Grounding Gracus (First Wave Book 6) by Mikayla Lane Page A

on his face as he drove through the scenic mountains. He put his head out of the window and grinned into the wind, enjoying the feel, when he was startled by a honking sound behind him.
    He jerked the steering wheel and barely managed to keep the SUV from hitting the guardrail on the shoulder of the road. The car honked again as it flew past him and Gracus watched in surprise as a long line of cars followed, some honking at him as well.
    “Stay off the damn road grandpa!”
    Gracus looked up in time to see what appeared to be a human teenage boy, hanging out of a passenger window and showing him both middle fingers. He was stunned and immediately wondered where all the cars had come from. When he’d left the cabin and began the drive to Rebecca’s house, the road had been empty.
    His paranoia took hold of his mind and he began to wonder if all those people were going to Rebecca’s house to try to stop him from finding her and he felt a renewed urgency to get to her. He checked the road behind him to make sure it was safe to pull back onto the road and felt the telltale jolt at the same time that he heard the familiar crunch. Gracus leaned over the steering wheel and realized he’d hit the guardrail.
    With a growl of frustration at the flawed human technology that made maneuvering the vehicle so difficult, he pulled gingerly away from the guardrail and back onto the road. He briefly wondered at the grandpa comment and seeing that he was going twenty miles an hour according to the speedometer, which seemed much faster to him, he leaned back in his seat and tried to adapt to driving the human vehicle.
    Two hours later, he pulled into the long driveway of Rebecca’s cabin. Curious about his mate and where she lived, he looked around as he drove slowly, trying to take it all in. And promptly ran over a bed of flowers. He jerked the wheel to the left to avoid crushing more of them and overcorrected, running over the bed of flowers on the other side of the driveway.
    Slamming on the brakes, again, Gracus pounded the palms of his hands on the steering wheel in frustration. What the fuck was wrong with this damn vehicle that he couldn’t steer it? He was a damn pilot and he couldn’t keep this stupid thing from destroying everything in its path!
    He looked out of the windshield and seeing the roof of the cabin just up the driveway, he put the vehicle in park and got out. He’d walk the rest of the way , he thought, rather than take the chance of running her over if she was in front of her home. At the rate he was going, he’d be lucky not to drive the damn thing through her home.
    Gracus went to the back of the SUV and winced at the huge dent in the back of it where he’d hit the tree. The way it was inwardly crumpled had left no doubt of what had caused the damage. Shaking his head, he moved past the previous scratches he’d caused getting out of the garage and inspected the damage to the front where he’d hit the guardrail.
    The bumper was cocked at an odd angle and the signal lights broken. Even though the headlight was still intact, it looked like it was pushed out and to the side. Gracus knew that when lit, it would not be pointing straight ahead, but to the left side of the road.
    Shrugging his shoulders, Gracus headed up the driveway when he realized that he had no idea what to say to Rebecca when he saw her. He stopped and ran his hands through his hair, willing his mind to help him come up with something quick. What if she didn’t want to see him?
    Making up his mind that he would just thank her for finding and saving him and positive that since she was his mate, the rest would come naturally, he headed confidently to the cabin porch and knocked on the door. He couldn’t stop the grin as he waited to see his mate again. And waited.
    Gracus knocked several more times over the next twenty minutes and when he continued to hear no sounds from inside he realized that she must not be home. Although, the cabin was in