Chapter 20
When the cell's shrilling cut through the soft gasps that had been filling the room for quite a while, Lauren shot up disconnecting her lips from the soft milky-white toned flesh. Bo extended a languid arm to pull her lover back down but the blonde brushed it off impatiently and rolled over to the side of the bed to grab the device off the nightstand.
"Listening," she snapped into the piece of plastic and her brow furrowed in concern as she raised her voice in question, "Not her car? What man? Fae? Human?"
Bo inched over across the silk sheets and put her head against Lauren's shoulder, her fingers caressing, her ears straining.
"No idea… just saw her getting into his car… Young, handsome," the voice rasped down the line, distinct enough for both of the women to hear, "They seem pretty cozy, hugging or something ... driving through the suburbs now, heading out of town."
"Keep following them and report back as soon as their destination is clear," the doctor instructed in a clipped tone and disconnected.
"What's wrong, my love?" the succubus asked, a premonition already churning in her stomach.
"You are, you are all wrong," the blonde replied curtly, her lips pursed as she scrutinized the other woman with suspicion in her wide-open brown eyes devoid of all the passion and tenderness of the previous moments, "You let Kenzi escape and covered for her."
Bo's mouth shaped a perfect O of surprise but she recovered enough to go for broke with panache.
"Yes, I did," the succubus straightened proudly, "The poor girl just wants to have some fun, away from this mausoleum of a place."
"You both defied me and my orders," Lauren's tone was crispy dry, "She's my kid sister, but you're my thrall, my slave."
Bo flinched, as if slapped, and crossed her arms across her bare chest in a bout of humiliation-induced self-consciousness.
"That's how you see me," she enunciated through clenched teeth.
"Exactly," Lauren's eyes were practically slits as her own hurt and sense of betrayal took over, "As a gorgeous pleasuring slave with more initiative than is healthy for a slave. How can you be disobeying me at all?"
"I wasn't," Bo mustered up a crooked half-smile, in a supreme effort of sidelining her breaking heart for the sake of dispelling suspicion that threatened to fall heavily over her and over her human accomplice, "You never ordered me not to let Kenzi out. I was acting on my desire to make you happy, my love, my Queen. I thought by making Kenzi happy I'd help fix your relationship with the girl."
"By playing into her whims you've put her into danger," the doctor gritted, "and god knows what kind of fun she's up to, sneaking out of my house lie that."
"As your spy has reported she's meeting up with a handsome dude. Pretty sure, I've got an idea on what she's up to. Poor kid must be sick and tired of the gift-wrapped, mindless siren toy you've foisted on her," Bo tried for a little offensive.
The blonde's shuttered face bore no indication whether she was buying the explanation but Bo could see the blonde's aura brightening with a surge of unidentifiable emotion.
"Why do you have to see betrayal and ill-intent everywhere, Lauren?" the succubus pleaded, her chocolate eyes soulful, "Why can't you trust those closest to you to love you regardless and not to conspire behind your back? "
"Because that's the only way not to get backstabbed by them," the other woman said and her voice caught in her throat, "Because nobody can love what I am."
"Kenzi may have her little escapade but acting at your own discretion is not something I expect from my thralls or lovers, Bo," in a fluid motion Lauren was off the bed and pulling on the clothes that were lying haphazardly on the rug. At the door she turned over to the brunette with a brusque order, "Get dressed. You kind is not known for modesty but let me be old-fashioned here in not wishing my guards to play eye-witnesses to my lover's perfect boobs. From now on you're under house arrest in your room, without the phone or any communication with others. Until or unless I decide otherwise."
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Kenzi's hands were gripping her sharp knees but that was the only sign of panic she allowed herself to manifest.
"Is that my tail or yours?" she asked catching Dyson's look, "Cos I don't usually sport furry appendages but you, on the other hand … " She let the sentence trail off in an attempt at a joke.
"Scout honor, I wasn't being followed when I was going to meet you," Dyson threw off, concentration etching a straight line down his forehead.
"Girl-scout honor, I wasn't either," Kenzi mimed his tone.
"Neither of us was a scout, right?" she clarified after a second and was quite disproportionately happy to see the man crack a half-smile. After a quick thought she started tentatively and slightly apologetically, "Ok, don't be mad, wolfie, remember, I saved your life …"
"I've repaid the debt," Dyson cut in, his eyes studying the offending car in the rear view mirror.
"Ok, then remember I am a girl with 23 years of earthly experience and zero spy skills apart from my innate talent of Kenzi-ness, at least, try to keep being gallant. I might've brought company along… Could be that fashion-forward bitch that sicced her mountain-man on me."
"No way she could've ordered a tail on you, dead bitches don't do that in my experience," the wolf grumbled, making another sharp turn and seeing his suspicions confirmed by the follower's car stubbornly refusing to widen the gap between them, "More likely your vaunted ways of outwitting your sister not quite up to scratch?"
"I am wisely clamping down on the itch to ask how you come to know about the bitch's dead status," the girl piped up in a thin voice, "With an abiding suspicion nearing certainty I don't want to hear the answer."
"Maybe, Bo ratted me out after all," Kenzi mused aloud after another stretch of tense silence, "Though she seemed sincere enough. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, anyway, Lauren's got a houseful, a mansion-ful of snitches."
"So, we'll have to assume the doctor's people are after us," Dyson eased his foot on the accelerator, "What have they seen so far?"
"Not much, me getting in a car with you and driving off like crazy," the girl picked on his thought straightaway, "Which is just rebellious me, getting away with a dude for some Lauren-unmonitored time."
"That's the line you'll be sticking to when you get back," the shifter nodded with resolve, "And the dude is actually not the type to bring back to meet your family – say, a small-time con, trading in stolen vehicles, someone you picked up in a bar while walking on the wild side."
"Hey, I am a decent, well-brought-up girl," Kenzi pouted squinting at the wolf's frowning profile.
"If I ever saw my sister in a dive I met you in, I'd rip her tail off," he chortled.
"Do you have a sister?" Kenzi immediately inquired.
"Same answer as with scouts but hypothetically speaking," he returned unperturbed.
"Good thing I haven't got a tail," the girl mumbled, "Or anything rippable."
"So, back to the dude and your little rebellion," Dyson hid a grin in his short beard, "He made the stalker and thought it was the cops. He shook off the tail and on you go to some happy times at an out-of-town motel, the details of which you will pointedly refuse to share. End of story."
"Really? And we so like talking sizes with my sis," the girl sneered piqued by the fae's easy assumption her rebellion could take that direction, "Try ridding us of the company first, Mr Big Plans."
"It's not for nothing your dude deals in stolen wheels," Dyson's dour face suddenly split into a boyishly mischievous grin that sent blue sparkles to his eyes. "I told you belting up was a must, didn't I?" he added, flooring the accelerator.
As the wolf took the car at a speed-limit defying velocity around the corner, narrowly escaping a hydrant, he slanted a glance at the girl. Kenzi was no longer fidgeting for warmth or tensing with nerves, she returned his glance, as close to enthusiastic as he had ever seen her.
"If that turned out not Lauren after all, would be a pity and a waste of a damned good story, "she giggled, "Kenzi the mob princess making a getaway in a stolen car. Please, can I say it was stolen and that's why you got freaked out?"
"You are enjoying it?" Dyson asked with surprise as he took in her glowing eyes and lips parted in excitement, a girl so different from the one he had seen at the cemetery, "I can almost imagine you happy and tragedy-free."
Kenzi's smile dimmed but not faded as she settled into the back of her seat with a sigh, "I am finally not cold, you are handsome enough and the car's fast enough. What is there not to enjoy?"
"The risk?" he suggested, executing another break-neck maneuver, "A tiny miscalculation and we might end up a heap of burning metal."
"Can't be more painful than living," the girl muttered almost inaudibly and knew the wolf's ears picked her words despite the squeal of tires. "Anyway, what was the emergency that held you up at the expense of my poor freezing bum?" she asked immediately in an attempt at a diversion, "If driving and talking is not too much of a strain on you?"
Dyson's first response was to slot the vehicle into a side alley and breeze through it while their pursuer, caught by surprise by yet another trick, sped by along the main street. Then, the wolf briefly considered brushing off her question or toning the Steve-related incident down to a negligible occurrence but the words slipped out of his mouth as if Kenzi exuded a gassy version of truth serum.
"Was called to deal with a prisoner gone berserk and got kicked in the ribs for my efforts," he imparted and dished out a few more details.
"Are you alright?" she inquired, concern clear in her tone, "You seem to be going through quite a rough patch as far as the integrity of your hide is concerned."
"Right as rain," he waved a dismissal to her worries but was unashamedly pleased to hear them. As the car rolled onto the slightly bumpy, but appealingly empty, dirt road he couldn't resist a childish appeal to her female sympathy, "The stitches held, I heal almost as fast as I drive, though have to say, that ogre has some good aim – knew where to poke me for maximum effect."
"As if he knew that you had been wounded," Kenzi added in a low voice with a sudden shiver.
Dyson tried to recollect the details of their previous runi-in with Steve and whether the ogre could've noticed his weak spot then but couldn't credit the thick-skulled fae with such a degree of observation. The other possible explanation, on the other hand, being a pure coincidence and a stroke of bad luck, he discarded the thought as currently irrelevant.
"What matters is that he's too scrambled to spill on me or I'd have a hard time explaining a couple of things I've done unauthorized to the people in my camp," he confided to the girl and lightened the tone as her lips pressed into a thin concerned line, "And I could really use the exercise. And I feel just fine."
The words were barely pronounced as, with uncanny timing, Dyson felt a sudden jolt of nausea and clenched his teeth against the nearly painful weakness taking hold of his body. His hand went inside his jacket to test his own claim that the stitches hadn't popped and his fingers flitted over the nicely healing wound. Right then another spell of dizziness and malaise hit him so badly that he had to lean forward limply, almost falling over the steering wheel.
"Are you?" Kenzi caught a glimpse of his paled face and grabbed his forearm, "coz to me you look as fine as a freshman morning after an outrageous binge. And you feel feverish."
"I am ok," the wolf growled obstinately, clutching at the steering wheel and trying to focus on the road ahead, while his body shuddered under the onslaught of sudden chills.
"That's just lame, wolfie," the girl fumbled with his shirt to peer at his injured side and sat back, frowning, "The wound is almost gone but, sorry to break it to you, you're obviously sick, Cujo. Caught a bug?"
"I don't catch bugs," Dyson shook his head, to underscore his point as much as to clear his clouding vision.
"Fleas then?" Kenzi failed to sound remotely mocking as she pressed a palm against his positively burning forehead, "And here I am starting to think a cheap motel with rooms let by the hour and no questions asked might not just a figment in our cover story."