lives.
Well, he’d have to go through quite a few Grayslake bears before that could happen now.
Garland stared at him a moment before the fur faded from his face. Inclining his head, he said, “I apologize. My concern for my daughter has, perhaps, clouded my judgment.”
“May I be excused a moment?” Ivy asked, her voice quiet. Small. “I need to use the ladies’ room.”
Ty looked at her askance.
“Truly.” She pulled her hand free from Cullen’s grip. “I won’t try anything.”
He gave a brief nod.
“I’ll show you where it is, honey,” Mia said. The two women left the room.
Cullen stared at the closed door for a minute, unease drifting through him. Ivy had sounded defeated. Scared. He didn’t like it. Neither did his bear. He turned back to Ty and Garland.
After several minutes, while Ty and Garland mostly stared at each other, Mia came back into the room. “Um, Ty? Can I talk to you for a minute?”
The Itan’s eyes narrowed, then widened and shot to over her shoulder. “Where’s Ivy?”
“Um…”
“Mia, my Itana,” he said warningly.
“Ivy-went-out-the-bathroom-window,” she said all in one breath. “She’s gone.”
Garland shot up out of his seat.
“Sit,” Ty bellowed. When the other man didn’t comply, Ty let loose another roar. “You will sit down.” As soon as Garland plopped back down, Ty turned his attention onto Cullen. “You. Get to the B & B. Find Van. Track down those three females and bring them back here.”
Cullen nodded and took off. His truck was gone, so he surmised Ivy must have taken it. The keys were in his pocket, so the only way she’d started it had to have been to hotwire it. Little minx.
God damn it. Why couldn’t she have trusted him? Hadn’t he and his bear been showing her that they would protect her?
But if she’d never gotten that from her clan of origin, she wouldn’t know it for what it was. He’d just have to show her.
He shouted at one of the single bears sitting on the wide front porch. “Keys!”
He caught the keys midair and ran to the other truck in the driveway. He made it in record time to Lucy’s, barely shoving the gear lever into Park before he threw open the door and bounded up the porch stairs.
“Where’s Van?” he barked at Lucy behind the reception desk.
“Upstairs, outside of Ivy and Presley’s room,” she responded without missing a beat.
Cullen took the stairs two at a time, bursting onto the second floor. Van, sitting on the hallway floor, jumped to his feet. “What?”
“Are they in there?” Cullen asked, gesturing toward the door.
“Who?”
“Ivy! Presley and Bella.”
Van frowned. “I haven’t seen Ivy. I thought she was with you at the clan den.”
Cullen scowled. “She snuck out of a bathroom window.” He knocked on the door. When there was no answer, he knocked again. “Ivy?” He tilted his head, listening. Nothing. Drawing a deep breath, he sifted through the scents in the air. Their scents were old, waning.
With a roar, he kicked open the door. The bed was disheveled and, as he looked closer, he saw the sheets had been stripped. He walked over to the balcony and, sure enough, the bedlinens were tied to the railing. He went past Van on a run. “They’ve rabbited!”
Pounding footsteps behind him told him Van followed. Cullen threw himself behind the wheel of his borrowed truck, starting it up and shoving it in reverse, barely giving Van time to climb in on the passenger side. “Which way you think they’re headed?” the Itan’s brother asked.
“She told me she was heading toward South Carolina, but I think that was a lie.” Cullen did a three-point turn and sent the pickup rumbling down the driveway to the main road. “I think they’ll go south, pick up I-75 and head into Florida.”
“Why not west?”
“The father of the baby is from Scottsville. She won’t want to go into Alabama at all.”
“Ah.”
The diesel-powered pickup ate up the miles.
“Do we know what she’s driving?” Van asked after several minutes.
“My own goddamned truck,” Cullen admitted through gritted teeth.
Van barked out a laugh. “Well, hell, buddy. I’m sure glad to see this mating business isn’t giving you any easier of a time than it has the rest of us.”
“Fuck off.”
Van laughed again. “There it is,” he said, pointing at a black pickup about a mile ahead of them.
Cullen put the pedal to the metal and they caught up with Ivy and the others in two minutes. He pulled up next to her and honked the horn. When she glanced his way, her eyes widened.
Van rolled his window down and yelled, “Pull over.”
Her lips thinned, and she shook her head. And actually sped the fuck up.
Cullen growled and increased his speed. Van yelled at her again. When she once again ignored his command, he let loose a roar that made Cullen’s eardrums hurt.
Cullen glanced her way and saw Presley talking to her. Ivy shook her head. He looked in the back seat and little Bella was wailing away in her car seat, obviously not a happy baby.
He could see the moment Ivy decided she had no other options left open to her. She began slowing the vehicle and directed it onto the side of the road. Cullen pulled over in front of her. “Careful,” he warned Van when the other Enforcer hopped out of the truck. “She might try to take off again.”
“That’d be a mighty poor decision on her part,” he muttered.
Cullen walked to the driver’s side and rested his forearm on the now open window. “You said you wouldn’t try anything.”
That stubborn chin lifted. “I didn’t try. I did.”
He huffed a sigh at her semantics. “Okay, Yoda.” He leaned in a little closer. Keeping his voice quiet, he asked, “Why’d you run?”
“Your Itan is going to give Bella back to her father.” She blinked, her eyes wet, but the cantankerous female didn’t let any of tears spill over. “I can’t allow that. If we have to be on the run for the rest of our lives, that’s what we’ll do. But Bella will not spend another second with that son of a bitch.”
He leaned over so he could get a good view of Presley. “That’s what you’re willing to do, too? Run forever?”
Presley grimaced. “I told her it was a bad idea.”
“Presley!” Ivy glared at her friend and then turned her heat onto Cullen. “What assurances can you give me that Bella won’t go back to that cold-blooded, murderous bastard?”
Cullen glanced at Van, standing by Presley’s open window. The Itan’s brother said, “Ty isn’t going to let a male, who outright admitted he killed his wife, take a vulnerable child back into his household. He’ll come up with a solution, I guarantee that.”
“So, I’ll get to keep her?” Ivy asked, her voice and face filled with hope.
“Uh, I didn’t say that,” Van mumbled. “If Garland Scott complains about it, you won’t be given custody, Ivy. But someone from Grayslake will, and I can promise you they’ll love her like their own.”
“But—”
“Ivy, right now that’s the best we can do,” Cullen told her gently. He pulled open her door. Now, scoot over. We’ll go back to the den and face the music. Together.”