Page 19 of A Shot in the Dark (Fated Mates Collection | Triple Threat #1)

“While I was sleeping . My god, woman, are you trying to guarantee I never get a solid six hours again between the frequent fucking and you trotting off to pay the desk? Thank god I marked you…”

“I didn’t have to trot off anywhere.” I roll my eyes. “I used my card.”

“You what?” His eyes narrow and he storms across the space between us to grab my wrist. “You used your card?” He blinks. “What did you do, Sylva?” He begins to pack faster. “We need to go and we need to go now .”

“I was trying to do something nice… It’s been so good being here—safe with you—getting to know you.”

“You don’t fucking know me and I don’t know you,” he growls, panic edging into his voice as he shoves me out the door and into the car, throwing the few possessions we had in the room into the car’s truck.

“Fuck-fuck-FUCK. That’s why they changed the schedule.

They know what I’ve done. They know who you are, that you’re alive, and that I’m concealing and protecting you. I’ve been so fucking stupid…”

“Who is they ?” I ask, my throat burning with tears.

“Everyone, Sylva. Damn near everyone. I’m going to be fucking skinned alive…”

And the bond screaming in my gut tells me that no matter how hyperbolic it sounds, something in his words rings horribly true.

We are vaulting across the miles, Boots working his jaw soundlessly as he adjusts his grip on the steering wheel.

“We have to shift course, drop south for a while… Attempt evasive maneuvers… Any chance I thought I had of making up time? Gone. Like this mission is even salvageable… I’m going to have to grovel before leadership like no man has ever groveled before… ”

For the next two days we remain on the run, heading south and west, not stopping any longer than it takes to grab food and gas for the car.

The fierce need in me tempers, evens, and begins to cool, but the stress in Boots only intensifies.

I find myself asking him to pull over, summoning him to the roadside more and more frequently, so I can feel the way his breathing and racing heartbeat calm after each time he comes.

He looks at me oddly after checking my forehead once, saying, “You don’t need me right now…”

Yet the words “I do,” come easily. The truth is I do need him because he needs me and we are bound at the deepest and most intimate level. When he relaxes, I relax. When he worries, I fill with fear. I reach out to him again and again while we race away from danger, seeking to soothe him, calm him.

Desperate to calm him. To ease the stress hammering away at him.

Boots deserves better than what he’s been dragged into unwittingly by me.

So I touch him, soothe him, tempt him and take him as often as I can.

We sleep in the car, tangled awkwardly together, his “rules of the road” long ago forgotten.

Sex in the car happens regularly, eating and drinking?

It’s the only way we can manage and we both recognize we are barely managing.

It’s as we rocket down another stretch of highway that he regains a sense of hope and says, “Maybe I can still fix this…”

A shadow skims across my peripheral vision and I catch the glint of a car entering the highway behind us. Something about it—the way it moves aggressively through the sparse traffic—ratchets the fear up in me. “Boots,” I urge, my voice ragged, throat burning. “BOOTS.”

“What?!”

“It looks like we have company…”

In the rearview mirror he catches a glimpse of the dark car racing up to catch us. “SHIT. Yeah, that’s one of ours…” He grows silent and I know he’s working things out in his head. “Okay, you’ve got your seatbelt on good and snug, right?”

“Yes.”

“brACE.” The Town Car fishtails, skids, tires screaming, and then it crosses the grassy median of the highway and doubles back, taking the first exit. “I need to get us to cover,” he explains. “Just need a minute…”

The world flies past and then, my vision still struggling to settle after our 180, I hear the growl of brakes, the slinging sound of grit and gravel slapping against the bottom of the car as she shimmies to a stop along a grassy shoulder.

Boots drags me out of the car, shoving me towards a fringe of fresh green forest. “Go! That way, as fast as you can. NOW! Do not come out unless I call!”

I run like I’ve never run before, desperation giving my feet wings, breath burning in my lungs as I sprint as far from the car, from the danger, from Boots, as I can.

And then… The sound of gun fire stops me dead. I spin around to face the way I’ve come, something strange in my gut—a burning unlike anything I’ve ever felt.

“ Boots …” I whisper.

Minutes stretch and I begin to shake. I wrap my arms around myself and stumble back up the path. Stupid, stupid, stupid… But I have to know. Something sad and empty nestles in my stomach, too close to all the good and kind bits of me.

“Sylva!”

Boots’ voice stuns me—instantly calms me.

“Here, I’m here…” He wraps me in his arms, nuzzling the side of my face, and letting go of me only long enough to run his hands along my hair.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. Thank god you’re safe…

” He blows out a deep, disbelieving breath, pulls me close again.

We stand there, together, simply sharing the same air, breathing in each other along with the scents of early spring in the woods.

“I wish I didn’t have to do this, but I need you to look at this man and tell me if you know him. I need to know if he’s your stalker.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, princess, no one should ever need to see what you’re about to see…” His hand closing around my arm, he pulls me forward until we both stand at the foot of a man’s body. “I know this is going to be hard, but I need you to look at him. I need to know if that man is your stalker.”

“The dead man?” I ask, dazed.

“Yeah,” he replies, his brow pinched. “Shit. If I could save you this…” He wraps his arms around me and nuzzles the back of my neck.

“He’s already in a hole…” I can’t do this.

This is not how my life is supposed to be.

This was only supposed to be a roadtrip.

A way of getting me to safety. Maybe a few fucks—why not?

But nothing like this—nothing that ties the two of us together and has me standing at the lip of a shallow grave trying to identify a man who is missing most of his face.

The red flags are back, waving, and filling my field of vision.

Temporary. This was only supposed to be temporary.

That’s what he wanted, that’s what I wanted…

Temporary .

“It’s okay,” Boots soothes. “I’ll make it okay,” he promises.

Something trembles in the bond, singing in a different pitch and leaving me wondering if Boots is lying to me.

“He’s in a grave, precious,” Boots confirms. “Time is of the essence.”

“Where did you get a shovel?”

“I am equipped for a variety of misdeeds, it’s probably best you never know about,” he murmurs into my ear. “The man, Sylva. Is he your stalker? Is this him?”

I am frozen, even in Boots’ warm embrace.

“Is this him?” Boots asks again, more firmly.

“I… I don’t know,” I confess. “It would help if he still had a face…”

“I can’t fix that now. Gun kicked up and…” He sighs, embarrassment warming me through the bond. “Not my best grouping. Stopped the fucker, though. That’s what matters most.”

I peer down at the bloody and mangled mess at my feet, but my eyes pause, fixed, on Boots’ boots, and the blood speckling them. “I…” I can’t help myself, I pull out of his grip to swipe them clean with my hand.

“No, princess,” he whispers, the words pained as he tows me back up. “I don’t ever want you to dirty your hands. That’s my job…” His volume drops, going guttural. “Like it’s my job to protect you…” He pulls me back into a fierce embrace and blows out a breath. “You don’t know if it’s him.”

I shake my head in agreement.

He lets me go and starts filling the hole. Dirt covers the man, shovelful by shovelful until he disappears into the gritty dark. “It’s okay,” Boots assures. “It’s okay.”

He wraps his arm around my waist and guides me back to the car, tossing the shovel in the trunk.

For a moment my gaze strays, pinning itself to the contents of the trunk. Yes, his duffel bag is there, my luggage, and his suits carefully lay in a garment bag, but there is more… A second duffel bag is open and brimming with weapons and tools. “What is all that…?”

“Eyes straight ahead, sweetheart. Best not to dwell on my line of work. It’s definitely an ‘ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies’ scenario,” he mutters as he tucks me into the front passenger seat.

“I’ll be right back—need to move his car out of sight, remove the company tracker—buy us some time. ”

He disappears and I hear the sound of a car starting. Then pulling away.

When he returns, he sits behind the wheel a moment, staring straight ahead. “Are you all right?”

Breath wheezes out of me. “Suuure…”

His phone rings. “Fuck. Gotta take this… Petey.”

“Boots, don’t be a fool. Leadership has sent down orders and they demand that I be clear: Enact the Huntsman Protocol now . No more dick-dipping, no more dallying. No Potters’ necessary. But do it now, Boots, or there will be more than seven days extracted from your hide—there will be hell to pay.”

Boots winces.

“Chatter is suggesting re-education is in your future,” Petey says swiftly. “Fuck the omega, Boots. You’ve been compromised. Leadership will be coming for you .”

“Got it.” Boots throws the phone out onto the road, backs over it, and we’re off.

We drive a while, Boots commenting, “I didn’t recognize the man I buried. Though, if he outranks me I might not have ever met him. And most of them outrank me…”

“Because of your knight-of-the-realm values?”

He snorts. “You were eavesdropping.”

“From the sounds of things, the realm needs a lot more knights like you.”

“The realm needs a lot more than more knights, princess, it needs a top-down makeover.”

“That sounds like something I would’ve said.”

“Would’ve? Past tense?” he asks. “Maybe you’re wearing off on me.

” He shakes his head. “That dirty little mouth of yours is definitely me rubbing off on you…” he muses a moment before his brow lowers and his mood darkens once more.

“Rebellion. That’s what’s needed…” he hisses angrily.

“How does that even fucking start? I’m just a fucking grunt… This is all so far above my paygrade…”

I shrug. “Definitely above mine…” I turn towards the window, glancing out at the grass, the trees, the gently rolling landscape. “Would you have put me in a shallow grave like you did him?”

Boots swallows so hard I feel it quiver through the bond.

“If you had followed through on your Huntsman Protocol?”

“Princess…”

“Would you?”

“Yeah.”

“How many people have you dug graves for?”

“Too many.”

“Ah.” I sigh. He’s right, we come from completely different worlds.

The bond? This thing that’s only supposed to be temporary feels like it’s changing, growing.

Shimmering strings weave together inside of me, warp and weft both going red, and connecting me at another level to Boots.

Like something between us is determined—fated.

My heart stutters, knowing even that is not enough.

This is only meant to be temporary. That’s what fate has in store for us.

I lick my lips and glance back at him. “That wasn’t him. I’m sure now.”

His head dips down and back up in a slow nod. “Okay. And how are you sure now, princess?”

“Hmm… It sounds crazy… You’ll think I’m crazy…”

“Try me.”

I face the window again so I don’t have to see his expression when I say something so stupid. “He didn’t smell like my stalker.”

He doesn’t ask me more questions, doesn’t jab at me with “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” He’s quiet. I turn my head to look at him, ready to hear whatever he has to offer. Boots nods solemnly, his eyes fixed on the road ahead, and says, “Fuck.”

I’m beginning to realize that, to Boots, the word “fuck” has a million different meanings.

It can mean “idiot,” or “jackass,” “we’re screwed,” or “the tire’s gone flat.

” Occasionally it means the food is really good (or bad).

It’s a call of welcome, a note of surprise, a thank you like no other.

It can be spoken as a curse, or in reverence in the sight of such beauty which no other word can truly encapsulate the view.

It’s a verb, noun, adjective, and adverb—its own little beginning and end.

It sometimes accompanies the sexy groan he gives when he comes, or his first view of me in the morning.

It’s a filler word when no other word will do or easily comes to mind.

“Fuck” is one of the most flexible words in the human vocabulary.

It’s like Boots has said: “It’s all about the delivery. ”

Right now I’m unsure of which meaning it carries.

“Why do I get the feeling that I am totally fucked?” he asks.

Ah. Context.

“How are you ‘totally fucked?’ Other than the ‘seven ways to Sunday’ that you seem to enjoy with me?” I add in a mad attempt to lighten the mood.

“Princess, princess, princess,” he muses. “You know he didn’t smell like your stalker. That’s great—actually,” he gives a brief but earnest laugh, “more than I was hoping for. It seems the wild in you is starting to work her way free. Did you notice anything else about the way he smelled?”

Staring at the road ahead, I search my mind, fumble through the memories of my senses. “No… Wait.” My heart is a rabbit racing. “He smelled…” I turn to stare at him, realization like a kick to my gut. “...kind of like you .”

A new red flag waves, big and bright, and dangerous.