Tribulation Road: A Red Hot Treats Story (4 page)

“I’m shocked you’re calling
me at all. Did you have a sudden change of heart?”

His hopeful tone made her
want to knock his head off his shoulders. She rolled her eyes. “Leave the soap
opera history on the shelf. We have a serious problem.”

“I’m listening.”

She relayed the past
twenty minutes and he listened quietly.

“This sounds like a direct
attack. Someone’s teamed up, because last I checked, vampires didn’t use mojo
hands.”

“I know. But who or why?”

“With an enemy list as
long as ours, anything is a possibility,” he replied.

“I know. Fuck. I can’t
even gauge the situation until I get back home.”
Were they bombarding
everyone, or just her?

“No.”

“What?” she snapped.

“You’re not going in there
yourself. The last thing you need to do right now is go there.”

“You gave up rights to
tell me shit a long time ago.” She huffed.
Unbelievable.

“What I’m telling you is
common sense. I know you’re worried, but you’re not thinking smart.”

How dare he? Has he always
been such a pompous ass?
“I’m the last line of defense right
now. Unlike you, I don’t turn my back on people,” she spat back over the phone.

“Low blow.”

“True statement.”

“Fine, but not helping.
Where are you?”

“Let’s see how rusty you
are. You want to catch up with me before I get there?”

“Don’t make me chase you
when we both know I’ll catch you.”

Anger flared in her belly.
What did he think she’d been doing while he was gone? Forgetting how to do her
job? She couldn’t come up with a plan of attack without some sort of
observation. She flipped her phone over, turned off the data, and smirked.
Good
luck with that, asshole.

~*   *   *   *~

Jaegar
smirked. Right about now, she’d be shutting down all her programs, but he’d
tracked down her whereabouts as soon as he called the first time. He was an
hour ahead of her. Plus, A.J. didn’t stand a chance against his Nova. Her
pension for grocery getters amused him. Her sedan might get better gas mileage
and be the ultimate camouflage, but who wanted to live their life out of one? It
used to be a game between them. An argument with no fire about whose car they
were going to take out because, in the end, they both knew he would win.

The
Noble had money. As long as you remained within the clan, it was never a
concern. Though, they did take a vow of modesty. They weren’t rocking the latest
designer of shopping at Saks. But it was always enough. He had a rude awakening
when he lived on his own. Still, he didn’t regret it. He needed to know what
was out there to figure out where he truly belonged and who he was. When your
whole life is planned for you, eventually it’s easy to feel completely lost. He
hit a wall where he couldn’t get up and fake it anymore. The only real thing
he’d ever had was Brigh and, in the end, it hadn’t been enough to get her to
leave with him. For her, Noble was life.
If I want to be with her, I have to
dedicate myself to Noble.
It was a tradeoff he was willing to pay. He’d
sewn his wild oats, worked a nine-to-five, and ignored his training only to realize
this was indeed what he’d been born to do. He rolled down the windows to get
air and opened up the engine, enjoying the curves in the road while he figured
out the best approach to deal with one pissed off Howell heir.

An
hour later, he was waiting for her thirty miles outside of their town, named
Noble after the cause. She rolled around the bin and he shot out into the
middle of the road. She hit the brakes. Their eyes locked in his rear view
mirror. Her chocolate brown orbs were full of shock, softness, and then a
burning anger that made him cringe. She pulled off to the side of the road and
he followed her, blocking her car in.

Her
car door swung open and she stepped out. Her black t-shirt clung to her body
like a second skin and the skinny jeans highlighted her curves. The black and
white tennis shoes with the tiny heart gutted him. They were the last Christmas
present he’d ever gotten her. “Hi, Brigh.”

“Save
the small talk. Let’s just…figure this out.”

He
sighed. “Just like that?”

“Yes.
What did you think, that I’d run into your arms and beg you to save me? You
know I’m the hero of my own story.” She crossed her arms under her breasts.

“I’m
not expecting to sweep in and take over.”

“And
yet, here you are.”

“To
help.”

“All
of a sudden?”

“Yes,
because you needed me.”

“I
never said that.”

“You
didn’t have to. That’s what it means to care about someone.”

“Oh,
please. Don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter. I had the same training you did.”

“I
get that you’re upset.”

“You
get nothing. What I am is nuclear. You want to help? Fine, let’s figure this
out. So you can back to hiding in whatever hole you crawled out of.”

“I’m
not going back, Brigh. I found what I was looking for.”

She
glanced up at him.

“This
is where I belong. I understand that now. I want to be here. My heart wasn’t in
it before. I needed to walk away and experience life outside of Noble. You must
understand that?”

“You
know what I know? You walked out on your family. You left me at the altar
holding the bag, lying for you like I didn’t know you were never going to make
it down the aisle. How could you possibly explain that away to me? Because you
were scared? Sick of living under a strict set of rules? Guess what? So was I.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going to talk with you about this.” She held her
palm out. “Let’s just figure this shit out.”

“Fine,
get in the car.”

“Excuse
me?”

“I’m
the wild card. They didn’t plan on me being here.”

“Of
course they did. Why else would they track you down?”

“My
car is faster—”

“You
just got back and you’re already trying to take over? I don’t want or need your
input. If you want to come along for the ride, that’s fine. But I’m the one in
control of this mission.”

He
held up his hands. “All I’m doing is watching your back. The same way I’ve
always done.”

“Whatever.
We need to get back. The blood wards will keep us safer than we’d ever dream of
being out here in the open. The manipulation that works here will fall away
once we cross into Noble territory.”

“Fine.
I want us in the same car. You want me to leave the Nova…done.” He ground his
teeth and counted to ten. She was going to give him hell every step of the way.

“No,
my seat is soaked. Just help me transfer my weapons. I’m sure you have plenty
of room to accommodate them, right, civi?”

“No.
Leaving wasn’t about abandoning who I was—”

“Oh!
So, it was just about escaping me?

“I
asked you to come with me.” He pointed his finger and followed her to the
trunk. “You refused.”

“You
knew I would. You take me away from Noble and the foundation crumbles. You know
that.” She shook her head. “Why are we arguing about this? It’s done.”

“Because
you never even gave me a chance to explain my side of the story.”

She
opened the trunk, removed the faux wall, pulled out a few guns, a machete along
with various odds and ends, and shoved them into her black duffle. “The only
thing that mattered was the fact that our vision for the future changed
irreconcilably. You can’t live with one foot in the civi world and one foot in
ours. It’s the fastest way to get killed. I wouldn’t be responsible for that.
You were supposed to be the yin to my yang, my co-ruler. Do you know the
turmoil you thrust Noble into? People were scrambling to look toward someone
else to lead. Morale plummeted. You knew we were already on the edge of
imploding. How could you deliver another blow?” She double checked the safety
on her .45, shoved it into the waistband of her pants, and slammed the trunk
closed.

Jaegar
raced to his car and opened the back of the Nova. He hit a switch and the
bottom opened up to reveal rows of neatly stored weapons.

“Okay,
that’s nice,” she admitted as she placed her bag inside and stalked to the
passenger door.

Shutting
the trunk, he jogged around to the driver’s side. For the next thirty minutes,
he had the floor and she had no means of escape. This was the time to start repairing
the damage and explaining his side of things. He climbed behind the wheel and
started the engine. Then, he veered his car onto the road. “We’ve always felt
differently about our places in Noble. Maybe because you had your father and
mine died when I was ten. My mom was awesome and the men did the best they
could to guide me, especially your father, but that one event planted a seed of
resentment. I started to wonder why this was my job? Why I had to give up so
much for this cause that had taken my childhood, my father, and so many other
people we knew and loved. After a while, things began to look bleak. Every day
was another one where I woke up and survived without living. That last year…”
He swallowed as he paused.

Brigh
refused to look at him as her focus remained straight at the road.

“When
I left was the worst one by far. I mean—child vamps?” He shuddered. “It broke
something in me, stole a piece of my soul. I couldn’t lead like that. I
couldn’t be the man you needed me to be. I was lost in a sea of doubt and
depression. I had to get my head straight. I tried to fight through it, push it
to the back of my mind and keep moving forward the way we always do. But when I
woke up that morning, I knew I couldn’t do that to you…to us. We would’ve
failed.”

“Why
didn’t you tell me any of this?”

He
kept his eyes on the road now, unwilling to meet her gaze. The hurt in her
voice made him feel miniscule. “It took me a long time to work it all out for
myself. Back then, everything was a jumbled mess. I was fighting years of
training and teaching. I thought maybe I was a coward, not cut out to wear the
title of Noble born.” He shook his head. “It was a terrifying, yet necessary
journey.”

“And
now what…you’ve got all the answers?”

“Yes.
I know I belong here. I know it ate me up inside wondering what was going on
back home, if we were winning or losing the battle. Biting my tongue when I saw
something wasn’t quite right, but I needed to maintain my cover. There was
freedom, but it was an illusion. Once you know what’s there behind the scenes,
you can’t ever forget. What we do is a necessary evil. I can see that now and
it’s my choice. But I needed that to be content with my lot in life.”

“Needed
what, Jag? What was there that I couldn’t give you or offer you?” Her voice
shook.

“To
feel as if I had a choice.” He risked a glance at her.

Tears
pooled in her eyes, making them shimmer. Her lip quivered and the fury he’d
seen before lessened.

“We’re
not supposed to be weak. We don’t talk about shit like this. I felt like an
utter failure. I couldn’t bring it to you when I refused to accept it for
myself. It was an internal cesspool I needed to clean out.”

“You
can’t just come back. It doesn’t work that way.”

“I’m
willing to work for it, Bri. For you. I fucked up, I get that. But you wouldn’t
take my calls, open my letters, or read my texts, and I wasn’t ready to come
back. Tell me you’ve still got a place in your heart for me. You were the only
thing in my life I was every sure about.”

“I
can’t.” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “I don’t know, Jag.”

He
closed his eyes for a moment.
It’s better than a no.
“I understand, just
give me the chance to win you back, please?”

“It’s
not that simple anymore.”

“What
do you mean?” They hit the ward line and he held his breath in anticipation of
the inevitable nettles. The sensation never came. “What the fuck?”

“Drive
faster.”

He
pushed the car to one-hundred. The scenery that dotted the landscape was
horrifying. Buildings were burned. Bodies lay on the ground, human and other.
They’d clearly missed a battle. The question was who won. “How is this
possible? The wards—

“Can
only be broken from the inside.”

They
reached the center of the town and discovered the heart of the battle. Jaegar
slammed on his brakes and drifted to the right. He threw the car into park. They
jumped out of the car and raced to the trunk.

“Stay
within in my sights, Bri. Feel about me however you will. I’ll die protecting
you.”

Her
jaw ticked, but she gave a curt nod of acknowledgment.

Armed—they
made their way into the melee.

CHAPTER
THREE