“We’re going to start in the woods east of I55. If Justus infected Corey Morris there, it might be his regular hunting grounds. For however long he’s been a shifter.” His eyes narrowed in thought. “I have no idea how long that is. How can I not even know how long ago my own brother was infected?”

“This isn’t your fault, Titus.” I sat again and opened the laptop. “If we’re going to the woods in the middle of the night, we need a plan. Or at least a starting point.”

“Okay…” He sat next to me again, his warm leg pressed against mine, and watched while I pulled up a map of Jackson, Mississippi, online and clicked on the satellite filter. “Okay, east of I55. North or south of the city?”

“South. Isn’t that what Morris said?”

“I think so.” I zoomed in and panned around in the wooded areas until I found a cabin. The satellite view wouldn’t let me see the small building up close, but it gave me the longitude and latitude.

“How do you know that’s the right cabin?” Titus asked, so close that I could feel his breath on my neck. I had to concentrate to keep my focus on the task at hand.

“I don’t.” I jotted down the coordinates, then panned around on the map a bit, but only found one other cabin nearby. “Okay, these are the only two they could have gotten to without having to cross a river. It’s a good starting point.”

“Great. Let’s go.”

I set Justus’s laptop on the glass coffee table and Titus reached down to pull me up from the couch, his gaze locked on mine. His grip on my hand loosened and lingered until he was just…holding it. Renewing the connection.

That sweet, innocent contact—his hand warm against mine—should have been nothing, but it felt like…something.

Something that I wanted, for the first time since the night I’d been scratched.

I slid my free hand up his arm and around his neck, then I stood on my toes and kissed him. Before I could talk myself out of the impulse.

Titus made a satisfied sound deep in his throat. His hands found my sides, then roamed up my back. I sucked on his lower lip, tasting it, then slid my tongue into his mouth. He groaned.

Then, suddenly Titus was gone. I opened my eyes to find him four feet away, staring at me in a pained mixture of desire and guilt. “I really wasn’t supposed to do that.”

“Why not? Because the council told you not to?”

Titus frowned. “You overheard my phone call?”

I shrugged. “Just the part where you promised Faythe you had no intention of ‘seducing’ me.”

He exhaled slowly. “I didn’t say that because the council doesn’t want us together. I said it because they’re right. You’re young, and new, and vulnerable. And I’m an authority figure. It’s wrong.”

“You’re not my authority figure anymore.” Not officially, anyway.

“Robyn…”

“No, seriously. You’re not the boss of me, and I have no intention of following any order you try to give. Ergo, you are not my authority figure. You’re not taking advantage. You’re not even instigating this.” I stepped forward and kissed him again, and this time when he tried to pull away. I gently bit his lip.

“Robyn, you can’t—”

“Fuck that.” I stepped back, anger firing in my veins. “I was starting to think you were different from the other Alphas, but here you go, telling me who I can and can’t kiss. If you don’t want to kiss me, then make that decision for yourself. As a man turning down a woman, not as an Alpha using a position he doesn’t even hold anymore as an excuse. But don’t you dare say you’re doing this for me.

“I can damn well make my own decisions.”

FOURTEEN

Titus

The highway was dark, the asphalt still slick, though the rain had ended an hour before. My phone buzzed in Robyn’s hand, and the call interrupted the map app, obscuring the latitude and longitude we’d been navigating by.

“It’s Faythe again.” She held the phone up for me to see as I drove slowly along the shoulder of I55. “I assume you don’t want me to answer?”

“You assume correctly.”

“Maybe I should, though. She might quit calling if she knows I’m okay.”

“Then text her from your phone. It was your idea to put off talking to her, and I don’t feel like being bitched at again.”

“I didn’t bitch at you.” Robyn rejected the call on my phone, and the map reappeared, lighting up the interior of my SUV.

“I didn’t mean you.”

But she made no reply as she set my phone in the dashboard mount, so I could see the map, then dug her new phone from the pocket of the black wool coat I’d lent her. She was still mad, and I couldn’t blame her.

It had taken every bit of willpower I’d had to stop kissing her, and though my head had told me I’d done the right thing, my heart was far from convinced. As was my body.

You’re not the Alpha anymore. I had no authority, and I probably never would again. Kissing Robyn would constitute no conflict of interest or abuse of position. And she clearly wanted to be kissed, almost as badly as I wanted to kiss her.

So apologize. I could stop the car, right there on the side of the road, and kiss her. I could tell her how much it meant to me that she wanted to help my brother and the other disenfranchised strays. And me. I could fix things between us, because knowing I hurt her feelings, when all I’d wanted to do was kiss her, made me feel like an ass.

I glanced at Robyn and found her typing a text to Faythe.

Hey, this is Robyn. I’m fine. Titus is fine. We’re safe, and he’ll call you as soon as he can.

“Okay, we need to turn left as soon as you find a way into the woods,” she said with a glance at the map, but there was a distance in her voice. A distinct lack of warmth. “We’re coming up on the coordinates.” Her phone buzzed in her lap, and she glanced at the text. “It’s Faythe. She wants us to call her. I’m going to put it on do not disturb,” she said as her fingers tapped the screen, then she turned to the road without even a glance my way. “I think I see a dirt path up there. Do you see it?”

I squinted into the darkness. “Yeah.” I glanced at the rearview mirror, then turned across both lanes of the highway onto the small road cut into the woods. The headlights shined on several sets of tire tracks in the dirt.