Chapter 27
“HEY!”
Modess’ voice behind her had Hillary startling hard. Turning, she saw him coming fast, and there was no way in hell she was facing him right now. She’d just thrown herself at him only to have him decline. It was humiliating. A fresh wave of tears hit her and she took off running. She refused to let Modess see her like this. She was blubbering like an idiot and sure most of it was because of how he’d just treated her, but it wouldn’t have bothered her so much if she wasn’t so emotionally raw. She hadn’t been lying when she’d told him that she’d been in that damn pantry sick with worry. She’d thought the worst and then cried so damn hard once she realized there was no escaping, no going to Modess’ aid. Hell, she’d cried herself to sleep and now she had an emotional headache pounding just behind her eyes. She desperately needed a minute—hell, a night—before she faced him again. She needed to steel herself, collect herself at the very least because right now, she was too damn fragile.
Taking the front stairs two at a time, she knew it wasn’t very lady-like in her stupid satiny night gown, but getting away was more important.
Her cabin was just as she left it, but she didn’t stop to study it. Slamming the door behind her, she locked it and then dead bolted it before turning and racing to her old room.
As soon as she entered the room, she slammed to a halt. A giant bed set nestled in the corner of the room and her mouth fell open as a thousand questions blasted through her mind. How? When? Why didn’t he bring me back?
“HILLARY!”
His angry bellow had her jerking from her immobile state. Turning, she slammed her bedroom door closed and locked it too, though she knew for certain that if Modess breached the front, the flimsy lock on her bedroom door would be useless.
Outside, she heard him yell, “HILLARY, IN FIVE SECONDS, I’M KICKING THIS DOOR IN! YOU BETTER BE FAR AWAY FROM IT!”
Scanning her room for a weapon she found none, not that a weapon would do any good. Crossing to the window, she jerked it open and stuck her head out, looking down. It wasn’t that far of a drop, maybe seven feet. She could make that.
She had one leg out the window when she heard the front door crash open. When she turned to look at her bedroom door, she slipped from the window. A scream ripped from her throat as she fell.
Hitting the ground hard, all the air left her in a whoosh and tears flooded her eyes at the pain in her arm. She’d landed on the same arm she’d used as a battering ram in the pantry and now it hurt so damn bad that she couldn’t tell if she wasn’t able to catch her breath from the fall or the pain. Sucking in a breath to force air into her lungs, she scrambled to her feet and nearly cried out at the pain.
Inside, Modess boomed, “Hillary!”
Without waiting, she turned and half-ran, half-limped back toward his house. She knew he always left his keys in his truck because not only was he Alpha, he was a bad son of a bitch and nobody with brains in their head would dare take his truck. No one, but her.
Halfway to his house, she heard him yelling in her cabin, threatening to kick in her bedroom door and telling her to get away from it. She’d just opened the driver’s side door of his truck when she heard a crash in her old cabin. Whether Modess had just kicked in the door or whether he was trashing the place because he realized she wasn’t there, she didn’t know. She sure as shit wasn’t waiting around to find out.
Climbing in took too much damn effort and by the time she hit the button to lock all the doors and reached out to start the truck, the pain in her bad arm was drowned out by a sudden adrenaline dump.
Hands shaking, she hit the gas. Behind her, dirt and grass flew as the truck spun in a half-circle before she righted it. Briefly, the headlights flashed toward her cabin and she saw Modess barreling toward her. A scream left her throat as she aimed the truck for the road and pushed harder on the pedal.
Once she was on the road, she pushed the truck dangerously faster and only glanced once in the rearview mirror. It was too dark to see anything, but when a lone wolf’s howl rose on the night air, goosebumps erupted across her body.
It was him, she knew it.
More wolf howls filled the night air and now she was terrified. She, an outsider, had just stolen the Alpha’s truck! What in the fuck am I doing? Part of her desperately wanted to pull over and surrender herself, but another part, a more dominant part, told her to keep her ass moving. She did.
Weaving down the mountain road, she was forced to slow at several hairpin turns. Her belly dipped when she realized she was getting to the part of the road that ran along the four-hundred-foot drop straight down the mountain.
Something hit the side of the truck and it rocked, tearing a scream from her. Eyes frantically searching the rearview mirror and then the side mirrors, she saw on the passenger side, Modess’ giant wolf keeping pace with the truck.
Body trembling, Hillary sped up. When she looked in the side mirror, she was surprised to see that Modess had suddenly stopped.
Eyes shooting straight ahead, she half-expected to find the Blood Lust pack blocking the road, but there was nothing.
She took the first corner a little too fast and gasped when she saw that she was at the drop off. Heart lurching, she slowed the truck, knowing better than to just slam on the breaks. With each twist and turn, she went slower and slower. The whole time she was alert, wondering what had made Modess stop chasing her.
Eyeing the drop off just outside her window, she wondered if he’d stalled to keep her from going too fast. She didn’t know and right now she didn’t care. All she wanted was to get as far from Modess Wilder and his Blood Lust pack as quickly as she could.
***
As Modess watched the tail lights of his truck slowly recede into the dark, he prayed Hillary slowed the fuck down before she hit the next turn. Swallowing hard, he shook his head as several of his enforcers, shifted into wolf form, suddenly arrived to flank him. Eyes still locked on the disappearing vehicle, he felt his gut clench at the prospect of Hillary going too fast on that particular stretch of road. It was treacherous for a reason, built to keep intruders out and anyone inside from racing off. If you were home, you didn’t need to rush away, right? Wrong, apparently, because Hillary wasn’t just running from him. She was running from home.
He’d fucked up. He’d fucked up so damn bad that he wanted to punch himself in the fucking nuts. If Hillary got hurt right now running from him, he didn’t know what he’d do. Pacing back and forth, still in wolf form, he snarled. His ears pricked as he waited. He could still hear his truck rumbling through the mountains and with each passing second, relief settled over him.
One of his enforcers stepped forward like he intended on chasing after Hillary. Modess’ jerked his gaze to the wolf and loosed a vicious snarl. The enforcer stepped back.
Seconds later, he heard the motor of his truck kick up and he knew Hillary had cleared the dangerous section of road. Turning, he raced down the road back to Blood Lust at a break neck pace. He could only assume that Hillary was going home to Shadow Wolf, which meant that’s where he needed to go, too.