Alyssa tried not to let her anxiety show. She didn’t like driving in this area of town. Hell, she didn’t like driving in any place she didn’t know the people and the streets like the back of her hand. What she did know about this neighborhood was it hugged the Bernd Creek, one of the tributaries into the River Rouge, and it was not a nice place to raise kids. It was also weird as hell to drive at twenty miles per hour while Simon and Vic stuck their noses out the open windows like dogs. They were trying to be subtle about it, but in this neighborhood, even her beat-up Chevy stood out.
“Which direction, Simon?” She tried to keep her voice low and soothing—more for her brother than herself—but every part of her screamed, Leave now.
“Feeling anxious?” Simon asked, his voice low. Then he kept talking before she could answer. “It’s a low-level psychic thing some shifters can do. A subtle territorial thing. I remember it being strong in the Griz leader.” He touched her arm in a slow stroke. “If you’re feeling it, then we’re getting close.”
“I feel it in most of Detroit.”
“Nah, you don’t,” Vic said from the backseat. “Not this prickling scalp anxiety.”
Simon turned his startled gaze onto Vic. “You can feel that?”
“Like a zillion paper cuts all over my skin.”
“Let me know when it feels like barbed wire.”
Vic rolled his eyes and drawled, “Oh goody.”
Simon turned back to the window. “It’s a special sensitivity, Vic. That’s a good thing.”
“Tell that to my skin.”
Simon didn’t answer as he squeezed Alyssa’s arm.
“What?” she asked.
“Huh?” He looked back at her.
She arched a brow, but he was obviously clueless. He clearly didn’t even realize he had squeezed her. Or stroked her. Or any of the hundreds of ways that he had been touching her today. There wasn’t anything overtly sexual in any of it. If there had been, she would have slammed him against a wall. She did not want a repeat of last night. Not when she’d sobbed on his shirt or let him carry her to bed. And nothing like what she would have let him do if he’d pushed last night in bed.
She was not having sex with Simon. It was a ridiculous thought despite her fantasies. Vic was in trouble, there were dangerous gangs involved, and only a moron would throw sex into the middle of that.
And yet every time he touched her skin, her entire body followed the stroke or squeeze. Her mind zeroed in on the sensations, her breath hitched, and her skin tingled. Like full-on tingles followed by heat. Not just on her skin, but inside deep where her womanly hormones were getting all revved up.
She hated it.
And yet, part of her sank into the feelings. How long had it been since she’d gotten revved up about anyone? Exactly two years, eight months, and a handful of days. That was when Simon had last visited with Vic. And that’s when her fantasies of the hot army engineer had taken over her nighttime imagination.
“This is not the time or place,” she grumbled under her breath. Too bad neither Simon nor her libido listened. He continued to touch her arm, and she continued to allow it.
Then suddenly he jerked her arm and pointed.
“There,” he said.
“Oh hell,” Vic moaned. “We’ve gone beyond barbed wire to axes and machetes on my skin.”
Simon looked back at her brother. “It’ll ease over time. Or when the leader decides he wants to talk to you.”
“Peachy,” Vic growled between clenched teeth.
Alyssa slowed the car down, taking her time as she drove past a converted storefront. It looked like it used to be an Ace Hardware, since no one had ever bothered to bring down the old signage. But black curtains covered the four large glass windows and a single poster by the door declared it to be “Kuma Dojo” with a grizzly bear silhouette as its logo. Pretty obvious to her, but even without all that, she would’ve known they’d found the right place. The smell was rank even on the street. Like Vic at his worst. And that psychic stay-the-hell-away had her knuckles white as she clenched the steering wheel.
“Drop me off here,” Simon said. “Come back in an hour.”
God, she wanted to. Not the leaving him behind part, but anything that got her the hell away from that dojo. Instead, she parked her car right across the street from the dark curtained doorway. Simon hopped out, but then so did she and Vic.
“We’re just going in there to talk,” she said as much to herself as anyone else. “That’s not dangerous. That’s normal civilized conversation.”
“Except they’re animals,” Simon said. And then he shook his head. “You’re an idiot for following,” he said to her, but then focused on Vic. “And you keep it together or I’ll rip your head off myself. Got it?”
Vic didn’t answer. His skin was gray and his mouth pinched tight with pain. It had to be those axes and machetes he’d been talking about. But even with that, he was still following with one determined step after another.
Alyssa didn’t know whether to be enormously proud of her brother or terrified for their stupidity. Both, probably. Nevertheless, they all walked together across the street. Until Simon held up his hand.
“Stay behind me, no matter what. And when I say run, you run. Hard.”
She nodded and Vic did, too. Honestly, she wanted to be strong here, to back Simon up however he needed. But every step closer to the building had her knees weakening and her heart fluttering at panicked levels. She was really afraid that if he told her to run, she’d take the excuse and bolt. And she wouldn’t stop until she was in Canada.
In this she was unexpectedly helped by the stench in the air. Hard to run when she was gagging for breath. She glanced at her brother who was shaking his head.
“It’s not from me,” he said, as he showed her his bare and very humanlike hands.
“No,” said Simon as he put his hand on the door. “It’s from inside.” Then he hauled the glass door open and went in.
They followed a step behind, pushing through the dark curtain just as Simon had. But Alyssa never got farther than a half step before she felt Simon’s hand press flat on her belly.
“Run,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “Now.”