“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Getting dressed.” He dropped down and began pulling on his hiking boots.
I crouched beside him. “I thought you were going to keep watch.”
“Felt a need to run instead.”
I knew without asking that he’d shifted in order to do it.
“I thought about not coming back,” he said as he jerked on his shoelace and tightly tied it. “But I’ve never been one for avoiding a situation. If you loved him, why didn’t you just say so?”
Him. He was doing the same thing as Connor: not using his name, as though that somehow lessened whatever he was feeling.
“I don’t blame you for being mad because I went to him in the cavern. I shouldn’t have. Or maybe I should have gone to you as well, given you equal time. I’m sorry I didn’t come to you sooner. I’m sorry about a lot of things, but I’m not sorry that you and I have had this time together. You want to hear something crazy? It was Connor’s idea.”
“Like hell.”
“No, really. Right before we found Dallas, we were arguing about you. He said I needed to spend time with you. Now he says he didn’t mean it—but we never finished the argument, so I didn’t know that. And now I’m just more confused. It’s not supposed to be like this—or at least I didn’t think it was. I thought it was supposed to be destiny. I thought we were supposed to have this zing! and just immediately know who our mates were.”
He finally stopped getting dressed. He stared off in the distance, dangling his wrists over his bent knees. “You’re going to have choose, Lindsey. And soon.”
“I know.” I watched the sky turn the brilliant, deep blue of dawn. “Maybe Brittany’s right, and we should just go through it by ourselves, then fall in love on our own timetable and not on the moon’s.”
He wrapped several strands of my hair around his fingers and gave a light tug. I shifted my gaze over to his. The intensity of emotion in his eyes stole my breath.
“No matter what you decide,” he said quietly, “it won’t change what I feel for you. I wish it hadn’t hit me like a thunderbolt this summer. I wish it had happened sooner. I wish I’d had more time to…I don’t know…date you. Let you get to know me better. I know Connor has the advantage because he’s got years of knowing you on his side.” He leaned in and very tenderly pressed his lips to my bruised eye. “I’m sorry for that. I never meant for you to get hurt.”
I wanted to kiss him in return. Instead I simply squeezed his hand. “The others are probably up now, wondering where we are.”
“Yeah, we should probably go.” He came to his feet and pulled me to mine.
I started walking back the way I’d come. “How close—”
Rafe drew me back and put his finger to my lips to silence me. “Do you hear that? Smell that?” he whispered after a second.
“No, what?”
“A lot of feet. People. And the smell of dogs. Wait here.”
I hadn’t followed a single order yet on this trip, and I wasn’t about to start now. Trailing behind him, I followed him to the edge of the curve in the rock wall. He peered around it.
I tried to look, too.
He shoved me back against the wall, and I could see in his eyes that something bad was waiting around the bend. “It’s Mason. He has a couple of guys with him. They have to be the mercenaries Dallas mentioned. And they’ve got dogs—Rottweilers. Those things could easily tear out a person’s throat.”
“What? No! We have to warn the others.”
He started tearing off his clothes. “It’s too late, Lindsey. They’re at the cave. I’m going to shift so I can go higher, look down, and assess the situation. You need to get far away, before the dogs pick up on your scent.”
“Absolutely not! I have to do something.”
He grabbed my arms and shook me. “If the others are captured, we’re going to have to rescue them. Please, just start running. I’ll catch up to you. I promise.”
I wrenched myself free of his hold and peered around the corner.
“Lindsey—”
“Shh!”
I could see the two massive dogs growling and barking, straining their leashes. I recognized one of the handlers as the bald guy I’d seen at the Sly Fox that night when we first met Dallas. He looked even meaner than I remembered.
My heart beat erratically as I saw Kayla, Lucas, and Connor—with their hands tied behind their backs—being dragged out of the cavern by guys who looked like they ate nails for breakfast and carried around fifty-pound weights for fun. With his arms crossed over his chest, Mason greeted them. “Well, we meet again.”
His brown hair fell over his brow. I remembered that he had pretty green eyes—eyes that we couldn’t trust. How could he want to hurt us?
Kayla squared her shoulders. “Mason, what are you doing here?”
“Looking for you, of course,” Mason said. “We have some unfinished business.”
Oh, God. I slipped back around the rocky outcrop-ping so I could no longer see them. Squeezing my eyes shut, I pressed my back against the wall of the mountain and tried to block out the images of what I’d seen. I was terrified for them. What was Mason going to do to them? I tried to grab onto some positive thought. I didn’t think Mason realized that Kayla was one of us. That could save her. But Lucas—Mason had suspicions about him. What did he think about Connor?
I pounded my fist against the hard surface. How had this happened? Had Dallas been leading us into a trap all along? I felt nauseous and thought I was going to be sick.
“Lindsey, we have to go. The dogs are distracted now, but pretty soon they’ll catch our scent.”
Rafe was right. Although it felt cowardly to leave, I knew we had to run now so we would be free to help them escape. I didn’t wait for Rafe to finish undressing and shift. I just turned on my heel and began racing away as fast as I could. The whole time, though, doubts spurred me on.
How had they found us? Where had Rafe truly gone? Did he want to be rid of Connor so badly that he’d told Mason where to find him?
Kayla had trusted Mason. She’d liked him. And he’d used her.
Had I misjudged Rafe? Was he like his father? Would he hurt those he loved? Did he love me?