Chapter 5

Nickie gasped at the fist sign of pressure in her chest. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not again. She’d found her phoenix match. Her mate. She’d freed him from his chains. He’d promised he would come find her. Damn it. Nowhere in any of that was he supposed to die, putting her through another fucking heart attack.

She forced herself to relax and breathe as normally as she could. No way was she telling Jasmine that her chest was aching. She’d freak the hell out. Usually, between her bouts with death, they had a few months, and Jasmine had a bit of time to get over the shock and the fear. Doing this to her twice in one day? No, it couldn’t happen.

“What’s wrong?” she asked from her spot in the passenger seat.

Couldn’t you, just once, not be paying attention? She adjusted her hands on the steering wheel and glanced out the rearview mirror again. They’d been the last to leave, and she could barely see the dust the other two SUVs kicked up anymore. She had a sinking feeling the others would have taken their vehicle, too, had they had the keys to start the damned thing. “Nothing. I’m just worried about him, that’s all.”

She could still see that unnatural cloud in the distance, churning and expanding like an evil entity bent on chaos.

“Don’t even think about it. He told you to go, remember? He’ll be okay. He’s a fucking phoenix, for fuck’s sake.”

Crap. She chanced a glance at Jasmine, who’s gaze was trained on her. She didn’t think twice about swearing, but when the f-word came flying out that much, it meant she was scared.

“Maybe I should drive,” she offered.

Under any other circumstance, she would have agreed, but her gut told her to keep moving. Whatever created that storm wouldn’t have any trouble crossing a few miles to get to them. And from what Zenon had said, that was the last thing they wanted.

“I’m okay, really,” she lied. Kind of. The pressure in her chest was still there, but the stabbing pain that usually accompanied it wasn’t. And she wasn’t having trouble catching her breath. Although her heart thundered against her ribs, she now suspected it was more from fear and adrenaline than an actual heart attack.

“Fuck. Okay. But if you start panting, I’m taking over.”

As serious as the situation was, Nickie couldn’t help giggling. “I’m not a dog. I do not pant.”

“Oh yeah? Tell me that when you can’t breathe, sweat drips down your face, and your lips go all cyanotic. Did I ever tell you that I hate blue now because of you? Before all this, I loved the damned color.”

She bit her cheek to keep from laughing. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure Jasmine out. She was distracting her. And it worked. The pressure in her chest loosened to the point she hardly felt it. “That’s not true. I’ve known you forever, and pink has always been your favorite with red coming in a close second.”

“Well, blue came in at five or six, so yeah, you ruined it for me.” Even Jas couldn’t keep her straight face with that one. “Okay, so it was eighth. You wrecked my eighth favorite color. You owe me more ice cream.”

A crack of thunder so loud it made them both scream exploded behind them.

“What the fuck was that?” Jas yelled as she whipped her head around to look through the back window.

Nickie gripped the steering wheel so tight the leather squeaked. “Shit. I never should have left him.” It didn’t matter that he wasn’t human or that he could handle whatever that had been. Something deep inside her clenched hard at the thought of him in danger.

“What the ever-loving fuck?” Jas said in a horrified whisper that had her slowing the vehicle down.

“No, don’t stop. Go!” Jasmine yelled, but her gaze was locked behind them.

Nickie tried to see what had Jasmine so freaked out, but all she glimpsed was a blurry streak in the sky in her side mirror. With renewed determination, she stepped on the gas, making them both lurch at the sudden acceleration. They were only a few miles from the paved road that would take them to the interstate. Civilization was still hours away, but at least it was maintained, and they’d be able to get some real distance between them and the nidhogg, whatever that was.

They’d almost made it to the intersection when two trucks barrelled onto the dirt road, kicking up dust, obliterating her view of the stop sign ahead. The one at the back fishtailed in the loose gravel. Damn it. They were probably kids whose parents had more money than sense, and they were heading straight into trouble.

Nickie slammed on the brakes.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Jasmine asked. “We can’t stop.”

Nickie released her seatbelt. “So, we should just let them die?” she asked, her hand sweeping toward the trucks closing the distance between them. Before Jasmine could say anything else, she opened her door and hopped out, swinging her arms in the air to gain their attention before they tore past them.

For a second, she didn’t think they’d stop, but with a flurry of dust, the truck skidded to a halt only feet from her. An enormous man, bigger than any she’d seen—other than Zenon—dropped from the elevated cab.

He had to be at least six feet tall. Wide shoulders. With muscles bulging all over him, he could snap her in two if he wanted to. Nope, these weren’t kids out hot-rodding, that was for damned sure. A knot formed in her gut. She should have kept driving. The roiling clouds in the sky back from where they’d come were lighter than they had been but still there.

“What are you doing out here?” he demanded more than asked. He gave her a quick once-over, then, apparently deeming her unimportant, opened her back door and peered inside at their gear.

“Hey, what are you doing?” she asked, putting as much confidence and power as she could into her voice. If she’d have had any hope of stopping him, she would have. But the guy was seriously huge.

He didn’t look at her. Another man came around the vehicle and pulled Jasmine from where she’d been already exiting the vehicle, no doubt coming to her rescue. “Don’t you fucking touch me,” she yelled at the guy, but the man ignored her, hoisting her off her feet.

“I asked you a question. What are you doing out here?” the first guy asked with a cold, hard stare that left her reeling. His black T-shirt strained against his chest as he flexed, trying to intimidate, but what the asshole didn’t know was that she wasn’t easily frightened. She’d dealt with bullies before and lived to tell the tale. But they were in the middle of nowhere. Any weapons they had were stowed in the back of the SUV, and they were outnumbered. She wasn’t about to poke the proverbial bear. She wasn’t that stupid.

“Hands off, buddy,” Jasmine screamed as she struggled against the guy who carried her to where Nickie was and deposited her none too gently next to her. “We were just going to find a spot to go camping for the night, but there’s a wicked storm happening back there, so we turned around. Must be a sandstorm or something. Clouds don’t look so bad from here, but up a few miles, and it’s scary powerful,” Jasmine said.

Nickie could have kissed her friend. The vibes coming off those men were dark and slimy. Whatever they were doing out there, it was nothing good, she was certain of it. “Yeah, I wouldn’t go that way if I were you,” Nickie added.

Another car door slammed, and a man dressed in army fatigues and hefting a gun she probably couldn’t even lift stalked over, scowling at them all. “What the fuck is the holdup?” he snarled.

“Woah. Hey. Calm down there, big boy,” Nickie said, taking a step back. “We don’t want any trouble.”

The one with the gun came so close, she could’ve touched him with her nose if she’d leaned forward a few inches. “This is private property. You shouldn’t be here.”

Rather than tell him to go fuck himself—what she wanted to do—she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and looked up at him through her lashes. “You’d think there would be signs posted. What does it matter anyway? We just got here, and we’re leaving.”

The man sneered down at her, the jagged scar bisecting his right cheek jumping as he ground his teeth. “There are signs, and you’re trespassing.”

She let her eyes go wide, gasped, and flicked her gaze over to Jasmine. “We didn’t see any signs. We didn’t mean anything by it.” Of course, they’d seen the signs. There’d been three, but they’d ignored each one. Hell, if she turned and looked the way they came, she’d probably see one just up the road.

“What’s in there?” he asked, peering into their vehicle as the other man had done.

“Our camping gear, that’s all,” she said.

The asshole went to the back and ripped the hatch open, all but yanking it off its hinges. Reaching in, he rifled through their things, and Nickie held her breath. The sword the witch had given her and commanded she get used to wielding was in its scabbard, wrapped in a tarp, and under all their other supplies. Unless he took everything out and found it, all he’d see was the cooking equipment, tent, and boxes of food.

“That’s a lot of food for two women on a camping trip,” he said when he slammed the door shut again.

Jasmine huffed. “Not that it’s any of your business, but we’re on a road trip across America to see the land, not the inside of a mall or shopping center. Of course, we brought food and water.”

He squinted at her. She didn’t know how long they stared at one another, but the man finally shook his head and hefted his gun over his shoulder. “Leave now, and don’t come back.”

Then, as if he and his men hadn’t just manhandled them, the jerk walked away, taking his men with him. Just as they reached their trucks, a blast of static electricity sizzled in the air. Goose bumps chased their way up and down her arms as the fine hairs there rose to meet it.

She didn’t dare look at the sky again as she climbed into the SUV and started the engine. If the men suspected anything at all, she sure as hell wasn’t going to give them a reason to further detain them.

“That was fucking intense,” Jasmine said, sitting as stiff as a board in the passenger seat. “You still doing okay?”

She pulled ahead, keeping her gaze on the gravel road as she passed the trucks before breathing a sigh of relief. “They’re after Zenon.”

“Either that, or that monster he said was coming after him.”

That was a possibility, but her gut told her otherwise. “I hope we gave him enough time to get away,” she said, finally looking in the rearview mirror to the calm sky behind them.