“Sorry,” he mumbled, feeling like an ass.

Ephraim chuckled. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I don’t want to break up this little weird love fest or anything but I have to use the bathroom,” his little mate piped in suddenly, sounding extremely nervous, but clearly trying to hide it and doing a piss poor job of it.

He shot his father a quick glance. Ephraim simply shrugged. Yeah, really f**king helpful, he thought as he looked back down at his little mate who was squirming. They really didn’t have time for this shit, but if she had to go it was better that she went now instead of pissing her pants when she got her first good look at what waited for them.

“Fine, go over to that copse of trees. We’ll wait right here for you,” he said, releasing her arm as he gestured to an area less than ten feet away that was still visible thanks to the angle of the setting sun.

“Um, that’s not really going to work for me,” she said, taking a huge step away from them as she pushed back a loose strand of the golden blonde hair that he was starting to like. For years he’d pictured a mate with dark, almost black hair that matched his own, but this was much better. He liked how her blonde hair seemed to make her green eyes that matched his own sparkle.

“How about over there so I can have some privacy?” she suggested, gesturing to a thick copse of trees a good thirty feet away.

“Why so far away?” Ephraim drawled, leaning lazily against a tree.

“So you can’t hear me?” she said, sounding more like a question.

He shared an amused look with his father. “Sure. Go over there and we’ll wait right here,” he said, holding back a chuckle. They’d both be able to hear her, but he didn’t think now was the time to explain about Sentinel hearing and his father’s almost freak-like hearing. He’d rather get this over with so they could get this shit done and move on to the next step.

Her opening her adorable little mouth and spilling all the shit they needed to know to stop this war.

They watched as she walked towards her designated “bathroom” and disappeared behind the thick brush.

Seconds later they were both sighing heavily as they shared a look. Without a word they headed after her and Chris couldn’t help but wonder if his mate was always going to be this much of a pain in the ass.

Chapter 11

Don’t look back, don’t look back, she thought as she ran through the quickly darkening woods. A few minutes ago she was able to make out plants and trees, but now that the sun looked like it was finally setting she was having a hell of a time avoiding running into them.

She couldn’t help but wish that they’d lived in the city.

At least if they were in the city and she was making a mad dash to safety she could at least count on some dim street lights or better yet people around to scream for help. Not that that always worked, but still it would be a bit of a comfort right about now to have someone around to ignore her.

If, no scratch that, when she got out of this mess she was destroying her program and never making another illegal program again no matter how much fun they were to create. She was going to buckle down and focus on the less fun programs that brought her the attention of stuffy CEO’s and not cult members. She was also buying herself chocolate in every form when she got out of here, cake, brownies, candy, ice cream, pudding and whatever else she could find and putting herself into a chocolate coma so that she could forget about this whole stupid experience.

“Damn it!” she snapped when she tripped over a large root and went flying through the air, landing awkwardly on her hands. She bit her lip, holding back the scream of pain that threatened to escape as pain shot up her broken fingers. They hurt like hell, but right now was not the time to cry over them. There would be plenty of time for that later, she hoped.

As quietly and as quickly as she could, she got to her feet, careful not to make any more noise, but knew that was pretty much impossible since she was tearing through foliage, snapping anything and everything that got in her way. They probably already knew her general location thanks to her fall, but thanks to the now quickly disappearing sun they’d have a hell of a time pinpointing her exact location, which was all she had going for her right now.

Maybe if she could find some thick brush to hide under until morning she couldAll thoughts of hiding flew out of her head as she slammed face first into a large solid wall with two small bright glowing red lights and went stumbling back. She barely had time to prepare herself for the impact when she found herself once again thrown over a large muscular shoulder.

“Let’s go, Munchkin,” Chris said, sounding relaxed and calm while she was desperately trying to catch her breath so she could tell the bastard to stop calling her that.

“They’re just up ahead,” Ephraim said with that same edge in his tone that he’d had since he joined them at the car, making her wonder what the hell that Madison woman did to him and how it was going to affect what they decided to do with her. While she gripped the jerk’s pants to stop herself from bouncing around on his shoulder another fear shot through her. Who were they meeting in the middle of the night in the woods and why were they insisting on bringing her along instead of just getting rid of her and dumping the body like she’d expected them to do an hour ago.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Chris?” Ephraim asked as they continued.

“Yeah, it’s the only way,” Chris said, sounding resigned.

“Don’t I get a say in this?” she asked, giving up, for now, on trying to escape and hoping that maybe she could talk some sense into them since it was painfully obvious, at least to her, that she was not going to be able to escape these two.

“Nope,” Chris said, making the word pop as he petted her ass, again.

“Look,” she said, forcing herself to ignore the ass petting, “I promise I will not say anything if you just put me down now and let me go. I swear I’ll just walk away and forget any of this ever happened and I won’t say anything to the police about what your cult did to me. I promise I’ll-“

Chris stopped his fast pace through the woods so suddenly that she lost her grip on the waist of his pants and slammed face first into the small of his back.

“Cult?” he demanded, sounding disgusted. “What the hell are you talking about, Munchkin?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Ephraim said, sounding as though he was walking towards them, but with her face still plastered against Chris’ back it was kind of hard to tell.

“Well?” Chris demanded, hefting her off his shoulder and dropping her to her feet before she realized what he was doing, making her stumble before she caught herself. She was really getting sick of being manhandled, but now was not the time to complain.

Now was the time to talk her way to freedom.

“Would you prefer religious group?” she asked, not really caring what they called themselves as long as they let her go.

“Religious group?” Ephraim repeated in disgust as he joined Chris to glare down at her. “Exactly what do you think is going on here?” he demanded in a hard tone of authority that clearly stated he expected to be answered and if she wasn’t scared out of her mind she’d probably be able to come up with a smart ass remark that would irritate the hell out of him the way she had with that FBI agent the other night.